12405250 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 16, 2017)

Ex Parte Fu et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardFeb 16, 2017

12405250 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 16, 2017)

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. 12/405,250 03/17/2009 Chih-Ming Fu MTKP0862USA 3235 27765 7590 02/21/2017 NORTH AMERICA INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION P.O. BOX 506 MERRIFIELD, VA 22116 EXAMINER MUNG, ON S ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2486 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 02/21/2017 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): Patent. admin. uspto. Rev @ naipo .com mis.ap.uspto@naipo.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte CHIH-MING FU, XUN GUO, KAI ZHANG, YU-WEN HUANG, and SHAW-MIN LEI Appeal 2016-004854 Application 12/405,250 Technology Center 2400 Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, ADAM J. PYONIN, and MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges. THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1—17, all the pending claims in the present application. See Claim Appendix. We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. The present invention relates generally to a video encoder that utilizes adaptive interpolation filtering for coding video data. See Abstract. Appeal 2016-004854 Application 12/405,250 Claim 1 is illustrative: 1. A video encoder that utilizes adaptive interpolation filtering for coding video data, comprising: a prediction unit, for performing prediction techniques according to original video data and reconstructed video data to generate prediction samples; a reconstruction unit, coupled to the prediction unit, for reconstructing the prediction samples to form the reconstructed video data; a reference picture buffer, for storing the reconstructed video data as reference pictures; a filter parameter estimator, coupled to the prediction unit, for estimating filter parameters according to the original video data of a current picture and the reference pictures of the current picture, wherein the filter parameters are used for filtering the reference pictures of a next picture in coding order; and an adaptive interpolation filter, coupled between the reference picture buffer and the prediction unit, for filtering the reference pictures of the current picture according to the filter parameters of a prior picture in coding order. Appellants appeal the following rejection: Claims 1—17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lai (US 2009/0290637 Al, Nov. 26, 2009), Wittman (US 2010/0014763 Al, Jan. 21, 2010), and Wedi (US 2004/0161035 Al, Aug. 19, 2004). ANALYSIS Claims 1—17 Issue: Did the Examiner err in finding that the combined cited art, particularly Wedi, teaches or suggests filtering the reference pictures of the current picture according to the filter parameters of a prior picture in the coding order, as set forth in claim 1 ? 2 Appeal 2016-004854 Application 12/405,250 Appellants contend that in the claimed invention: The reference picture t-1 of the current input picture t is filtered with previously estimated filter parameters t-1 related to the prior input picture t-1, rather than the currently estimated filter parameters t related to the current input picture t. In the same way, the filter parameters generated at Time t will be used for filtering the reference picture of the next picture at Time t+1 ... (App. Br. 10). Appellants further contend that in contrast to the claimed invention, “[t]he filter coefficient in Wedi are used for filtering the current picture s(k), but are not used for filtering the reference pictures s’(k) of a next picture s(k+l) in coding order” (id. at 11). In response, the Examiner finds in Wedi “the interpolation filter (IF) performs the filtering process by receiving both current and reference pictures from various paths” (Ans. 3) and “the coefficients/parameters can be received and estimated via different paths and filtering the current or reference picture with estimated filter coefficients that are illustrated in Fig. 2 of Wedi” {id. at 4—5). Although the Examiner points out that Wedi “fairly illustrates” {see Ans. 2) receiving and estimating coefficient/parameters via different paths, the Examiner fails to direct our attention to where precisely Wedi teaches using filter parameters of a prior picture for filtering the reference pictures of the current picture, as set forth in claim 1. Here, “the Examiner believes that the combination of references still teaches” the aforementioned argued limitation {see Ans. 3) (emphasis added), but has merely shown that Wedi discloses that “[t]he filter coefficients for this interpolation filter device IF are set via coefficient selection step KA. This obtains its necessary data,. . . by comparing instantaneous picture data s(k) with corresponding picture data of images s(k-l) that preceded it in time” (140). In other words, Wedi 3 Appeal 2016-004854 Application 12/405,250 merely compares current picture data with prior picture data to obtain a displacement vector, and based on the determined displacement vector generates the estimation signal, i.e., filtering parameter (see 114). However, the Examiner has not shown that Wedi’s estimation signal filters the reference pictures (of the current picture) according to the filter parameters of a prior picture, as required by the claims, nor has the Examiner shown that Lai and Wittman make up for the deficiency of Wedi. The Examiner has merely shown that Wedi uses a prior picture, not a prior filtering parameter. In view of the above discussion, we are of the opinion that the proposed combination of references, particularly Wedi, set forth by the Examiner does not support the obviousness rejection. We, accordingly, do not sustain the rejection of independent claims 1,9, 16, and 17, which each include that argued limitation, or the rejection of claims 2—8 and 10-15 which are dependent thereon, respectively. Since we agree with at least one of the arguments advanced by Appellants, we need not reach the merits of Appellants’ other arguments. It follows that Appellants have shown that the Examiner erred in finding that the combined teachings of Lai, Wittman, and Wedi renders claims 1—17 unpatentable. DECISION We reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). REVERSED 4