Ex Parte Larsson et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jan 5, 2009

09418323 (B.P.A.I. Jan. 5, 2009)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte MATHIAS LARSSON, CHARILAOS CHRISTOPOULOS,
MAGNUS JANDEL, DIEGO SANTA CRUZ, and TOURADJ EBRAHMI
____________

Appeal 2008-3118
Application 09/418,323
Technology Center 2100
____________

Decided: January 5, 2009
____________

Before LANCE LEONARD BARRY, ST. JOHN COURTENAY, III, and
CAROLYN D. THOMAS Administrative Patent Judges.

BARRY, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Patent Examiner rejected claims 15-32. Claims 1-14 have been
cancelled. The Appellants appeal therefrom under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a). We
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have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). An oral hearing for this appeal
was conducted on December 11, 2008.

INVENTION
The invention at issue on appeal stores images as a set of
independently decodable units ("CUs") on a server. When a client requests a
certain part of the image, only data from the CUs that have not already been
transmitted are re-encoded, which saves processing time in the server.
(Spec. 2.)

ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIMS
15. A method of compressing an image at a server,
storing a compressed representation of the image at the server
and transmitting at least part of the compressed representation
of the image from the server to at least one client, the method
comprising:
transforming the image into a frequency domain to form
frequency domain coefficients;
after said transforming, subdividing the frequency
domain coefficients corresponding to the image into at least one
block, each block comprising at least one transformed
coefficient;
compressing, via entropy coding, at least a first block and
at least a second block into different independently decodable
coding units, respectively;
after said compressing, storing at least one of the first and
second coding units on the server;
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receiving a request at said server; and
responsive to the request, transmitting from the server to
at least one client the coding unit(s) corresponding to the
request so that upon receiving the request the coding unit(s)
corresponding to the request are transmitted to the at least one
client without the server having to employ further entropy
encoding with respect thereto.

28. A client apparatus in a client-server system, the client
apparatus comprising: means for identifying a region of interest
of an image;
means for identifying a mask in a transform domain
corresponding to said region of interest of the image;
means for identifying at least one of a plurality of
independently decodable coding units which contains at least
one transform coefficient needed to reconstruct the region of
interest of the image, the independently decodable coding units
being defined as objects compressed by using entropy coding;
and
means for transmitting, from the client to at least one
server, a request for said at least one identified independently
decodable coding unit needed to reconstruct the region of
interest of the image.

PRIOR ART
Percival US 5,991,816 Nov. 23, 1999
Keith US 5,966,465 Oct. 12, 1999

REJECTION
Claims 15-32 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over
Percival and Keith.

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CLAIM GROUPING
When the patentability of dependent claims is not argued separately,
the claims stand or fall with the claims from which they depend. In re King,
801 F.2d 1324, 1325 (Fed. Cir. 1986); In re Sernaker, 702 F.2d 989, 991
(Fed. Cir. 1983). Here, the Appellants do not argue separately the
patentability of dependent claims 29-32. Therefore, the claims stand or fall
with claim 28, from which they depend.

ISSUE
The Examiner makes the following findings.
Percival discloses that image data is transformed (Percival,
col. 6, lines 10-25) . . . once the image has been transformed
and susceptible to additional compression techniques, it is
stored in the memory of the image transmitting server (Percival,
col. 8, lines 63-65), and the transformation process thus can be
performed in advance prior to any requests being received
(Percival, col. 9, lines 4-6).
(Ans. 11-12.) The Appellants argue that "any compression done in Percival
is done after a request is received for that part of the image (thereby teaching
away from the invention . . . ." (App. Br. 12.) They also argue that
"[c]laim 15 . . . requires . . . upon a request for the information is received,
transmit the information to at least one client without the server having to
employ further entropy coding." (Id.) Therefore, the issue before us is
whether the Appellants have shown error in the Examiner's findings that
Percival compresses data before storing and transmitting the data as in
claims 15 and 28 and that the reference transmits the data without further
compression as in claim 15.

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LAW
The question of obviousness is "based on underlying factual
determinations including . . . what th[e] prior art teaches explicitly and
inherently . . . ." In re Zurko, 258 F.3d 1379, 1383 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (citing
Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17-18 (1966); In re Dembiczak,
175 F.3d 994, 998 (Fed. Cir. 1999); In re Napier, 55 F.3d 610, 613 (Fed.
Cir. 1995)).

FINDINGS OF FACT ("FFs")
1. Percival's "method of transferring digital image data over a
communication link transforms and orders the data so that, as data is
received by a receiving station, a low detail version of the image is
immediately generated with later transmissions of data providing
progressively greater detail in this image." (Abs., ll. 1-5.)

2. "FIG. 2 [of the reference] is a flow chart showing the step of a
program executed by the image transmitting server of FIG. 1 in transforming
and ordering image data for transmission to the receiving site . . . ." (Col. 4,
ll. 20-24.)

3. "Referring to FIG. 2 in the first step of this process indicated by
process block 60, data from a conventionally digitized image 30 is
transformed." (Col. 6, ll. 10-12.)

4. "Several transformations may be used at this step, however, in the
preferred embodiment, the transform selected is the Haar transform, which is
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computationally efficient and provides a number of advantageous
properties . . . ." (Id. ll. 35-39.)

5. As part of the Haar transform, the "value of the upper left hand
corner transformed pixel 66 is significant because it represents effectively an
average value of the image pixel 62 of the pixel block 68 and thus a
compression of the image represented by the pixel block 68 by a factor of
four." (Col. 7, ll. 24-27 (emphasis added).)

6. "Referring again to FIG. 2, once the image has been transformed as
indicated by process block 60, it is stored in the memory of the image
transmitting server 12." (Col. 8, ll. 63-65.)

7. "The transformation process thus can be performed in advance prior
to any requests being received." (Col. 9, ll. 4-6.) "Referring again to FIG. 2,
after transformation of the digitized image 30 as indicated by process
block 60, the program operating the image transmitting server 12 awaits a
request for an image as indicated at decision block 101." (Id. ll. 30-33.)

8. "[T]he transformation provides image data that is susceptible to
additional compression techniques." (Col. 6, ll. 32-33.) As part of the
aforementioned ordering image data for transmission to the receiving site,
relatively sparse "bit planes may be easily compressed by techniques that
tally continuous runs of zeros and transmit the tally rather than the zeros
themselves." (Col. 10, ll. 1-6.) See also col. 12, ll. 47-49 ("[S]tep (b) of
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transmitting, in order, the imaged data includes a step of compressing the
ordered data prior to its transmission . . . .").

ANALYSIS
Percival teaches transforming image data (FF 3-4), which compresses
the data (to some extent) (FF 5). The reference also teaches performing the
compression transform before storing the data (FF 6) and before receiving
any requests for the data (FF 7). Such teachings would have suggested the
compressing of data before storing and transmitting the data as recited in
claims 15 and 28.

As argued by the Appellants, however, claim 15 also requires
transmitting the data without further compression. For its part, Percival
performs additional compression before transmitting the data. (FF 8.)

CONCLUSION
Based on the aforementioned facts and analysis, we conclude that the
Appellants have shown no error in the Examiner's finding that Percival
compresses data before storing and transmitting the data as in claims 15 and
28. They have shown error, however, in the Examiner's findings that
Percival transmits the data without further compression as in claim 15.

ORDER
We reverse the rejection of claims 15-27 but affirm the rejection of
claims 28-31.

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No time for taking any action connected with this appeal may be
extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED-IN-PART

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