Ex Parte DemosDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJun 6, 201613197248 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 6, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/197,248 08/03/2011 26171 7590 06/08/2016 FISH & RICHARDSON P,C (DC) P.O. BOX 1022 MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55440-1022 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Gary A. Demos 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 07314-0013006 5393 EXAMINER LEE, YYOUNG ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2485 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/08/2016 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): P ATDOCTC@fr.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte GARY A. DEMOS Appeal2014-009125 Application 13/197,248 Technology Center 2400 Before JOHN P. PINKERTON, NATHAN A. ENGELS, and NORMAN H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges. PINKERTON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1-11, which constitute all the claims pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corp. App. Br. 1. Appeal2014-009125 Application 13/197,248 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellant's disclosed and claimed invention is generally directed to improving compressed image chroma information in MPEG-like video compression systems. Spec. ,-r 2.2 Claim 1 is illustrative and reproduced below: 1. A method for coding a color space representation of video macroblocks in a computerized video system having at least a decoder, the method comprising: receiving, at a decoder from an encoder, a coded bitstream including a luminance quantization parameter, a first chroma bias value and a second chroma bias value for a macroblock, wherein the first chroma bias value and the second chroma bias value differ from each other for the macroblock, and constructing, with the decoder, first and second chrominance quantization parameters for the macroblock, wherein the constructing comprises: determining the first chrominance quantization parameter using the first chroma bias value received in the coded bitstream and the luminance quantization parameter received in the coded bitstream; and determining the second chrominance quantization parameter using the second chroma bias value received in the coded bitstream and the luminance quantization parameter received in the coded bitstream; and 2 Our Decision refers to the Final Action mailed Oct. 24, 2013 ("Final Act."), Appellant's Appeal Brief filed May 23, 2014 ("App. Br."), the Examiner's Answer mailed June 25, 2014 ("Ans."), Appellant's Reply Brief filed Aug. 5, 2014 ("Reply Br."), and the original Specification filed Aug. 3, 2011 ("Spec."). 2 Appeal2014-009125 Application 13/197,248 decompressing the macroblock using the received luminance quantization parameter and the constructed first and second chrominance quantization parameters. Rejections on Appeal Claims 1-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, for failure to comply with the written description requirement. Claims 1-9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Haskell (US 2006/0002467 Al; published Jan. 5, 2006). Upon cancelation of the new matter, 3 claims 10-11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Haskell and applicant's admitted prior art ("AAP A"). Claims 1-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (a) as being unpatentable over Haskell and Ribas-Corbera (US 6,535,251 Bl; issued Mar. 18, 2003). Claims 10-11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (a) as being unpatentable over Haskell, Ribas-Corbera, and AAP A. ANALYSIS The dispositive issues raised by Appellant's briefs are as follows: 1. Is there written description support in the Specification for the limitation "receiving, at a decoder from an encoder, a coded 3 In connection with the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, the Examiner finds the "limitation specifying that the bias values are received from the encoder to the decoder in the coded bitstream is not described in the specification." Final Act. 2. 3 Appeal2014-009125 Application 13/197,248 bitstream including ... a first chroma bias value and a second chroma bias value," as recited in claim 1, and as similarly recited in claim 3? 2. Does the combination of Haskell and Ribas-Corbera teach or suggest (a) "receiving, at a decoder from an encoder, a coded bitstream including a luminance quantization parameter, a first chroma bias value and a second chroma bias value for a macroblock," as recited in claim 1, and (b) "receiving, at a decoder, a first chroma bias value and a second chroma bias value for a macroblock, wherein the first chroma bias value and the second chroma bias value differ from each other for the macroblock," as similarly recited in claim 3? Issue 1 Pursuant to Appellant's Amendments to the Claims filed September 30, 2013, claim 1 was amended to recite "receiving, at a decoder from an encoder, a coded bitstream including a luminance quantization parameter, a first chroma bias value and a second chroma bias value for a macroblock." See Amendment 2, filed Sept. 30, 2013 (additions are underlined). Claim 3 was amended to recite "receiving, at a decoder, a first chroma bias value and a second chroma bias value for a macroblock." Id. at 3 (additions are underlined). In the Final Action, the Examiner rejects claims 1-11 under § 112, paragraph 1, for failing to comply with the written description requirement based on the finding that the added limitation "specifying that the bias values are received from the encoder to the decoder in the coded bitstream is not described in the specification." Final Act. 2. 4 Appeal2014-009125 Application 13/197,248 Appellant argues that paragraphs 2, 3 and 44 of the Specification disclose the added limitations to claims 1 and 3. See App. Br. 3-5; Reply Br. 1-3. In the Answer, the Examiner finds that "the term 'bias value' is not even mentioned in these paragraphs" and that these paragraphs do not mention receiving any bias values at the decoder. Ans. 6. We are persuaded by Appellant's arguments that the Examiner has erred. In particular, we agree with Appellant's argument that paragraph 3 of the Specification refers to the MPEG-2 video compression standards that describe decoding "the coded bitstream" and expressly states "[a]n MPEG decoder must be able to parse and decode an incoming data stream." App. Br. 4. We also agree with Appellant that paragraph 44 of the Specification states "[i]t is necessary to signal the U and V bias values from the encoder to the decoder unless a pre-arranged value is used," where the bias value can be specified "for each session, group of pictures (GOP), frame, or image region." Id. Thus, we agree with Appellant's argument that a person of ordinary skill in the art, upon reading Appellant's Specification as originally filed, would understand that Appellant was in possession of the added limitations of claims 1 and 3 as of the filing date of the application. See Ariad Pharms., Inc. v. Eli Lilly & Co., 598 F.3d 1336, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (en bane) ("In other words, the test for sufficiency [to meet the written description requirement] is whether the disclosure of the application relied upon reasonably conveys to those skilled in the art that the inventor had possession of the claimed subject matter as of the filing date.") (internal citations omitted). 5 Appeal2014-009125 Application 13/197,248 Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 1- 11 under§ 112, first paragraph, for failure to comply with the written description requirement. Issue 2 Regarding the limitation "macroblock" in claims 1 and 3, the Examiner finds that, since the claims do not specify the size of a macroblock to be an array of 16 pixels x 16 pixels, consistent with Appellant's disclosure and paragraph 12 of Haskell, the broadest reasonable interpretation of "macroblock may just be a large block," such as an 8 x 8 macroblock. Ans. 6-7, 9-10. The Examiner further finds, "under this interpretation, Haskell et al discloses receiving at the decoder 240 a first Qp [quantization parameter] value for a first 8 x 8 macroblock and three different update bias Qp values for the other three 8 x 8 macroblocks in order to decode a single 16 x 16 macro block." Id. (citing Haskell i-f 42). The Examiner also finds "Ribas- Corbera teaches reporting an update Qp step size from the encoder to the decoder" and "[u]nder this interpretation, Ribas-Corbera teaches receiving at the decoder a first Qp value for a first 8 x 8 macroblock and update bias Qp step sizes for decoding the other three 8 x 8 image blocks within a single 16 x 16 macroblock." Id. at 10. Appellant argues the Examiner's interpretation of the term "macroblock" is in error because a macroblock is a "basic processing unit in video or image compression systems"-a region of image pixels having a particular size, such as a 16 x 16 block of pixels in MPEG-2-and although a macro block may be composed of smaller blocks of pixels, it "is not itself composed of other macroblocks." Reply Br. 3--4. Appellant also argues 6 Appeal2014-009125 Application 13/197,248 "whereas the decoder of Haskell receives at most a single Qp value for a macroblock, claims 1 and 3 recite a method in which a decoder receives three values for a given macroblock: (i) 'a luminance quantization parameter;' (ii) 'a first chroma bias value;' and (iii) 'a second chroma bias value."' App. Br. 6. Regarding the Examiner's finding at page 4 of the Final Action that Haskell discloses "scaling the Qp value differently for the luminance and chrominance channels" and, therefore, "up to three different values for the luminance and chrominance channels may be signaled from the encoder to the decoder," Appellant states: But this statement misses the point. As illustrated in FIG. 3 of Haskell, the only quantization parameter signals in Haskell that are transmitted from the encoder to the decoder are the Qp value and updates to the Qp value. (Haskell, i-fi-1 [0014], [0042]). The Qp update signal in Haskell is sent to "change a value of Qp as frequently as every macro block." (Haskell, i1 [0042]). This Qp update signal is then used to update Qp, and the updated Qp is subsequently used to look-up three scalers, namely, a DC LUM scaler, an 1A .. C CHROl\1 scaler, and a DC CHROl\1 scaler. (Haskell, FIG. 3, i-fi-1 [0026], [0039], Tables 1, 2, 3). The relationship between the received Qp value and the generated scalers would therefore always be fixed. In other words, for a given value of Qp, there would be a predetermined set of values for the DC LUM scaler, AC CHROM scaler, and DC CHROM scaler. App. Br. 6. Regarding Ribas-Corbera, Appellant argues the cited portion of Ribas-Corbera merely discloses "'that the value of the [quantization] step size is often modified at each image block of a frame,' and does not provide any support for the examiner's hypothetical definition of a macro block." Reply Br. 8 (citing Ribas-Corbera 2:21-22.). 7 Appeal2014-009125 Application 13/197,248 We are persuaded by Appellant's arguments that the Examiner has erred in rejecting claims 1 and 3. Even if we were to agree with the Examiner's interpretation of a macro block, we agree with Appellant the Examiner has not shown that Haskell or the combination of Haskell and Ribas-Corbera teaches or suggests receiving at a decoder "a luminance quantization parameter, a first chroma bias value and a second chroma bias value for a macroblock." App. Br. 6; Reply Br. 4--5. That is, even if the Examiner is correct that Haskell discloses receiving at a decoder a first Qp value for a first 8 x 8 macroblock and three different Qp values for three other 8 x 8 macroblocks, the Examiner has not shown Haskell teaches or suggests receiving at a decoder "a luminance quantization parameter, a first chroma bias value and a second chroma bias value" for any of such macroblocks. In particular, regarding Haskell, we agree with Appellant that even if paragraph [0041] of Haskell discloses a processor that computes scaler values according to the Qp value, Haskell still does not disclose or suggest receiving "a luminance quantization parameter, a first chroma bias value and a second chroma bias value," as recited in claims 1 and 3 because the only quantization parameter signals in Haskell that are transmitted from the encoder to the decoder are the Qp value and updates to the Qp value. (Haskell, iTiT [0014], [0042]). Reply Br. 5. For the reasons argued by Appellant, we also agree with Appellant that "Ribas-Corbera does not remedy this deficiency of Haskell." See Reply Br. 7. Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejection of claims 1 and 3 under § 102(e) and§ 103(a), as well as dependent claims 2 and 4--11. 8 Appeal2014-009125 Application 13/197,248 DECISION We reverse the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-11. REVERSED 9 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation