Ex Parte Shi et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 30, 2017

11433135 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 30, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O.Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 11/433,135 05/11/2006 Fang Shi QLXX.P0249US/11301127 1194 15757 7590 04/03/2017 Qualcomm /Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP 2200 Ross Avenue Suite 3600 Dallas, TX 75201-7932 EXAMINER LEE, Y YOUNG ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2485 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/03/2017 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): ocpat_uspto@qualcomm.com doipdocket@nortonrosefulbright.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte FANG SHI, SEYFULLAH HALIT OGUZ, SUMEET SINGH SETHI, and VIJAYALAKSHMI R. RAVEENDRAN, Appeal 2016-008280 Application 11/433,135 Technology Center 2400 Before JASON V. MORGAN, NABEEL U. KHAN, and KAMRAN JIVANI, Administrative Patent Judges. JIVANI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants1 seek our review, under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), of the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 2, 4, 14, 15, 17, 27, 28, 30, 40, 41, 43, 53—56, 65—73, 75, and 76. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 Appellants identify Qualcomm, Inc. as the real party in interest. App. Br. 2. Appeal 2016-008280 Application 11/433,135 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The present application relates to encoding and decoding multimedia data such as video data or audio data with error management. Spec. 12. Claim 1 is reproduced, below, with emphasis on a disputed limitation. 1. A method of processing multimedia data, the method comprising: receiving an access unit of the multimedia data, the access unit comprising a first section received in error; determining whether the received access unit is uniformly coded or non-uniformly coded, wherein the access unit is uniformly coded when all slices within the access unit are of a same type, and the access unit is non-uniformly coded when slices within the access unit are of different types; obtaining error distribution information that identifies a slice type of a current slice corresponding to the first section, the slice type being of the same type as all slices within the access unit when the access unit is uniformly coded, the slice type is decided based on the available spatially and/or temporally neighboring slice types when the access unit is non-uniformly coded; selecting, based on the error distribution information, an error recovery scheme from the group consisting of frame rate up conversion and temporal error concealment for B-frame; and processing the received access unit using the selected error recovery scheme. The Rejections Claims 1, 2, 4, 14, 15, 17, 27, 28, 30, 40, 41, 43, 53-56, 65-73, 75, and 76 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Banerji (US 2005/0008240 Al; Jan. 13, 2005) and Sun (US 6,192,080 Bl; Feb. 20, 2001). 2 Appeal 2016-008280 Application 11/433,135 ANALYSIS Independent claim 1 recites a “selecting” feature (see supra, reproduced claim 1) required by all claims. We determine, based on the record before us, the Examiner fails to establish a prima facie case of obviousness because the Examiner’s findings lack a sufficient rationale for combining the cited teaching of Banerji and Sun. At the outset, we note the Examiner’s rejection lacks supporting citations and explanation. Nevertheless, we were able to ascertain the following principal findings. First, the Examiner reads claim 1 ’s “obtaining error distribution information that identifies a slice type of a current slice” on Banerji’s determination of whether a deficient frame slice is of “I” or “P” type. See Final Act. 3 (“identifies a slice type (e.g. I or P) of a current slice”); compare Banerji 19 (“Intra-frame or I-coding” and “Inter-frame or P-coding”). Second, the Examiner reads claim 1 ’s “selecting, based on the error distribution information, an error recovery scheme” on Banerji’s selecting of an error concealment scheme. See Final Act. 3 (“selecting, based on the error distribution information, an error recovery scheme (e.g. temporal error concealment)”); compare Banerji 1235 (“An important aspect of error concealment is that it is important to know whether the lost slice/picture was intra-coded or inter-coded.”). Third, the Examiner reads claim 1 ’s “error recovery scheme from the group consisting of frame rate up conversion and temporal error concealment for B-frame” on the noted combination. Namely, the Examiner proposes to augment Banerji’s selecting from among spatial and temporal concealments with the further option of selecting Sun’s frame-rate 3 Appeal 2016-008280 Application 11/433,135 up-conversion. See Final Act. 3 (“Banerji et al differs from the present invention in that it fails to particularly disclose frame-rate up-conversion[.] Sun et al however . . . teaches the concept.. . used during error concealment.”); compare Banerji 1235 (“Spatial concealment is better suited for intra-coded coding units and temporal concealment works better for inter coded units.”); Sun col. 13,11. 9-24 (“[T]he error concealment problem is similar to the frame-rate up-conversion problem[.]”). Although we are able to ascertain the above findings within the record before us, we are unable to identify in the record sufficient findings describing how and why the proposed combination would base selecting of Sun’s frame-rate up-conversion on Banerji’s determination of whether a deficient slice is I-type or P-type. As argued by Appellants, these required findings are absent from the record. App. Br. 9. At best, the Examiner elaborates that Sun’s frame-rate up-conversion is also an error concealment scheme for repairing damaged frame regions (e.g., slices). See Ans. 4 (“Sun explicitly teaches that the frame-rate up-conversion error concealment scheme (13:19) is based on damaged image regions (13:13) of the frame rather than correctly decoded regions.”). That Sun describes an error concealment scheme, however, does not explain adequately how and why one of ordinary skill in the art would modify the frame-rate up-conversion in Sun to employ Banerji’s determination of whether a deficient slice is of a specific type, namely either 1 or P. Because the record is thus insufficient for recognizing the rejection’s underpinning combination and rationale, we cannot sustain the rejection. See In re Jung, 637 F.3d 1356, 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (notice requirement for rejections); see also In re Biedermann, 733 4 Appeal 2016-008280 Application 11/433,135 F.3d 329, 338 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (stating the Board may explain, but not add, needed findings (citing Jung, 637 F.3d at 1365)). DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 2, 4, 14, 15, 17, 27, 28, 30, 40, 41, 43, 53—56, 65—73, 75, and 76 is reversed. REVERSED 5