Ex Parte Tabatabai et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jun 12, 2012

09865030 (B.P.A.I. Jun. 12, 2012)

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.
09/865,030 05/24/2001 Ali Tabatabai SONY-50P3882.01.US.P 2901
7590 06/13/2012
WAGNER, MURABITO & HAO LLP
Third Floor
Tow North Market Street
San Jose, CA 95113
EXAMINER
SHANG, ANNAN Q
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2424
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/13/2012 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte ALI TABATABAI and HAWLEY K. RISING
____________

Appeal 2009-015207
Application 09/865,030
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before JOHN A. JEFFERY, DENISE M. POTHIER, and JOHN A. EVANS,
Administrative Patent Judges.

POTHIER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2009-015207
Application 09/865,030

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of
claims 1-9, 11-25, 27, and 28. Claims 10 and 26 have been canceled. App.
Br. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse.

INVENTION
Appellants’ invention relates to a technique for dynamically updating
descriptions of audiovisual content in real time. See Spec. 3:2-10. Claim 1
is reproduced below with the key disputed limitations emphasized:
1. In a server, a method for dynamically updating descriptions of
audio-visual content information at a client, said method comprising:
said server sending to said client a command indicating a type of
update to make at a particular node of a data structure residing at said
client and describing an item of content, wherein said particular node
contains information describing an attribute of said item of audio-
visual content and wherein said particular node is one of a plurality of
nodes of said structure, wherein said plurality of nodes are associated
with one another to form said structure;
said server sending to said client the location of said particular
node in said description; and
said server retrieving and sending to said client any data related to
said update, wherein said client executes said command and performs
said update using Data Description Language (DDL).

The Examiner relies on the following as evidence of unpatentability:
Huang US 6,593,936 B1 July 15, 2003
(filed Feb. 1, 2000)
Basso US 6,751,623 B1 June 15, 2004
(filed Jan. 26, 1999)

Jane Hunter et al., ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 – Information technology –
Multimedia Content Description Interface, Part 2: Description Definition
Language I-VII, 1-16 (2000) (“ISO/IEC”).
Appeal 2009-015207
Application 09/865,030

3
THE REJECTIONS
1. The Examiner rejected claims 1-3, 6, 7, and 9 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Basso and Huang. Ans. 3-4.
2. The Examiner rejected claims 11-25, 27, and 28 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Huang and Basso. Ans. 4-8.
3. The Examiner rejected claims 4, 5, and 8 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Basso, Huang, and ISO/IEC. Ans. 9-10.

THE OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION OVER BASSO AND HUANG
Regarding independent claim 1, the Examiner finds that Basso teaches
all the recited limitations except executing the command and updating the
description using DDL (Ans. 3) for which the Examiner relies on Huang
(Ans. 3-4). Appellants argue that Basso and Huang fail to teach the recited
server sends to the client: (i) a command indicating an update type for a data
structure’s particular node; (ii) the node’s location in the description; and
(iii) any data related to the update. App. Br. 6. Appellants admit that Basso
has a general teaching of updating scene description information, but
contend that Basso does not provide details how the updating is achieved.
App. Br. 8-9, 11; Reply Br. 3. To support these disputed limitations, the
Examiner cites many columns in Basso. See Ans. 3, 11.

ISSUE
Under § 103, has the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 by finding
that Basso and Huang collectively would have taught or suggested the server
sending to the client: (1) a command indicating an update type to make at a

Appeal 2009-015207
Application 09/865,030

4
data structure’s particular node; (2) a node’s location in the description; and
(3) any data related to the update?

ANALYSIS
Based on the record before us, we find error in the rejection of
independent claim 1. The Examiner discusses two data structures that have
a tree-based structure. First, the Examiner cites to column 4, line 57 through
column 5, line 4 in Basso (Ans. 3, 11), which discloses a scene description
information that uses a tree-based structure following the Virtual Reality
Modeling Language (VRML) design. Basso, col. 4, ll. 60-62. Second, the
Examiner discusses description information of the MPEG-4 (Ans. 11) that is
also characterized and shown as a tree-based structure. Basso, col. 5,
ll. 5-13, 30-41; col. 6, ll. 23-28; Fig. 1. However, despite Basso teaching
various data structures having a tree structure and thus having nodes of a
data structure as recited, the Examiner’s findings related to Basso are
insufficient to show a server sending to the client: (1) a command indicating
an update type to make at a particular node of a data structure; (2) a location
of the particular node in the description; and (3) any data related to the
update.
Regarding the scene description information tree structure (Basso, col.
4, ll. 60-62), we agree with the Appellants (App. Br. 8) that Basso provides a
general teaching of updating the tree structure (col. 4, l. 63) but fails to
provide adequate details of this process. Namely, Basso does not teach or
suggest where the updating occurs, such as at the receiving terminal or the
client as recited. See col. 4, l. 60 – col. 5, l. 4. The Examiner also refers to
external links or uniform resource locators (URLs) in Basso that are part of
Appeal 2009-015207
Application 09/865,030

5
the scene description information and may be activated upon user
interaction. See col. 26, ll. 60-66. The Examiner does not clearly state that
these referenced links or URLs are commands that indicate a type of update
sent by the server to a client and also include a location (e.g., an URL
address). See Ans. 11. Yet, even if this is the Examiner’s position, Basso
provides no teaching or suggestion that this sent URL indicates (1) an update
type to make at the scene description information’s or a data structure’s
particular node or (2) that the location of that particular node is also sent by
the server to the client as required by claim 1.
Concerning the MPEG-4 tree structure (Basso, col. 5, ll. 5-13, 30-41;
col. 6, ll. 23-28; Fig. 1), the Examiner states that the MPEG-4 data includes
instructions or rules for dynamically updating specific nodes of the data tree
structure that are sent from the server to the client. See Ans. 11 (citing to
various columns, including col. 5, ll. 10-51; col. 6, l. 42 – col. 8, l. 1; col. 10,
l. 32 – col. 11, l. 45; col. 16, l. 42 – col. 17, l. 20; col. 25, l. 53 – col. 26, l.
32; col. 26, l. 48 – col. 27, l. 49). These cited passages discuss segments,
units, fields, and tables within the MPEG-4 data structure. See id. However,
upon reviewing these portions of Basso, we are unable to find a discussion
of instructions or rules to update nodes of the MPEG-4 tree.
Also, Appellants mention Basso’s Integrated Intermedia Format (IIF)
that organizes media data into segments and editing segments with changes
made to access table. App. Br. 9-10. That is, Basso teaches a particular
elementary stream from a streamed multimedia file may be edited (e.g.,
updated) once transferred to the user terminal by using a FAT physical
object table (FPOT) and that an editable file channel 130 exists. See col. 1,
ll. 52- 59; col. 3, ll. 13-29; col. 14, ll. 28-38; col. 20, ll. 29-44; col. 25, ll. 53-
Appeal 2009-015207
Application 09/865,030

6
58. These passages in Basso teach or suggest such editing commands occur
on the user terminal or client side and not a server sending to the client a
command indicating an update type to make at the data structure’s particular
node or the location of a particular node as claim 1 recites. We therefore
disagree with the Examiner (see Ans. 11) that the relied-upon portions of
Basso demonstrate that the MPEG-4 data has instructions or rules for
updating specific nodes of the
MPEG-4 tree structure that are sent from the server to the client.
Because the Examiner relies on Basso to teach the above disputed
limitations (see Ans. 3), we will not address whether Huang cures any of the
above deficiencies.
For the foregoing reasons, Appellants have persuaded us of error in
the rejection of independent claim 1 and dependent claims 2, 3, 6, 7, and 9
for similar reasons.

THE OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION OVER HUANG AND BASSO
Independent claims 11 and 23 are similar in scope to claim 1. The
Examiner however switches the order of the references when rejecting these
claims and cites Huang to teach the recited computer systems and updating
an audio-visual content description using DDL. See Ans. 4-5. The
Examiner then relies on Basso to teach the steps of sending a command to
perform a specified update of the description at a data structure’s particular
node, a location of the particular node, and any data related to the update.
See Ans. 5-6.
Appellants rely on a similar rationale in arguing that Huang and Basso
do not show or suggest the limitation in independent claims 11 and 23. See
Appeal 2009-015207
Application 09/865,030

7
App. Br. 13. The issues therefore are the same as those in connection with
claim 1, and we will not sustain the rejection of claims 11-25, 27, and 28 for
the above-discussed reasons.

THE REMAINING OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION
Claims 4, 5, and 8 depend from independent claim 1. The Examiner
has not relied on ISO/IEC to cure the above-noted deficiencies of claims.
See Ans. 9-10. Thus, because we reverse the Examiner’s rejection of
independent claim 1, we likewise will not sustain the rejection of claims 4,
5, and 8.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-9, 11-25, 27, and 28 under
§ 103.

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-9, 11-25, 27, and 28 is
reversed.

REVERSED

kis