ARRIS Enterprises LLC

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Dec 15, 2021

2021004719 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 15, 2021)

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.
15/709,130 09/19/2017 Ajay Luthra ARR01151 7203
166675 7590 12/15/2021
CHERNOFF, VILHAUER, MCCLUNG & STENZEL, LLP
(Arris/Commscope)
111 SW Columbia Street
Suite 725
Portland, OR 97201
EXAMINER
BENNETT, STUART D
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2481
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/15/2021 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):
ARRIS.Docketing@Commscope.com
patent.docket@chernofflaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
________________

Ex parte AJAY LUTHRA and PRAVEEN N. MOORTHY1
________________

Appeal 2021-004719
Application 15/709,130
Technology Center 2400
________________

Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, and
MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges.

STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1–6, all of the pending claims.2 Final Act. 1. Method
claim 1 is independent. Appeal Br. 10 (Claims App.). We have jurisdiction

1 Appellant identifies Arris Enterprises, LLC, as the real party in interest.
Appeal Br. 2.
2 In this Decision, we refer to Appellant’s Appeal Brief filed March 17,
2021 (“Appeal Br.”); the Reply Brief filed July 28, 2021 (“Reply Br.”); the
Final Office Action mailed August 17, 2020 (“Final Act.”); the Examiner’s
Answer mailed June 28, 2021 (“Ans.”); and the Specification filed
September 19, 2017 (“Spec.”). Rather than repeat the Examiner’s findings
and Appellant’s contentions in their entirety, we refer to these documents.
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under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). Oral argument was held December 3, 2021. The
transcript will be added to the record in due course.
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.

CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Appellant describes that “[t]he present disclosure relates generally to
the field of HTTP streaming and more specifically to just-in-time encoding
of data files in response to a received streaming request.” Spec. ¶ 2.
Independent claim 1, reproduced below with a disputed limitation
emphasized, illustrates the subject matter of the appealed claims:

1. A method of data delivery comprising:
accessing a data file;
publishing a pseudo-manifest of two or more available
playback bit rates for said data file;
receiving a request for delivery of said data file at a
selected bit rate, selection from said two or more available
playback bit rates;
encoding a first chunk of said data file at the selected bit
rate to be delivered first in time relative to remaining
subsequent chunks of the data file that are delivered at the
selected bit rate later in time in response to said request for
delivery of said data file; and
transmitting said first chunk, wherein said encoding of
said first chunk is encoded at the selected bit rate at a
processing rate greater than a real-time transcoding rate, while
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the subsequent chunks are encoded at the selected bit rate at a
processing rate lower than the first chunk.

Appeal Br. 10 (Claims App.).

REFERENCES AND REJECTIONS

The Examiner relies on or otherwise refers to the following prior-art
references:
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejects:
a. claims 1, 2, and 4–6 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the
combined teachings of Moorthy and HEVC (Final Act. 4–7); and
b. claim 3 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined
teachings of Moorthy, HEVC, and Côté (id. at 7–8).

3 All citations herein to the prior art are by reference to the first named
inventor/author only.
Name3 Reference Date
Moorthy US 2014/0040496 A1 Feb. 6, 2014
Côté US 9,137,551 B2 Sept. 15, 2015
High efficiency video coding, Telecommunication
Standardization Sector of ITU H.265/HEVC (04/2015)
(hereinafter “HEVC”).
Ke Shen, Lawrence A. Rowe, Edward J. Delp III, “Parallel 
implementation of an MPEG‐1 encoder: faster than real time,”
Proc. SPIE 2419, Digital Video Compression: Algorithms and
Technologies 1995, (17 April 1995); doi: 10.1117/12.206377
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ISSUE
Based on Appellant’s arguments, the dispositive issue presented on
appeal is whether the combination of HEVC and Moorthy’s disclosure of a
client device requesting video content at a different resolution teaches
encoding subsequent chunks of a file at a processing rate lower than a first
chunk in rejecting independent claim 1 as obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
For the reasons discussed below, Appellant’s arguments persuade us that the
Examiner errs.
ANALYSIS
The Examiner rejects claim 1 as obvious over the combined teachings
of Moorthy and HEVC. Final Act. 4–6. The Examiner relies upon
Moorthy’s disclosure of generating an on-demand HTTP stream for teaching
most of the limitations of claim 1. Id. at 4–5 (citing Moorthy ¶¶ 3, 9–11,
20). Relevant to this decision, the Examiner finds Moorthy’s disclosure of a
client device requesting video content at a second, different resolution
teaches that chunks of a video data file subsequent to a first chunk are
encoded at the same selected bit rate but at a processing rate lower than the
first chunk. Id. at 5 (citing Moorthy ¶¶ 11, 20).
The Examiner acknowledges “Moorthy fails to expressly disclose
wherein said encoding of said first chunk is encoded at the selected bit rate
at a processing rate greater than a real-time transcoding rate.” Id.
Addressing the noted deficiency, the Examiner relies on HEVC’s disclosure
of an international standard for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC)
listing maximum picture rates for various video formats for teaching the
missing limitation. Id. at 5 (citing HEVC § A.2, Tables A.7, A.8). In
particular, according to the Examiner, “a ‘real-time transcoding rate’ is
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considered 30 frames per second and 256 frames per second [shown in Table
A.8] is 8.53 times ‘real-time,’” thereby teaching encoding at a processing
rate greater than a real-time transcoding rate. Id.
Appellant contends the Examiner’s finding that “Moorthy discloses
that ‘subsequent chunks are encoded at the selected bit rate at a processing
rate lower than the first chunk’” appears to rely on the Examiner’s “citation
to a portion of Moorthy that indicates that after requesting a first sequence of
chunks at a selected bit rate/resolution, the user can later request a second
sequence of chunks at a second bit rate/resolution.” Appeal Br. 6 (citing
Final Act. 5). Concerning the first possibility, a change in bit rate, Appellant
emphasizes that claim 1 requires the first and subsequent chucks be encoded
at the same selected bit rate while, at the same time, processing the first
chunk at a faster rate than the subsequent chunks. Id. at 6–7. Appellant
argues “Moorthy does not disclose that an encoder should change the
processing rate at which chunks are encoded without a concurrent change in
bitrate.” Id. at 7. Addressing the second possibility, Appellant argues “a
user changing the resolution but not the bit rate would have no plausible
effect on the processing rate of the encoder, as the encoder would still be
producing the same number of bits per second.” Id. Addressing the HEVC
publication, Appellant contends the reference is similarly deficient with
regard to the argued limitation. Appellant argues as follows.
The Examiner cites a portion of the HEVC specification that
comprises mere tables that associate a maximum possible frame
rate as a function of various picture sizes and various encoding
levels. These tables do not teach anything about what rate a
transcoder should process the data at. Nor does it teach
modifying the method of Moorthy at all. The tables are mere
data indicating what maximum frame rates are possible.
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Id.
The Examiner responds, asserting a change in resolution while
maintaining a bit rate will result in a change in processing rate:
In Moorthy’s disclosure by maintaining a bitrate and changing
only the resolution, you have a first processing rate and a
second processing rate. Each of the processing rates being the
product of having different samples to process in each frame
due to the change in resolution while maintaining the same
bitrate. By transcoding at a processing rate of 30 FPS and
subsequently a different processing rate (e.g., 15 FPS or 60
FPS), the different processing rates of the claims are achieved.
Ans. 10.
According to the Examiner:
Moorthy’s coder is processing at a certain rate and when the
bitrate does not change, but the number of samples do (e.g.,
change in resolution), then there is a change in the processing
rate. For instance, Moorthy discloses in ¶ [20] the resolution
can be “either higher or lower” and when the initial resolution
is lower, then there is a higher processing rate of frames,
because there are less samples to process.
Id. at 11.
Appellant’s argument is persuasive of reversible Examiner error.
Appellant’s Specification describes “[b]ased upon a request received in step
206, a server can determine an appropriate coding rate 208 and then encode
a chunck of the data file at the requested bit rate at an encoding rate faster-
than-real-time encoding in step 210.” Spec. ¶ 27. The Examiner finds a real
time encoding rate to be 30 frames per second. Final Act. 5. Thus, without
deciding whether the value of 30 frames per second is a real time encoding
rate, we nonetheless agree that a basis for measuring an encoding rate
includes a number of frames encoded per unit time. However, rather than
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disclosing changing an encoding rate, e.g., frames per second, Moorthy
discusses changing either a bit rate or resolution of the encoded frames.
Moorthy ¶ 11. As emphasized by Appellant, claim 1 requires the first and
subsequent chunks of a data file be encoded at the same bit rate. Appeal Br.
7. Thus, the only encoding change disclosed by Moorthy that might be
requested within the scope of claim 1 is a request for a change in resolution.
However, although the Examiner finds such a change, if made, would result
in lowering a processing rate, the finding is not supported by sufficient
evidence or persuasive technical reasoning and, therefore, speculative. Ans.
11.
Firstly, although Moorthy discloses the ability to change resolution,
the Examiner provides insufficient evidence that such a change would be
requested and implemented after a first chunk so as to affect subsequent
chunks. Secondly and more importantly, we find insufficient evidence that
changing an encoding resolution while maintaining the same bit rate would
affect the processing rate, e.g., the number of frames encoded per unit time.
Accordingly, the Examiner errs in finding that Moorthy teaches or suggests
the disputed limitation requiring subsequent chucks of a data file be encoded
at the same bit rate as a first chunk but at a processing rate lower than the
first chunk.
Because we agree with at least one of Appellant’s contentions of
error, we do not reach the merits of Appellant’s other contentions.
Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejection of independent claim 1
nor the rejections of its dependent claims 2–6.

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CONCLUSION
We reverse the Examiner’s rejection of:
a. claims 1, 2, and 4–6 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the
combined teachings of Moorthy and HEVC; and
b. claim 3 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined
teachings of Moorthy, HEVC, and Côté.

DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:

REVERSED

Claim(s)
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis

Affirmed Reversed
1, 2, 4–6 103 Moorthy, HEVC 1, 2, 4–6
3 103 Moorthy, HEVC, Côté 3
Overall
Outcome
1–6