Ye-Kui Wang et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Apr 29, 2020

15409105 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Apr. 29, 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.
15/409,105 01/18/2017 Ye-Kui Wang 1212-690US02/131140U2C1 8058
23696 7590 04/29/2020
QUALCOMM INCORPORATED
5775 MOREHOUSE DR.
SAN DIEGO, CA 92121
EXAMINER
BECK, LERON
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2487
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/29/2020 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):
us-docketing@qualcomm.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte YE-KUI WANG and YING CHEN
Appeal 2018-007664
Application 15/409,105
Technology Center 2400
Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JOHN A. JEFFERY, and JOHN A. EVANS,
Administrative Patent Judges.
DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–15. See Final Act. 1. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37
C.F.R. § 1.42 (2017). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as
QUALCOMM Incorporated. Appeal Br. 3.
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Application 15/409,105

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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to an indication of current view dependency
on a reference view in multiview coding file format. Claim 1, reproduced
below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A method of processing video data, the method comprising:

parsing a track of multiview video data, wherein the track
includes one or more views, including only one of a texture view of a
particular view and a depth view of the particular view; and

parsing a track reference to determine a dependency of the track
to a referenced track indicated in the track reference, wherein parsing
the track reference includes parsing a track reference type ‘deps’ that
indicates that the track includes the depth view of the particular view
and the reference track includes the texture view of the particular
view.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is:
Name Reference Date
Alshina et al. US 2011/0243233 A1 Oct. 6, 2011
Hannuksela et al. US 2013/0235152 A1 Sept. 12, 2013

REJECTIONS
Claims 1–4, 7–11, and 13–15 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Hannuksela.
Claim 5, 6, and 12 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable Hannuksela in view of Alshina.
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OPINION
35 U.S.C. § 103
“[T]he precise language of 35 U.S.C. § 102 that ‘(a) person shall be
entitled to a patent unless,’ concerning novelty and unobviousness, clearly
places a burden of proof on the Patent Office which requires it to produce
the factual basis for its rejection of an application under sections 102 and
103.” In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1016 (CCPA 1967).
A preponderance of the evidence must show nonpatentability before
the PTO may reject the claims of a patent application. In re Caveney, 761
F.2d 671, 674 (Fed. Cir. 1985).
The Examiner bears the initial burden of factually supporting any
prima facie conclusion of obviousness. The key to supporting any prima
facie conclusion of obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is the clear
articulation of the reason(s) why the claimed invention would have been
obvious. The Court in KSR Int’l. v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007) noted
that the analysis supporting a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 should be
made explicit. The Federal Circuit has stated that “rejections on
obviousness grounds cannot be sustained by mere conclusory statements;
instead, there must be some articulated reasoning with some rational
underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness.” In re Kahn,
441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006), cited with approval in KSR Int’l. v.
Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007).
Appellant provides separate arguments to most of the rejected claims.
We select independent claim 1 as the illustrative claim and will address
Appellant’s arguments thereto. Independent claim 1 is directed to “a method
of processing video data the method comprising: parsing a track of
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multiview video data.” Independent claims 2, 8, 9, 14, and 15 are directed to
similar methods, devices, and storage mediums for “parsing” or
“composing” and contain similar disputed limitations.
Appellant argues that the Hannuksela reference does not teach or
suggest the claimed “parsing a track reference type ‘deps’ that indicates that
the track includes the depth view of the particular view and the reference
track includes the texture view of the particular view.”
Appellant further argues although Hannuksela discloses in paragraph
147 “view dependencies are specified in the sequence parameter set (SPS)
MVC extension,” Hannuksela does not disclose anything similar to track
reference type “deps.” Appeal Br. 8. As a result, Appellant contends that
Hannuksela fails to disclose “parsing a track reference type ‘deps’ that
indicates that the track includes the depth view of the particular view and the
reference track includes the texture view of the particular view,” as recited in
illustrative claim 1. Appeal Br. 8. Appellant also contends that none of the
passages relied upon by the Examiner in Hannuksela or any other passages
of Hannuksela disclose any reference type that “indicates the track includes
the depth view of the particular view and the reference track includes the
texture view of the particular view.” Appeal Br. 9. Appellant further argues
that the Examiner’s arguments are flawed and makes several erroneous
logical leaps. Appeal Br. 10. Appellant contends that:
Merely indicating which pictures may be used as references in
inter-view prediction (in point (3) above and as described in
paragraphs [0147] - [0149] of Hannuksela) does not disclose or
suggest parsing a track reference indicating that the particular
track depends on the texture of another track as described in
Appellant’s originally filed specification of track reference type
“tref.”
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Appeal Br. 10.
Appellant argues that paragraph 210 of the Specification “describes a
track reference type that is signaled in the track” and paragraph 147 of the
Hannuksela reference merely describes “view dependencies are specified in
the sequence parameter set (SPS) [and] for the set of pictures that refer to the
same SPS, all the anchor pictures have the same view dependency, and all
the non-anchor pictures have the same view dependency.” Appeal Br. 10.
Appellant contends that there is a marked difference between how
Appellant’s Specification and Hannuksela use the SPS and the track
reference. Appeal Br. 10. Therefore, Appellant submits that it does not
follow that there is any equivalency between the track reference type “tref”
described in Appellant’s originally-filed Specification and the dependency
information in the SPS of Hannuksela. Appeal Br. 10. Finally, Appellant
submits:
that a track reference type which “indicates that the track
includes the depth view of the particular view and the reference
track includes the texture view of the particular view,” i.e.,
“deps,” as recited in claim 1, is not an obvious variant of a track
reference type that indicates “that the track depends on the
texture view of the particular view which is stored in the
referenced track,” i.e., “tref,” as alleged in the Final Office
Action (described in Appellant’s originally-filed specification).
While both reference types (“deps” and “tref”) may be useful
tools to indicate specific view dependency information, the
reference types are not similar nor obvious variants as each
reference type has separate utility because each reference type
would indicate different properties to a decoding device.
By taking this path of argumentation, the Final Office
Action all but acknowledges that the features of claim 1 are
nowhere to be found in Hannuksela. And the art of record (apart
from Appellant’s own disclosure) does not offer anything to
modify the techniques of Hannuksela to even come close to
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suggesting “parsing a track reference type ‘deps’ that indicates
that the track includes the depth view of the particular view and
the reference track includes the texture view of the particular
view” set forth in claim 1.
Appeal Br. 11.
The Examiner generally responds to Appellant’s arguments and does
not specifically address the deficiencies in the rejection regarding “‘parsing
a track reference type ‘deps.’” The Examiner speculates and generally finds
On pages 8-10, Appellant argues that Hannuksela never
refers to a dependency type “tref” and only is described in
appellant’s disclosure. The examiner[’s] sole purpose of
mentioning “tref” was to compare the disclosed definition with
prior arts definition of the function. The appellant describes in
the specification “tref” to be the presence of which in a track
indicates that the current track depends on the texture view. Well
to be consistent with appellant’s specification, the examiner
presents Hannuksela, which teaches in [0149], a coding sequence
parameter set SPS that indicates a picture has a view dependency
on an inter-view reference picture. Hence the correlation of a
“tref” to be present. Appellant further argues that Hannuksela
does not even contemplate anything akin to track reference type
“deps” and thus fail to disclose “parsing a track reference type
“deps” that indicates that the track includes the depth view of the
particular view and the reference track includes the texture view
of the particular view.[”] The examiner respectfully disagrees.
The appellant[’s] specification states that “deps” is defined as the
presence of which indicates that the current track contains the
depth view that is associated with a texture view in the referenced
track. To be consistent with instant appellant’s specification,
Hannuksela discloses in [0189] depth enhanced videos refer to
texture having one or more depth views which can be indicated
in a message format. Hannuksela discloses in [0341] the decoder
may synthesize information from texture and depth view. An
SEI message is used to indicate such information. The decoder
is a parser.
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Ans. 7–8.
Appellant contends that Hannuksela fails to describe “the reference
track includes the texture view of the particular view” set forth in claim 1 let
alone a reference type “that indicates that the track includes the depth view
of the particular view and the reference track includes the texture view of the
particular view,” as claimed. Reply Br. 3. Appellant further contends that
paragraphs 189 and 341 of Hannuksela merely describe depth and texture
views without describing that a track includes the depth view and the
reference track includes the texture view and describes synthesizing a view
component from an unavailable reference picture and describes using an SEI
message to indicate whether a view component should be used as an inter
prediction reference for subsequent view components. Reply Br. 3–4.
“A rejection based on section 103 clearly must rest on a factual
basis. . . .” In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017 (CCPA 1967). “The Patent
Office has the initial duty of supplying the factual basis for its rejection. It
may not . . . resort to speculation, unfounded assumptions or hindsight
reconstruction to supply deficiencies in its factual basis.” Id.
Although we agree with the Examiner that the Hannuksela reference
discloses the use of texture views and depth views, the Examiner has not
shown that the Hannuksela reference teaches or suggests the specific
combination of “parsing a track reference to determine a dependency of the
track to a referenced track indicated in the track reference, wherein parsing
the track reference includes parsing a track reference type ‘deps’ that
indicates that the track includes the depth view of the particular view and the
reference track includes the texture view of the particular view,” as claimed.
As a result, Appellant has shown error in the examiner’s factual findings and
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ultimate conclusion of obviousness based upon the teachings of the
Hannuksela reference alone. Therefore, we cannot sustain the examiner’s
obviousness rejection of illustrative independent claimant 1. Because
independent claims 2, 8, 9, 14, and 15 contains a similar claim language, and
the Examiner has not identified how the teachings of the Hannuksela
reference teaches or suggests the claim limitations, we cannot sustain the
rejection of those independent claims for the same reason. Because
dependent claims 2–4, 7, 10, 11, and 13 contain the same limitations, we
cannot sustain the examiner’s obviousness rejection thereof.
With respect to claims 5, 6, and 12, the Examiner does not identify
how the additional teachings of the Alshina reference remedy in the noted
deficiency. Consequently, we cannot sustain the obviousness rejection of
dependent claims 5, 6, and 12.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner’s obviousness rejections are reversed.
DECISION SUMMARY

Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/
Basis
Affirmed Reversed
1–4, 7–11,
13–15 103 Hannuksela
1, 5–9,
11–15,
17–20
5, 6, 12 103 Hannuksela, Alshina 5, 6, 12
Overall
Outcome:
1–15
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REVERSED