10673892 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 25, 2014)

Ex Parte Zarrabizadeh

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 25, 2014

10673892 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 25, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte MOHAMMAD HOSSEIN ZARRABIZADEH ____________________ Appeal 2011-008504 Application 10/673,892 Technology Center 2600 ____________________ Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JAMES R. HUGHES, and JOHNNY A. KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judges. DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-008504 Application 10/673,892 2 STATEMENT OF CASE Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims 1-58. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). The Examiner indicates that claims 38-52, 55, 56, and 58 were subject to a restriction/election requirement, and they are withdrawn from consideration. (Ans. 18-19). We affirm-in-part. The claims are directed to watermarking scheme for digital video. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method of watermarking a video signal to include additional information therein, said method being performed by an apparatus for watermarking a video signal, the method comprising the step of automatically impressing at least a portion of said additional information upon a chrominance portion of said video signal by placing it in at least one selected bit position of a value derived from an average of said chrominance portion over a block of said video signal. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Reed US 6,590,996 B1 Jul. 8, 2003 Baudry US 2004/0001626 A1 Jan. 1, 2004 Gwenaël Doerr & Jean-Luc Dugelay, A guide tour of video watermarking, Signal Processing: Image Communication, vol. 18, 263-282 (April 2003) (“Doerr”). Appeal 2011-008504 Application 10/673,892 3 REJECTIONS The Examiner made the following rejections: Claims 1-9, 11, 13-18, 20-32, 34-37, 53, 54, and 57 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Reed. Claim 10 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Reed in view of Baudry. Claim 12, 19, and 33 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Reed in view of Doerr. The Examiner withdrew the rejection of claims 1-22 and 54 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph. (Ans.15). ANALYSIS Anticipation Appellant contends that the Reed reference discloses a transform domain and coating process which uses the characteristic color of the block, which is computed as an average color value for the block. Appellant further contends that the characteristic color is not a chrominance and the Examiner has not recognized the difference between chrominance and color. (App. Br. 15). Appellant further contends that the Reed reference does not place a portion of additional information into this calculated characteristic color where the average color is not modified as required by the claimed invention. (App. Br. 15-16). We agree with Appellant. While the Examiner does appear to rely upon color rather than chrominance, the Examiner has not identified how the Reed reference describes modifying the average color as the claimed invention requires “automatically impressing at least a portion of said additional information upon a chrominance portion of said Appeal 2011-008504 Application 10/673,892 4 video signal by placing it in at least one selected bit position of a value derived from an average of said chrominance portion over a block of said video signal.” The Examiner maintains: Reed discloses that a color masking method maps changes in chrominance for selected color and may be used to map a change to encode a watermark to a chrominance change with colors that fall in a specified region (col. 37, lines 29-34). As an example, Reed discloses the Yellow channel (col. 37, lines 51- 55) for the selected color. Furthermore, Reed discloses that color channels to which the watermark is applied are altered depending on a characteristic color of an image block to be transformed to transform coefficients, which are bits, for watermark encoding (col. 38, lines 29-24). The characteristic color can be computed as an average of the color of that block (col. 38, lines 24-25). So, these features overcome the appellant’s argument. (Ans. 15-16). While the Examiner’s position may individually be correct for each of the separate teachings, the Reed reference does not describe that the average color is modified by at least one selected bit position of a value derived from an average of said chrominance portion as required by claim 1. The Examiner further maintains that Appellant is interpreting the claim in a different way than recited. (Ans. 16). We disagree with the Examiner and find the plain language of the claim to correspond to the Appellant’s argument. We agree with Appellant as our interpretation of the disclosure of Reed coincides with that of Appellant. The Examiner has not sufficiently shown (Ans. 15-16), nor do we find, that Reed discloses the disputed limitation of independent claim 1 and its respective dependent claims. Appeal 2011-008504 Application 10/673,892 5 Independent claims 23, 34, 53, and 54, contain similar limitations as recited in independent claim 1. Therefore, we cannot sustain the rejection of these claims and their respective dependent claims. We note that independent claim 57 does not expressly recite the same limitations argued by Appellant. (App. Br. 16). Therefore, Appellant’s argument does not show error in the Examiner's finding of anticipation. Therefore, we summarily affirm the rejection of independent claim 57 since Appellant did not present a separate argument for patentability. Obviousness With respect to 10, 12, 19, and 33, the Examiner has not identified how the additional references to Baudry and Doerr remedy the noted deficiency. (Ans. 12-14). Therefore, we cannot sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejections. CONCLUSIONS The Examiner did not err in rejecting claim 57 based upon anticipation. The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-9, 11, 13-18, 20-32, 34-37, 53, and 54 based upon anticipation. The Examiner erred in rejecting the claims 10, 12, 19, and 33 based upon obviousness. DECISION For the above reasons, the Examiner's rejection of claim 57 is sustained. The Examiner’s anticipation rejection of claims 1-9, 11, 13-18, 20-32, 34-37, 53, and 54 is reversed, and the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 10, 12, 19, and 33 is reversed. Appeal 2011-008504 Application 10/673,892 6 AFFIRMED-IN-PART msc