Ex Parte Akyol et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 24, 2016

11643130 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 24, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
11/643,130 12/21/2006
22879 7590 03/28/2016
HP Inc,
3390 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 35
FORT COLLINS, CO 80528-9544
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
EmrahAkyol
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
82228739 2663
EXAMINER
PARK, SUNGHYOUN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2484
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/28/2016 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):
ipa.mail@hp.com
barbl@hp.com
yvonne.bailey@hp.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte EMRAH AKYOL and DEBARGHA MUKHERJEE
Appeal2014-002516
Application 11/643,130
Technology Center 2400
Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., and
NABEEL U. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judges.
WHITEHEAD JR., Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants are appealing the Final Rejection of claims 1-22 under 35
U.S.C. § 134(a). Appeal Brief 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b) (2012).
We affirm.
Introduction
The invention is directed to a video encoding that enables control over
motion estimation to meet encoding constraints. Abstract.
Appeal2014-002516
Application 11/643,130
Representative Claim (disputed limitations emphasized)
1. A method, comprising:
scaling a set of complexity control parameters of a motion estimation
process in response to an encoding constraint;
encoding a series of video frames, wherein the encoding comprises
estimating motion between macro-blocks in respective ones of the video
frames in accordance with the motion estimation process and the scaled
complexity control parameters.
Rejections on Appeal
Claims 1---6, 11-15, and 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as
being unpatentable over Li (International Publication Number WO
2004/023821 Al; published March 18, 2004) and Hsieh (US Patent
Application Publication Number 2003/0152151 Al; published August 14,
2003). Answer 2-7.
Claims 7-10 and 16-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as
being unpatentable over Li, Hsieh and Liu (US Patent Application
Publication Number 2004/0258154 Al; published December 23, 2004).
Answer 7-11.
Claim 22 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being
unpatentable over Li, Hsieh, Liu and Zhu (US Patent Number 5,757,668;
issued May 26, 1998). Answer 11-12.
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Appeal2014-002516
Application 11/643,130
ANALYSIS
Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner,
we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed June 5, 2013), the Answer (mailed
October 8, 2013) and the Final Rejection (mailed April 11, 2013) for the
respective details. We have considered in this decision only those
arguments Appellants actually raised in the Briefs.
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants'
contentions that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants'
contentions. We concur with the findings and reasons set forth by the
Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken and the reasons set
forth by the Examiner in the Answer in response to Appellants' Appeal Brief
and adopt them as our own, except as to those findings that we expressly
overturn or set aside in the analysis as follows.
Appellants argue that the obviousness rejection of claim 1 is
erroneous because Li fails to show "adjusting any of the motion estimation
and motion compensation processes" and "therefore, does not disclose or
suggest estimating motion between macro-blocks in respective ones of the
video frames" and Hseih does not make up for the acknowledged failure of
Li. Appeal Brief 5. Appellants' cite to pages 5, 10, and 11 to support the
disputed claim limitation. Appeal Brief 2.
Appellants further argue that Hseih:
only teaches that the quantization parameter is used to quantize
the DCT coefficients of the already-motion-compensated
difference frame; it does not disclose anything about estimating
motion between macro-blocks in respective ones of the video
frames in accordance with either a target bit rate or a quantization
parameter as apparently assumed by the Examiner.
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Appeal2014-002516
Application 11/643,130
Appeal Brief 6.
Li discloses the employment of I, P, and B frames in a video sequence
wherein the P-frames are Predictive-frames ("i.e. frames which are encoded
using motion estimation and motion compensation from two adjacent Intra-
frames") and B-frames are Bi-directional-frames ("i.e. frames which are
encoded using motion estimation and motion compensation from two
adjacent Intra-frames"). Li, page 3, lines 20-28. Li also discloses frames
are encoded in accordance with quantization parameters. Li, page 16, lines
1-22. Li does not mention macroblocks however segmenting P and B
predictive frames into macroblocks is fundamentally how P and B frames
are employed to predict or estimate motion and this is well known in the
video compression art. The Examiner finds Hsieh discloses encoding based
upon estimating motion between macroblocks. See Final Rejection (citing
Hsieh, paragraphs [0003--4]). Appellants' argument that Hsieh discloses
employing the quantization parameter after the motion compensation is not
persuasive because the Examiner relied upon Li and not Hsieh to disclose
the quantization parameter. See Final Rejection 5---6. Therefore we agree
with the Examiner's findings and sustain the obviousness rejection of
claim 1. We also sustain the obviousness rejection of claims 2---6, 11-15,
and 21 not separately argued. Appeal Brief 8.
We sustain the obviousness rejection of claim 7-10 and 16-20
because we did not find Appellants' argument that Liu fails to address the
deficiency of the Li/Hsieh combination persuasive because we did not find
the combination deficient. We also sustain the obviousness rejection of
claim 22 because we did not find Appellants' argument that Zhu failed to
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Appeal2014-002516
Application 11/643,130
address the deficiency of the Li/Hsieh/Liu persuasive because we did not
find the combination deficient.
DECISION
The Examiner's obviousness rejections of claims 1-22 are affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv). See 37
C.F.R. § 41.50(±).
AFFIRMED
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