Ex Parte Wu et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardJul 29, 2013

11292985 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 29, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte DIJIA WU and FAN ZHANG ____________________ Appeal 2011-000225 Application 11/292,985 Technology Center 2600 ____________________ Before MARC S. HOFF, ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, and JOHNNY A. KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judges. KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-000225 Application 11/292,985 2 STATEMENT OF CASE Introduction Appellants file this appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (“Br.”) filed March 16, 2010, and the Answer (“Ans.”) mailed June 23, 2010 for the respective details. We have considered in this decision only those arguments Appellants actually raised in the Brief. Any other arguments which Appellants could have made but chose not to make in the Brief are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). Exemplary Claim Exemplary claim 1 reads as follows [bracketed matter and some paragraphing added]: 1. An apparatus comprising: [1] a media processing node to receive an input video frame including a Y frame, a Cb frame and a Cr frame, [2] the media processing node to [2a] buffer the Y frame into a first buffer and [2b] to interleave and buffer the Cb frame with the Cr frame into a second buffer, [3] the media processing node to allocate [3a] a memory buffer to store the interleaved Cb and Cr frame, [3b] set a first pointer to the start of the Cb frame, set a second pointer to the start of the Cr frame, [3c] set a first stride corresponding to the Cb frame and set a second stride corresponding to the Cr frame. Appeal 2011-000225 Application 11/292,985 3 Rejection The Examiner rejected claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (a) as being unpatentable over Chow (US 6,326,984 B1, Dec. 4, 2001) and Barilovits (US 2002/0145610 A1, Oct. 10, 2002). Ans. 3. ISSUE AND ANALYSIS1 Appellants contend that Barilovits does not teach “interleaving a Cb and a Cr frame in one buffer.” Br. 9. In addition, while Appellants admit that Barilovits “does teach ‘pointers to eight destination image buffers,’” Appellants contend that Barilovits does not “teach two pointers to the same interleaved buffer, where one points to the Cb frame and the other points to the Cr frame.” Id. (emphasis added). We disagree with Appellants’ arguments. We adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth in the Examiner’s Answer (see Ans. 3-19). We highlight and address specific findings and arguments for emphasis as follows. In response to each of the arguments raised by Appellants, the Examiner presents detailed findings and responses, which are not rebutted by Appellants in a Reply Brief. In rejecting independent claim 1 over the combination of Chow and Barilovits, the Examiner finds (Ans. 3-4) that Chow discloses all the claimed features, except for the pointer limitation of claim 1. The Examiner also 1 According to Appellants, independent claims 6, 11, and 16 recite features similar to claim 1 (Br. 10). Therefore, we treat claim 1 as representative for purposes of this appeal. Separate patentability is not argued for claims 2-5, 7-10, 12-15 and 17-20. Except for our ultimate decision, claims 2-5, 7-10, 12-15 and 17-20 are not discussed further herein. Appeal 2011-000225 Application 11/292,985 4 finds that Chow discloses the interleaved buffer limitation. Ans. 16. The Examiner relies on Barilovits for disclosing or suggesting the pointer limitation. Ans. 4. In particular, the Examiner properly identifies the relevant teachings in Chow and Barilovits and states how each claimed element is met by those teachings (see Ans. 3-19). With regard to the interleaved buffer limitation, Chow discloses a Y plane (frame) being stored in a buffer 50, and the interleaved U and V planes (frames) being stored in a buffer 80 (see Figure 4). The Examiner finds that “[i]t is well known in the field of endeavor that the (Y, Cb, Cr) or (Y', Cb, Cr) is a family of color spaces used in video and digital photography systems. Y' is the luma component and Cb and Cr are the blue and red chroma components” and “[i]t would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to substitute the equivalent above color signal representations to the (Y, U, V) color space.” Ans. 4-5. Appellants do not dispute that the terms (Y, Cb, Cr) and (Y, U, V) are interchangeable. Thus, Figure 4 of Chow explicitly discloses the interleaved buffer limitation. As to Appellants’ contention that Barilovits does not teach interleaving a Cb and a Cr frame in one buffer, we disagree. Barilovits explicitly discloses “[i]mages in the RGB formats, the YCbCr 4:2:2 formats, and the YCbCr 4:1:1 format are placed together in a single memory buffer.” Barilovits, ¶ [0125] (emphasis added). In other words, the interleaved YCbCr frame is stored in one buffer. With regard to the pointer limitation, Barilovits discloses that Appeal 2011-000225 Application 11/292,985 5 [a] buffer address points to the first byte of the atomic data unit containing the leftmost pixel or component of the top line of the image. Images may be cropped from the left and the top by changing the buffer address to point to a new upper left corner. Images may be cropped from the right and the bottom by adjusting the width and the height of the image. Id. ¶ [0126] (emphasis added). Barilovits also discloses “[p]ointers to eight destination image buffers.” ¶ [0246]. In other words, the starting address of a frame is disclosed by Barilovits. The Examiner finds that the address pointers in Barilovits correspond to the pointer limitation of claim 1, and we agree because Barilovits teaches “allocating memory buffers based on the particular target image format by setting pointers and registers to define starting addresses and sizes of the buffers and sizes of the overall image” (Ans. 18). In this case, the teaching value of Chow is in disclosing the interleaved buffer limitation, whereas the pointer limitation is disclosed by Barilovits. Additionally, because the proposed rejection is based on the combination of the references, Appellants’ challenge to the references individually is not persuasive of error in the Examiner’s position. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCPA 1981) (stating that “one cannot show non- obviousness by attacking references individually where . . . the rejections are based on combinations of references.”). Further, Appellants’ argument (Br. 9) that Barilovits does not teach “two pointers to the same interleaved buffer,” is unpersuasive because it is not commensurate with the scope of claim 1. Claim 1 does not recite “the same interleaved buffer.” Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1-20. Appeal 2011-000225 Application 11/292,985 6 CONCLUSIONS The Examiner has not erred in rejecting claims 1-20 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-20 is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED msc