Ex Parte DE WITH et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Mar 23, 2004

09328693 (B.P.A.I. Mar. 23, 2004)

The opinion in support of the decision being entered today was not written for
publication and is not binding precedent of the Board.
Paper No. 38
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________
Ex parte PETER H.N. DE WITH and STEPHANUS J.J. NIJSSEN
____________
Appeal No. 2002-1231
Application No. 09/328,693
____________
ON BRIEF
____________
Before THOMAS, BARRETT, and DIXON, Administrative Patent Judges.
DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal from the examiner's final rejection of claims 1, 4-9
and 18, which are all of the claims pending in this application.
We REVERSE.
Appeal No. 2002-1231
Application No. 09/328,693
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BACKGROUND
Appellants’ invention relates to a device for transmitting television pictures and
device for receiving said pictures. An understanding of the invention can be derived
from a reading of exemplary claim 1, which is reproduced below.
1. A device for transmitting television pictures, comprising:
means for dividing each television picture into blocks;
means for forming motion vectors for said blocks;
means for forming a reference vector and a plurality of difference
vectors from the motion vectors of a plurality of contiguous blocks which
form a sub-picture, the reference vector being the motion vector of any
selected one of said blocks, and each difference vector being the
difference between the motion vector of a block and the motion vector an
immediately adjacent block; and
a variable-length encoder for encoding the difference vectors into
code words of variable length, the motion vectors of a sub-picture being
applied to the variable-length encoder in the form of a series which
successively comprises the difference vectors and the reference vector,
the variable-length encoder being of a type which allocates a code word of
variable length to each sequence of zero values followed by a non-zero
value in said series.
The prior art references of record relied upon by the examiner in rejecting the
appealed claims are:
Vogel 4,901,075 Feb. 13, 1990
Yagasaki et al. (Yagasaki) 5,428,396 Jun. 27, 1995
Fujinami 0 556 507 A1 Aug. 25, 1993
Appeal No. 2002-1231
Application No. 09/328,693
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Claims 1, 4-9, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Fujinami in view of Vogel in view of Yagasaki.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and
appellants regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the examiner's
answer (Paper No. 37, mailed Oct. 23, 2001) for the examiner's reasoning in support of
the rejections, and to appellants’ brief (Paper No. 36, filed Aug. 15, 2001) for appellants’
arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
Appellants argue that the combination of references must teach all of the claim
limitations and that the combination of Fujinami, Vogel and Yagasaki do not teach or
fairly suggest “the reference vector being the motion vector of any selected one of said
blocks” as recited in independent claim 1. (See brief at pages 4-5.) The examiner
maintains that Fujinami teaches the vector VN being the representative vector of Va,
Vb, and Vc and the difference between the individual vectors as shown in Fig. 3 is
considered to be zero and relies upon the teachings of columns 7-8. (See answer at
page 6.) While we agree with the examiner that Fujinami teaches that VN is a
Appeal No. 2002-1231
Application No. 09/328,693
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representative vector for the macroblock, we do not find that Fujinami or the
combination teaches or fairly suggests “means for forming a reference vector and a
plurality of difference vectors from the motion vectors of a plurality of contiguous blocks
which form a sub-picture, the reference vector being the motion vector of any selected
one of said blocks, and each difference vector being the difference between the motion
vector of a block and the motion vector an immediately adjacent block.” We disagree
with the examiner’s correlation of the teachings of Fujinami to the claim limitations.
Fujinami discloses at columns 6-8 that the subblocks are used in the processing and
determination of the representative values, but that the macroblock is the block which
corresponds to the encoded data by the variable length coder. Therefore, the “blocks”
as recited throughout the claim would have to correspond to the macroblock and not
the subblock as correlated by the examiner. Therefore, the representative vector
between must be selected from the motion vectors of the other macroblocks to teach or
suggest the limitation as claimed. We agree with appellants that Fujinami does not
teach or suggest the above limitation. Appellants argue that Yagasaki does not teach
or suggest the above limitation at page 5 of the brief and the examiner does not
respond more than repeating the prior citation to column 18 of Yagasaki regarding a
strong spatial correlation. (See answer at page 7.) While we agree that Yagasaki
teaches the strong spatial correlation, we do not find that Yagasaki teaches or fairly
suggests “the reference vector being the motion vector of any selected one of said
Appeal No. 2002-1231
Application No. 09/328,693
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blocks” as recited in the language of independent claim 1. Therefore, we find that the
examiner has not established a prima facie case of obviousness, and we cannot
sustain the rejection of independent claim 1 and its dependent claims 4 and 5.
Independent claims 6, 9 an 18 contain similar limitations which the examiner has not
shown in the prior art applied, therefore, we find that the examiner has not established
a prima facie case of obviousness, and we cannot sustain the rejection of independent
claims 6, 9 and 18 and their dependent claims 7 and 8.
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CONCLUSION
To summarize, the decision of the examiner to reject claims 1, 4-9 and 18 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 is reversed.
REVERSED
JAMES D. THOMAS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
LEE E. BARRETT ) APPEALS
Administrative Patent Judge ) AND
) INTERFERENCES
)
)
)
JOSEPH L. DIXON )
Administrative Patent Judge )
JD/RWK
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Application No. 09/328,693
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PATENT DEPARTMENT
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