Rusert, Thomas et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 8, 2020

14129156 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Sep. 8, 2020)

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.
14/129,156 12/24/2013 Thomas Rusert 1009-0818 / P34867 US2 6400
102721 7590 09/08/2020
Murphy, Bilak & Homiller/Ericsson
1255 Crescent Green
Suite 200
Cary, NC 27518
EXAMINER
GADOMSKI, STEFAN J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2485
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/08/2020 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):
official@mbhiplaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
________________

Ex parte THOMAS RUSERT, PER FRÖJDH, and
ZHUANGFEI WU
________________

Appeal 2019-001157
Application 14/129,156
Technology Center 2400
________________

Before BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, JASON V. MORGAN, and
SCOTT RAEVSKY, Administrative Patent Judges.

BAUMEISTER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 51–54.1 Appeal Br. 2. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b). The Board conducts a limited de novo review of the
appealed rejections for error based upon the issues identified by Appellant,
and in light of the arguments and evidence produced thereon. Ex parte Frye,
94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential).
We REVERSE.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42. Appellant identifies Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ) as the
real party in interest. Appeal Brief filed May 21, 2018 (“Appeal Br.”) 2.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Appellant describes the present invention as follows:
A method of indicating bit stream subsets in a compressed
video bit stream is provided. The method comprises receiving the
bit stream, dividing the bit stream into packets, wherein each packet
comprises either one of video data or supplemental information,
marking each packet (310–312, 320–322) with a first subset
identifier (s0, s1)[,] which is associated with a corresponding bit
stream subset, and providing a first sequence parameter set (SPS)
(310), marked with the same first subset identifier as its associated
bit stream subset. The first SPS further comprises a second subset
identifier (b1) indicating a decoding dependency (304) of the bit
stream subset associated with the first subset identifier on a bit
stream subset associated with the second subset identifier. Further,
a method of extracting video packets from a video bit stream is
provided. The method comprises receiving packets from the bit
stream, extracting a first SPS (310), which is marked with the first
subset identifier (s0) and further comprising the second subset
identifier (b1), using the first and the second subset identifier as
relevant subset identifiers, and, for each received packet (310–312,
320–322) inspecting the first subset identifier (s0, s1) of the packet,
and extracting, under the condition that the extracted first subset
identifier matches one of the relevant subset identifiers, the packet
from the bit stream.
Spec., Abstr.
Independent claim 51 illustrates the appealed claims:
51. A method of indicating decoding dependencies for a
compressed video bit stream, the method comprising:
receiving the compressed video bit stream, wherein the
compressed video bit stream comprises a plurality of bit stream
subsets in which one or more bit stream subsets in the plurality
are dependent bit stream subsets having decoding dependencies
on one or more other bit stream subsets in the plurality, said one
or more other bit stream subsets referred to as related bit stream
subsets;
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dividing the compressed video bit stream into video
packets, each video packet belonging to a respective one of the
bit stream subsets;
marking each video packet according to the respective bit
stream subset to which the video packet belongs, by including a
subset identifier in a header portion of the video packet;
transmitting or storing the marked video packets for
decoding; and
providing one or more Sequence Parameter Set (SPS)
packets among the marked video packets, to indicate the
decoding dependencies of the dependent bit stream subsets,
including forming each such provided SPS packet by:
including in a header portion of the provided SPS
packet, a subset identifier of a dependent bit stream subset;
and
including in a payload portion of the provided SPS
packet, subset identifiers of the related bit stream subsets,
and a reduced SPS comprising only those parameters that
are updated for decoding of the dependent bit stream
subset in comparison to the SPSs associated with the
related bit stream subsets.

STATEMENT OF THE REJECTIONS
Claims 51–54 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Wang (System and Transport Interface of SVC, IEEE
Trans. on Circuits and Sys. for Video Tech., vol. 17, no. 9, 1149–63;
published Sept. 2007) and Boyce (US 2012/0275517 Al; published Nov. 1,
2012). Final Act. 7–19.2

2 Rather than repeat the Examiner’s positions and Appellant’s arguments in
their entirety, we refer to the above-mentioned Appeal Brief, as well as the
following documents for their respective details: the Final Action mailed
October 4, 2017 (“Final Act.”); the Examiner’s Answer mailed September
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The Examiner initially rejected claims 51–54 under 35 U.S.C. § 101
as being directed to a judicial exception to patent-eligible subject matter
(Final Act. 2–5) and rejected claims 53 and 54 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) as
failing to comply with the written-description requirement (id. at 5–6). The
Examiner withdrew the written-description rejection in the Advisory Action
mailed January 9, 2018. The Examiner withdrew the patent-eligibility
rejection in the Examiner’s Answer. Ans. 3.

DETERMINATIONS AND CONTENTIONS
The Examiner finds that Wang discloses claim 51’s steps of
(a) receiving a compressed video bit stream, (b) dividing the compressed
video bit stream into video packets, (c) marking each video packet according
to the respective bit stream subset to which the video packet belongs, and
(d) transmitting or storing the marked video packets for decoding. Final
Act. 7–9. The Examiner also finds that Wang generally discloses claim 51’s
last step of including in a payload portion of the provided SPS packet, subset
identifiers of the related bit stream subsets. Id. at 9. The Examiner further
finds that Wang does not disclose all of claim 51’s final limitation:
Wang fails to disclose including in a payload portion of the
provided SPS packet, subset identifiers of the related bit stream
subsets, and a reduced SPS comprising only those parameters
that are updated for decoding of the dependent bit stream subset
in comparison to the SPSs associated with the related bit stream
subsets.
Id.

21, 2018 (“Ans.”); and the Reply Brief filed November 21, 2018 (“Reply
Br.”).
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The Examiner finds that Boyce teaches this missing limitation. Id.
at 9–10. More specifically, the Examiner finds that Boyce’s dependent
parameter set can share the characteristics of other parameter sets and
identify the dependency parameter set to which a sequence parameter set
refers. Id. (citing Boyce ¶¶ 3, 39, 42).
More specifically, the Examiner reasons that Boyce teaches the
missing claim limitation based upon the following interpretation of that
claim language: “claim 51 only positively recites the transmission or storage
of marked video packets for decoding; the claim construction never
positively recites ‘reducing an SPS[,]’ resulting in the creation of the
claimed ‘reduced SPS.’” Ans. 5. The Examiner then determines that
Boyce’s Dependency Parameter Set (DPS) corresponds to the claimed
“reduced SPS” merely because (1) Boyce’s DPS contains “parameters for
decoding of the dependent bitstream subset” and (2) Boyce’s DPS is sent in
a bitstream. Id. at 6.
The Examiner finds that one of ordinary skill would have been
motivated to use Boyce’s dependency parameter set with Wang’s invention
in order “to allow easy extensibility to future video coding mechanisms.”
Id. at 10 (citing Boyce ¶ 17).
Appellant argues,
Boyce does not suggest that referring a DPS set ID “reduces” the
SPS in question, nor does it make sense to imply such a reduction
because the DPS is distinct from the SPS. Indeed, referencing a
DPS in an SPS is but one example in Boyce. Boyce explains that
DPSs may be referenced by “any high level syntax structure,”
such as NAL unit headers, Access Unit Delimiters, and picture
or slice headers. Plainly, then, DPSs are not SPSs, and are not
used in Boyce to form anything like the “reduced SPS” of
claim 51.
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Instead, Boyce clearly explains that DPSs indicate inter-
layer dependencies between layers in a scalable video bitstream
and are used to “collect” information pertaining to scalable
bitstreams. The “collected information” in a DPS[,] as
contemplated by Boyce[,] includes a binary representation of the
layer structure, Visual Usability Information (VUI) pertaining to
all layers, and extension mechanisms to allow for extensibility to
future coding mechanisms. . . . At no point does Boyce describe
a “reduced DPS” that includes only those parameters updated in
relation to one or more related DPSs. Nor does Boyce describe
reducing an SPS by including only those parameters that are
updated in relation to other SPSs, and, as noted, Boyce does not
remotely suggest that including a DPS ID in an SPS provides for
a reduction of the parameters included in the SPS.
Appeal Br. 22–23 (citing Boyce ¶¶ 39–51; Spec., Abstract).

ANALYSIS
Appellant’s arguments are persuasive because the Examiner has not
established that Boyce teaches or suggests claim 51’s final step: “including
in a payload portion of the provided SPS packet, subset identifiers of the
related bit stream subsets, and a reduced SPS comprising only those
parameters that are updated for decoding of the dependent bit stream subset
in comparison to the SPSs associated with the related bit stream subsets.” In
fact, the Examiner’s reasoning, as noted above, indicates that the Examiner
effectively is giving no patentable weight to this claim language. Ans. 5–7.
That is, we understand the Examiner to be interpreting claim 51 as reading
on a payload portion that provides any number of parameters in the SPS.
We agree with the Examiner’s observation that claim 51 does not
recite an affirmative step of reducing the sequence parameter set. See
claim 51. However, this omission does not render the adjective “reduced”
unclear or meaningless. The last limitation, when read in full, indicates that
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the sequence parameter set is reduced, more specifically, “in comparison to
the SPSs associated with the related bits stream subsets.” Claim 51. As
such, claim 51 provides an objective standard or benchmark against which
one of ordinary skill reasonably can ascertain whether the claimed sequence
parameter set is reduced.
“A claim construction that gives meaning to all the terms of the claim
is preferred over one that does not do so.” Merck & Co. v. Teva Pharms.
USA, Inc., 395 F.3d 1364, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2005); see also Mangosoft, Inc. v.
Oracle Corp., 525 F.3d 1327, 1330–31 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (rejecting a claim
construction that “ascribes no meaning to the term . . . not already implicit in
the rest of the claim.”).
Accordingly, Appellant has persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection of independent claim 51. We, therefore, reverse the
obviousness rejection of that claim and of claims 52–54, which either
depend from claim 51 or otherwise recite similar language.

DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:

REVERSED

Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § References Affirmed Reversed
51–54 103 Wang, Boyce 51–54