Ex Parte Mpr et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 25, 2013

10600162 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 25, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte SRINIVASA MPR, SANDEEP BHATIA, and
SRILAKSHMI D.
____________________

Appeal 2011-000274
Application 10/600,162
Technology Center 2400
____________________

Before JASON V. MORGAN, BRUCE R. WINSOR, and
IRVIN E. BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judges.

BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
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STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 17-22. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). Claims 1-16 are
cancelled.
We affirm-in-part and enter new ground of rejection in accordance
with 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b)
Illustrative Claim
The invention is directed to decoding and simultaneously displaying
multiple video streams. Spec., Abstract. Claim 17, reproduced below, is
illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
17. A system for providing a plurality of videos for
simultaneous display, said system comprising:
a video decoder for decompressing a plurality of
compressed video streams, thereby resulting in a plurality of
decompressed video streams, wherein each of said
decompressed video streams comprises a plurality of pictures;
and
a register for indicating a past prediction picture, and a
future prediction picture for each of the plurality of compressed
video streams.
Rejection
Claims 17-22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C §102(e) as being
anticipated by US 2006/0026637 A1 (filed Feb. 2, 2006) “Gatto.” Ans. 4.

ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’
arguments in both the Appeal Brief and Reply Brief. Rather than
exhaustively repeat the arguments here, we refer to the Briefs and the
Answer for the respective positions of Appellants and the Examiner.
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35 U.S.C. § 102 Rejection of Claims 17-22
Claim 17
Gatto describes an interactive TV device configured to receive and
process multiple broadband input streams simultaneously. Gatto, Abstract.
Appellants contend that the Examiner has erred in finding that Gatto
describes “a video decoder for decompressing a plurality of compressed
video streams.” App. Br. 5-8; Reply Br. 6-8. Appellants assert that Gatto’s
input streams are each decoded by a different video decoder, rather than a
single video decoder as claimed (App. Br. 6), and that the input streams are
not compressed (id. at 7-8). Appellants reject as erroneous (Reply Br. 6-7)
the Examiner’s finding that Gatto’s decoder “can be used to decode more
than one MPEG [moving pictures expert group] encoded video stream[]”
(Ans. 8, referring to Gatto, Fig. 1, which includes MPEGx decoder 154).
We are not persuaded that the Examiner has erred. We note that the
limitation does not recite simultaneous decompression and further note that
Gatto describes video recording for later simultaneous playback, which
includes decompressing a plurality of video streams. See, generally, Gatto,
Abstract (“[t]he present interactive TV device is also configured to enable a
user to watch and record a plurality of video streams simultaneously”). We
also find unpersuasive Appellants’ assertion that Gatto’s teachings regarding
analog signals negate the Examiner’s rejection because “analog video
signals are not compressed video signals” (App. Br. 8, referring to Gatto,
Fig. 1 and ¶ 7, ll. 10-11). Appellants have not presented persuasive evidence
that Gatto’s MPEG decoder is limited to processing uncompressed analog
video signals nor that the broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with
the specification of “a video decoder for decompressing a plurality of
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compressed video streams” is not met by Gatto’s MPEGx decoder.
Moreover, Gatto expressly discloses that “the input may be configured to
accept an input stream selected from an analog video source, a digital video
source, an IP connection,” etc. Gatto ¶ 8.
We are also unpersuaded by Appellants’ contention that the Examiner
has erred in finding that Gatto describes “a register for indicating a past
prediction picture, and a future prediction picture for each of the plurality of
compressed video streams.” App. Br. 9-11; Reply Br. 8. Appellants’
Background describes that in MPEG-2, “some frames are predicted from a
past prediction frame and a future prediction frame.” Spec., ¶ 7. This is
consistent with the Examiner’s finding that MPEG “comprises I, P and B
frames” (“intra coded,” “predictive coded,” and “bi-directionally predictive
coded” frames), which are “stored reference frames” for predicting pictures
in MPEG’s GOP (“Group of Pictures”) structure. Final Office Action, 4,
citing Gatto, ¶ 9. The Examiner states that “registers or frame memories
must be reserved at the decoder” to predict pictures based on the stored
reference frames. Id. In this statement, we interpret “frame memories” as
an appositive to “registers,” rather than an alternative, as Appellants argue
(App. Br. 11) to thereby negate the Examiner’s finding that registers are
necessarily present, which indeed they are for the reason stated by the
Examiner. Implementation of MPEG decoding, which Gatto discloses,
necessitates keeping track of, remembering, or “indicating,” the various
pictures in its GOP structure. We are not persuaded that the Examiner’s
statement is erroneous and accordingly disagree that the Examiner has erred
in concluding that Gatto anticipates the broadest reasonable interpretation of
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“a register for indicating a past prediction picture, and a future prediction
picture for each of the plurality of compressed video streams.”
For the foregoing reasons, we sustain the rejection of claim 17. We
note, however, the Examiner’s unnecessary findings regarding Gatto’s
events manager slave module and associated events manager database (Final
Office Action, 3, referring to Gatto, ¶ 142) and Appellants’ arguments of
record (see, e.g., App. Br. 9; Reply Br. 8) in response thereto. While not
relevant to our decision regarding the rejection of claim 17, the significance
of these findings will become apparent in our discussion below regarding the
rejection of claims 19, 21, and 22.
Claim 20 depends from claim 17 and is not argued separately.
Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of claim 20.
Claim 18
Claim 18 depends from claim 17 and adds:
the video decoder motion compensates motion estimated
pictures in each of the plurality of compressed video streams
using at least the past prediction pictures indicated by said
register for each of the plurality of compressed video streams.

Appellants argue that the Examiner has erroneously concluded that this
limitation is “inherently included in the MPEG standards” because the
“MPEG standards make no such requirement of a ‘register’ to ‘indicate.’”
App. Br. 11, referring to Final Office Action, 4-5. The argument is based on
a miscomprehension of the rejection of claim 18, because it does not
recognize the incorporation from the rejection of claim 17 the Examiner’s
findings regarding the register being inherent in Gatto. Properly interpreted,
the rejection indicates the Examiner finds only the motion compensation
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aspect of claim 18 inherent in MPEG (Final Office Action, 4-5), not the
register. Appellants’ arguments do not persuade us otherwise.
We note Appellants’ arguments (Reply Br. 10) that the Examiner’s
reasoning as to inherency of the register relies on enablement of
decompression of multiple video streams and vice versa, but are
unpersuaded that this requires a reversal of the rejection of claim 18 or any
other claim. Appellants have not provided persuasive evidence that either
premise is untrue, or that they are solely dependent on one another. In other
words, we are not persuaded that the Examiner’s rejection of claim 18
results from impermissible circular reasoning.
For the foregoing reasons, we sustain the rejection of claim 18.
Claims 19, 21, and 22
Claims 19, 21, and 22 depend from claim 17. Appellants argue claims
19, 21, and 22 as a group, submitting that “Gatto does not even expressly
teach that the events database plays any role in determining which ones of
the pictures in a frame buffer are to be displayed.” App. Br. 13-14. For the
reasons stated by Appellants (id.), we are persuaded that the Examiner
erroneously relies on the events database to find that Gatto describes the
limitations recited in claims 19, 21, and 22. Accordingly, we reverse the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 19, 21, and 22.

REJECTION OF CLAIMS 19, 21, and 22 WITHIN 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b)
We enter a new ground of rejection against claims 19, 21, and 22
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being unpatentable over Gatto.
As discussed supra, the Examiner erred in finding that Gatto’s events
database describes:
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19. The system of claim 17, wherein said register
indicates a picture for display for each of the plurality of
compressed video streams, and further comprising: a display
engine for providing an output, said output concatenating the
pictures for display for each of the plurality of compressed
video streams indicated by the register.
21. The system of claim 19, wherein the display engine
examines the register, selects the pictures indicated by the
register for display, and concatenates the pictures indicated for
display by the register.
22. The system of claim 21, wherein the display engine
requests the pictures indicated by the register for display, from
a frame buffer.

We find the recitations of claims 19, 21, and 22 to be inherent in Gatto.
Gatto describes an interactive TV device configured to “receive and
process multiple broadband input streams simultaneously” and to “display
them on four independently manageable quarter screen segments.” Gatto,
Abstract. Gatto’s device includes a graphics processing assembly, including
a hardware video decoder conforming to the MPEG standard. Id. at ¶ 9.
The graphics processing assembly also includes a video controller. Id.
The MPEG standard involves compressing a video stream by
encoding it temporally based on differences between successive frames, or
“pictures.” See, e.g., Spec., Background of the Invention, ¶¶ 1-9. In some
implementations of MPEG, a current picture may be predicted from a past
prediction picture and a future prediction picture. See, e.g., id. at ¶ 7.
Decoding, or decompressing, such a bi-directionally encoded video stream
includes decoding past and future prediction pictures before computing the
instant picture. Id. at ¶ 8. Displaying the decompressed video stream
inherently includes reassembling, or concatenating, the computed pictures.
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We find that a graphics processing assembly such as described by
Gatto (¶ 9) includes a memory (i.e., a frame buffer), a pointer (i.e., “register
for indicating”), and a video controller (i.e., a “display engine”) that
inherently perform the functions of storing one or more decompressed
pictures for display, keeping track of the memory location of the next
buffered picture, and concatenating the so indicated pictures into a video
stream. The foregoing meets the limitations recited in claims 19, 21, and 22.
Accordingly, we reject claims 19, 21, and 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e)
as being anticipated by Gatto.

CONCLUSIONS
The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 17 and 18 under 35
U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated by Gatto.
The Examiner erred with respect to the findings of fact used in
rejecting claims 19, 21, and 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated by
Gatto.

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 17 and 18 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(e) as being anticipated by Gatto is affirmed.
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 19, 21, and 22 under 35
U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Gatto is reversed.
A new ground of rejection is entered rejecting claims 19, 21, and 22
under 35 U.S.C. §102(e) as anticipated by Gatto.
37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b) provides that “[a] new ground of rejection …
shall not be considered final for judicial review.” This section also provides
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that the Appellant, WITHIN TWO MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF THE
DECISION, must exercise one of the following two options with respect to
the new grounds of rejection to avoid termination of the appeal as to the
rejected claims:
(1) Reopen prosecution. Submit an appropriate
amendment of the claims so rejected or new evidence relating
to the claims so rejected, or both, and have the matter
reconsidered by the examiner, in which event the proceeding
will be remanded to the examiner. . . .

(2) Request rehearing. Request that the proceeding be
reheard under § 41.52 by the Board upon the same record. . . .

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-IN-PART
37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b)

ELD