Sony Corporation

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 17, 2022

2022000641 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 17, 2022)

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. 16/130,238 09/13/2018 David BERRY 516712US 1380 22850 7590 03/17/2022 OBLON, MCCLELLAND, MAIER & NEUSTADT, L.L.P. 1940 DUKE STREET ALEXANDRIA, VA 22314 EXAMINER LI, TRACY Y ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2487 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/17/2022 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): OBLONPAT@OBLON.COM iahmadi@oblon.com patentdocket@oblon.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte DAVID BERRY, JAMES ALEXANDER GAMEI, NICHOLAS IAN SAUNDERS, and KARL JAMES SHARMAN ____________________ Appeal 2022-000641 Application 16/130,238 Technology Center 2400 ____________________ Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, CAROLYN D. THOMAS, and JASON V. MORGAN, Administrative Patent Judges. MacDONALD, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from a Final Rejection of claims 2-24. Appeal Br. 2. Claim 1 has been cancelled. Appeal Br. 15. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 Appellant identifies “SONY Corporation is the real party in interest.” Appeal Br. 1. Appeal 2022-000641 Application 16/130,238 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Claim 2 is illustrative of the claimed subject matter (emphasis, formatting, and bracketed material added): 2. A method of encoding image data, comprising: [A.] frequency-transforming input image data to generate an array of frequency-transformed image coefficients by a matrix- multiplication process based on a maximum dynamic range of frequency-transformed data; [B.] selecting, based on an encoding profile for the input image data, the maximum dynamic range of the transformed data by an offset number added, by circuitry, to the bit depth of the image data, the bit depth corresponding to the encoding profile; and [C.] encoding the image data based on the maximum dynamic range, [D.] wherein the offset number has a number of bits which is less than the bit depth of the image data before the offset number is added to the bit depth of the image data. REFERENCES2 The Examiner relies on the following references: Name Reference Date Yoon-mi Hong et al. (“Hong”) US 2011/0243219 A1 Oct. 6, 2011 Elena Alshina et al. (“Elena”) US 2011/0243232 A1 Oct. 6, 2011 Jens-Uwe Garbas et al. (“Garbas”) US 2014/0241418 A1 Aug. 28, 2014 Elena Alshina et al. (“Alshina”) US 2014/0301450 A1 Oct. 9, 2014 2 We preserve the reference naming convention as used by the Examiner in the rejections although we note that the naming convention of “Alshina ’232” for Elena and “Alshina ’450” is more commonly used for reference identification and less prone to confusion. Appeal 2022-000641 Application 16/130,238 3 REJECTIONS A. Section 103 A.1. The Examiner rejects claims 2-6, 8-17, and 19-24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Alshina, Elena, Hong, Garbas. Final Act. 7-9. We select claim 2 as the representative claim for this rejection. The contentions discussed herein as to claim 2 are dispositive as to this rejection. Therefore, except for our ultimate decision, we do not address the merits of the § 103 rejection of claims 3-6, 8-17, and 19-24 further herein. A.2. The Examiner rejects claims 7 and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Alshina, Elena, Hong, and Garbas. Final Act. 9-10. The contentions discussed herein as to claim 2 are determinative as to this rejection. Therefore, except for our ultimate decision, we do not address the merits of the § 103 rejection of claims 7 and 18 further herein. B. Double Patenting The Examiner rejects claims 2, 11, 13, and 21 on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting over claims 1, 8, and 12 of U.S. Patent 10,097,834, (which is the parent of the instant application) in combination with Alshina, Elena, and Hong. Final Act. 4. Appeal 2022-000641 Application 16/130,238 4 The contentions discussed herein as to the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of claim 2 are determinative as to this rejection. Therefore, except for our ultimate decision, we do not address the merits of the Examiner’s rejection on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting further herein. OPINION We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s arguments that the Examiner has erred. Appellant’s contentions we discuss are determinative as to the rejections on appeal. Therefore, Appellant’s other contentions are not discussed in detail herein. A. The Examiner finds as to above part D. of claim 2: Hong teaches the offset number has a number of bits which is less than the bit depth of the image data before the offset number is added to the bit depth of the image data (i.e.[0013], wherein the summing an increased bit depth of the input image and a maximum integral number smaller than bit depth of the input image is the offset added to bit depth of the image data, and the maximum integral number is the offset. Then the dynamical range of transformer is derived from the summing result). Final Act. 8. B. Appellant contends that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 because: [T]he Action has relied on paragraph 0013 of Hong that states: [0013] The fourth scaling method may sum a value obtained by increasing the bit depth of the input image by the bit increment and a maximum integral number smaller than or equal to a value obtained by decreasing the bit depth of the input Appeal 2022-000641 Application 16/130,238 5 image by a difference between the bit depth of the input image and the bit increment. A minimum value of the dynamic range of the internal image may be 0, and a maximum value thereof may be obtained by subtracting 1 from a value obtained by raising 2 to the power of a sum of a bit increment according to the fourth scaling method and the bit depth of the input image. However, Applicant notes that this paragraph in no way describes the claimed feature. Specifically, this description is not related to adding an offset number to the bit depth of the image data. . . . Applicant submits . . . that the Action has entirely mischaracte1ized the teachings of paragraph 0013 of Hong. This is evidenced by reviewing paragraph 0057 of Hong which more specifically explains that “That is, the bit depth increment unit 110 according to the fourth scaling method may perform an operation that sums a value obtained by left-shifting . . . bit streams of pixel values of the input image and a maximum integral number that is smaller than or is equal to a value obtained by right-shifting . . . bit streams of pixel values of the input image” (emphasis added). Thus, there is no description of adding an offset number to the bit depth of the image data in Hong. One skilled in the art reviewing the teachings of Hong would immediately recognize that left-shifting described in Hong is not equivalent to adding an offset number to the bit depth of the image data. Appeal Br. 11-12. C. The Examiner responds: Hong demonstrates the scaling method to increase an N bits depth image by adding M bits to generate an N+M bits depth image. Also as stated in [13], Hong teaches the maximum integral number is smaller than the bit depth of the input image Appeal 2022-000641 Application 16/130,238 6 because it is obtained by decreasing the bit depth of the input image, and this bit depth of the input image is the bit depth before adding the maximum integral number to the input image. Further, as stated in [57], Hong repeatedly teaches the same concept in [13]. Ans. 8-9. D. In reply, the Appellant further argues: The Examiner’s answer has not attempted to rebut the arguments provided in the appeal brief but has instead merely repeated the same rejection raised in the final office action verbatim. Nevertheless, Applicant wishes to emphasize that with regard to the § 103 rejection, the Examiner’s answer has again asserted that the feature of “the offset number has a number of bits which is less than the bit depth of the image data before the offset number is added to the bit depth of the image data,” is disclosed by Hong (in combination with Alshina ’450 and Alshina ’232). However, this reference entirely fails to teach this claimed feature. Reply Br. 2. E. As articulated by the Federal Circuit, the Examiner’s burden of proving non-patentability is by a preponderance of the evidence. See In re Caveney, 761 F.2d 671, 674 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (“preponderance of the evidence is the standard that must be met by the PTO in making rejections”). “A rejection based on section 103 clearly must rest on a factual basis[.]” In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017 (CCPA 1967). “The Patent Office has the initial duty of supplying the factual basis for its rejection. It may not . . . resort to speculation, unfounded assumptions or hindsight reconstruction to supply deficiencies in its factual basis.” Id. We conclude the Examiner’s Appeal 2022-000641 Application 16/130,238 7 analysis fails to meet this standard because the rejections do not adequately explain the Examiner’s findings of fact. F. We agree with Appellant that Hong has not reasonably been shown to teach or suggest “adding an offset number to the bit depth of the image data.” (Appeal Br. 11), as required by part D. of claim 2. We conclude, consistent with Appellant’s arguments that there is insufficient articulated reasoning to support the Examiner’s determination that the references disclose, suggest, or otherwise render obvious “the offset number has a number of bits which is less than the bit depth of the image data before the offset number is added to the bit depth of the image data,” as required by part D. of claim 2. Therefore, we conclude that there is insufficient articulated reasoning to support the Examiner’s final conclusion that claim 2 would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of Appellant’s invention. CONCLUSION The Appellant has demonstrated the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 2-24 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103. The Examiner’s rejections of claims 2-24 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103 are reversed. The Appellant has demonstrated the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 2, 11, 13, and 21 on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting. The Examiner’s rejection of claims 2, 11, 13, and 21 on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting is reversed. Appeal 2022-000641 Application 16/130,238 8 DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 2-6, 8-17, 19-24 103 Alshina, Elena, Hong 2-6, 8- 17, 19-24 7, 18 103 Alshina, Elena, Hong, Garbas 7, 18 2, 11, 13, 21 Nonstatutory Double Patenting US 10,097,834 B2 Alshina, Elena, Hong 2, 11, 13, 21 Overall Outcome 2-24 REVERSED