Setlur, Vidya et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jun 26, 2020

13541598 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Jun. 26, 2020)

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.
13/541,598 07/03/2012 Vidya Setlur PAT 84472A-2 5665
132251 7590 06/26/2020
(BLG/Conversant Wireless/27921)
Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
World Exchange Plaza
100 Queen Street, Suite 1300
Ottawa, ONTARIO K1P 1J9
CANADA
EXAMINER
WAQAS, SAAD A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2468
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/26/2020 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):
ipinfo@blg.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte VIDYA SETLUR, DAIDI ZHONG, MISKA HANNUKSELA,
RAMAKRISHNA VEDANTHAM, SURESH CHITTURI, TOLGA CAPIN,
and MICHAEL INGRASSIA

Appeal 2019-002644
Application 13/541,598
Technology Center 2400
____________________

Before JEAN R. HOMERE, JOHN F. HORVATH, and
KARA L. SZPONDOWSKI, Administrative Patent Judges.

HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE1
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant2 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–3 and 5–20, which constitute all of

1 We refer to the Specifications, filed July 3, 2012 and May 15, 2013
(“Spec.”); the Final Office Action, mailed Jan. 11, 2018 (“Final Act.”); the
Appeal Brief, filed July 20, 2018 (“Appeal Br.”); the Examiner’s Answer,
mailed Dec. 19, 2018 (“Ans.”); and the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”) filed Feb.
15, 2019. This appeal relates to Appeal 2016-002817 (“Dec.”), previously
decided on Dec. 13, 2016, in which we affirmed the Examiner’s rejections of
claims 1–20. Dec. 5.
2 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
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the claims pending in this appeal. Appeal Br. 3. Claim 14 has been
cancelled. Id. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
II. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
According to Appellant, the claimed subject matter relates to point-
to-point and broadcast/multicast services, including a transport mechanism
for streaming and downloading multimedia content containing Scalable
Vector Graphics (SVG). Spec. ¶¶ 2, 8, 9. In particular, as depicted in Figure
1 below, server (100) transmits to client (110) a multimedia presentation in a
packet stream that includes scene packets containing information derived
from a scene description and/or update, as well as a packet containing a list
of graphic elements including SVGs currently active in the multimedia
presentation. Id. ¶¶ 22–31, Fig. 1.
Figure 1, discussed above and reproduced below, is useful for
understanding the claimed subject matter:

37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies Conversant Wireless Licensing
S.a.r.l as the real party-in-interest. Appeal Br. 3.
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Figure 1 illustrates a transport mechanism for transporting multimedia/ SVG
data from server (100) to client device (110) by dividing SVG content into 3
groups: (1) SVG/embedded files (120) transported in RTP packets (130) to
client device (110) via RTP session (140), (2) Embedded dynamic media
(150) transported in multiple RTP connections (160) to client device (110)
via RTP session (140), and (3) Embedded static media (170) downloaded by
client device (110) via FLUTE (180). Spec. ¶ 28.

Illustrative Claim
Claims 1, 10, and 19 are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below
with disputed limitations emphasized in italics, is illustrative of the claimed
subject matter:
A method for delivering content to a client device,
comprising:
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transmitting a multimedia presentation comprising
scalable vector graphics in a packet stream to the client device,
the multimedia presentation specified using a markup language;
wherein the multimedia presentation includes at least one
group of scenes, each constituted by a scene description and at
least one scene update, and transmitted in the packet stream as
scene packets containing information derived from the scene
description or the at least one scene update;
wherein at least one packet in the packet stream contains a
list of scalable vector graphics elements that are currently active,
said list, transmitted once for a particular group.

Appeal Br. 16 (Claims Appendix).

III. REFERENCES RELIED UPON
The Examiner relies upon the following references.3
Name Number Publ’d/Issued
Peltotalo File Delivery over
DVB-H, FLUTE
March 2005
Moriya US 2005/0149557 A1 July 7, 2005
Bourges-
Sevenier
(“Bourges”)
US 2007/0192818 A1 Aug. 16, 2002

IV. REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejects claims 1–3 and 5–20 as follows:
1. Claims 1–3, 5, 6, 8–15, and 17–20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Moriya and
Bourges. Final Act. 2–12.

3 All reference citations are to the first named inventor only.
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2. Claims 7 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Moriya, Bourges, and Peltotalo.
Final Act. 12–13.
V. ANALYSIS
We consider Appellant’s arguments seriatim, as they are presented in
the Appeal Brief, pages 9–17 and the Reply Brief, pages 2–5.4 We are
unpersuaded by Appellant’s contentions. Except as otherwise indicated
herein below, we adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth in the
Final Office Action, and the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s
Appeal Brief. Final Act. 2–17; Ans. 3–20. However, we highlight and
address specific arguments and findings for emphasis as follows.
Regarding the rejection of claim 1, Appellant argues that Moriya and
Bourges are not properly combined to teach or suggest a transport
mechanism for transmitting a multimedia presentation including SVGs and a
packet stream containing a list of SVG elements that are currently active,
said list transmitted once for a particular group. Appeal Br. 10–17. Appellant
argues that the Examiner’s rationale for combining Moriya with Bourges is
conclusory because the Examiner merely relies upon the intent of the
invention disclosed in Bourges (i.e., providing an extensible programmatic
interactive multimedia system). Id. at 10–11 (citing Bourges ¶ 25). In
particular, Appellant argues there is no nexus between Bourges’ use of
conventional SVGs and Moriya’s disclosure of organizing scenes of a video,

4 We have considered in this Decision only those arguments Appellant
actually raised in the Briefs. Any other arguments Appellant could have
made but chose not to make in the Briefs are deemed to be waived. See 37
C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2012).
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including metadata describing the hierarchical structure thereof as well as
the characteristic amounts of each scene, to produce the purported benefits
cited by the Examiner. Id. at 10, 11, 15 (citing Moriya ¶¶ 44–48), Reply
Br. 2.
According to Appellant, the Examiner’s proposed combination of
Moriya and Bourges would at best “result in a video having statically
recorded SVG elements arranged according to substantive contents.” Appeal
Br. 15, 16, Reply Br. 4. Appellant further argues that, because Moriya’s
characteristic scene amounts such as color histogram and motion complexity
merely indicate the amount of particular colors in a video frame and motion
between video frames, as opposed to indicating the position of various
color/motion pixels in the frame, the combination of Moriya and Bourges
fails to teach or suggest scalable graphic elements that are currently active
(i.e., dynamic SVG elements). Appeal Br. 17 (citing Moriya ¶¶ 79, 136).
Further, Appellant argues that because Moriya’s Level 1 video segment is a
group of scenes containing multiple Level 4 scenes, the transmission of a
Level 1 video segment involves the transmission of multiple instances of
characteristic amounts, as opposed to a single transmission of a list of
currently active SVG elements for a group, as required by claim 1. Appeal
Br. 17 (citing Moriya ¶ 137, Fig. 15). Id. These arguments are not persuasive
of reversible Examiner error.
As noted above, Appellant admits that the proposed combination of
Moriya and Bourges would at best result in a video having statically
recorded SVG elements, as opposed to dynamic ones. We previously found
that “Moriya discloses a system for dividing multimedia content into a
plurality of scenes including metadata describing the hierarchical structure
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as well as the characteristic amounts (e.g., motions, colors, shapes of
objects) contained in each scene,” where“one or more scenes contain[]
graphic elements including an image.” Dec. 4 (citing, Moriya ¶¶ 2, 34, 51,
79, 81). As correctly noted by the Examiner, Moriya further discloses a
server transmitting to a client a multimedia presentation specified using a
markup language. Ans. 15–16 (citing Moriya ¶¶ 106, 126) (delivering
“constructed content”); see also Moriya ¶ 39, 57 (generating “metadata
describing the contents and structure of the multimedia content in
accordance with a specified format”). As further correctly noted by the
Examiner, Bourges similarly discloses a server transmitting to a client
multimedia presentation specified using a dynamic Document Object Model
(DOM) that uses SVG and may be dynamic or static. Ans. 16 (citing
Bourges ¶ 82). Accordingly, we agree with the Examiner that the proposed
combination of Moriya and Bourges teaches or suggests a transport
mechanism for streaming between a server and a client a multimedia
presentation including dynamic/active SVGs. Id. at 16–18. As further noted
by the Examiner, Moriya also discloses that the characteristic amounts are
described only in each video segment in accordance with each hierarchical
level thereof. Id. at 19 (citing Moriya ¶137). That is, the characteristic
amount for color and motion is described for each particular video segment
only at level 4, and not any other levels. Id. We therefore agree with the
Examiner that the combination of Moriya and Bourges teaches transmitting
a list once to a particular group.
Additionally, we agree with the Examiner that the proposed
combination of Moriya and Bourges is proper because the teachings of the
cited references are no more than a simple arrangement of old elements with
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each performing the same function it had been known to perform, yielding
no more than what one would expect from such an arrangement. KSR Int’l
Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007). Therefore, the ordinarily
skilled artisan, being “a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton,”
would be able to fit the teachings of the cited references together like pieces
of a puzzle to predictably result in a transport mechanism for streaming
between a server and a client a multimedia presentation including
dynamic/active SVGs in a list transmitted once for each particular group. Id.
at 420–21. Because Appellant has not demonstrated that the Examiner’s
proffered combination would have been “uniquely challenging or difficult
for one of ordinary skill in the art,” we agree with the Examiner that the
proposed modification would have been within the purview of the ordinarily
skilled artisan. Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157,
1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 418). Consequently, we are
satisfied that, on the record before us, the Examiner has established by a
preponderance of the evidence that the combination of Moriya and Bourges
renders claim 1 unpatentable. Accordingly, we are not persuaded of error in
the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claim 1.
Regarding the rejection of claims 2, 3, and 5–20, Appellant has not
presented separate patentability arguments or has reiterated substantially the
same arguments as those previously discussed for the patentability of claim
1. As such, claims 2, 3, and 5–20 fall therewith. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
VI. CONCLUSION
For the above reasons, we affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims
1–3 and 5–20.
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VII. DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–3, 5, 6, 8–15, 17–20 103 (a) Moriya, Bourges
1–3, 5, 6,
8–15, 17–
20

7, 16 103 (a) Moriya, Bourges, Peltotalo 7, 16
Overall Outcome 1–3, 5–20

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). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED