13104565 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 27, 2017)

Ex Parte Grancharov et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 27, 2017

13104565 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 27, 2017)

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. 13/104,565 05/10/2011 Volodya GRANCHAROV 9900-31980US2 1473 146825 7590 03/29/2017 S»aae Patent fTrnnn/Telefnnaktiehnlaaet T M F,ries;s;nn EXAMINER PO BOX 30789 RALEIGH, NC 27622-0789 WOZNIAK, JAMES S ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2657 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/29/2017 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): instructions @ sagepat. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte VOLODYA GRANCHAROV and SIGURDUR SVERRISSON Appeal 2016-0076131 Application 13/104,565 Technology Center 2600 Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, JOYCE CRAIG, and ALEX S. YAP, Administrative Patent Judges. YAP, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of claims 1, 2, 6-10, and 13-19, which are all the claims pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b) We affirm. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Telefonaktiebolaget L M Ericsson. (App. Br. 1.) Appeal 2016-007613 Application 13/104,565 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellants’ invention “relates to processing of audio signals, in particular to a method and an arrangement for improving perceptual quality by post-filtering.” (September 3, 2014 Specification (“Spec.”) 12.) Claim 1 is illustrative, and is reproduced below (with minor reformatting): 1. A method of operating a decoder comprising: obtaining a vector d comprising quantized Modified Discrete Cosine Transform (MDCT) domain coefficients of a time segment of an audio signal; A deriving a processed vector d by applying a post- filter directly on the vector d, the post-filter being configured to have a transfer function H which is a compressed version of an envelope of the vector d; and deriving a signal waveform by performing an A inverse MDCT transform on the processed vector d; wherein the transfer function H comprises an emphasis component configured to control a post-filter aggressiveness over the MDCT spectrum; and wherein the emphasis component is frequency dependent. Prior Art and Rejections on Appeal The following table lists the prior art relied upon by the Examiner as evidence in rejecting the claims on appeal: Chen et al. (“Chen”) US 5,884,010 Mar. 16, 1999 Ojala et al. (“Ojala”) US 6,584,441 B1 June 24, 2003 Gao US 2007/0219785 Al Sept. 20, 2007 2 Appeal 2016-007613 Application 13/104,565 Shlomot et al. (“Shlomot”) Kim et al. (“Kim”) US 2008/0195383 Al Aug. 14, 2008 US 2009/0150143 Al June 11, 2009 Claims 1, 2, 9, 10, and 16—19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Gao in view of Shlomot. (See Sept. 9, 2015 Non- Final Office Action (“Office Act.”) 7-10.) Claims 6 and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Gao, in view of Shlomot, and further in view of Kim. (See Office Act. 10-11.) Claims 7 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Gao, in view of Shlomot, and further in view of Chen. (See Office Act. 11.) Claims 8 and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Gao, in view of Shlomot, and further in view of Ojala. (See Office Act. 11-12.) ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’ arguments that the Examiner has erred. Appellants have not persuaded us that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1, 2, 6-10, and 13-19. “the emphasis component is frequency dependent ” Claim 1 recites “the transfer function H comprises an emphasis component configured to control a post-filter aggressiveness over the MDCT spectrum . . . wherein the emphasis component is frequency dependent.” 3 Appeal 2016-007613 Application 13/104,565 The Specification discloses that the “transfer function, or filter function, H(k), is a compressed version of the envelope of the MDCT spectrum[,]” whereby ymax[abs(f/)jj (Spec. 116.) According to the Specification, the “parameter a(k) may be set to control the post-filter ‘aggressiveness’, or ‘amount of emphasis’ over the MDCT spectrum.” (Id. at| 17.) Figure 1 is reproduced below. 1/6 (3 \ \\ V «ss... Si>~ ' "XS 5ss ....s» MDCT coefficient Figure 1 Figure 1 “shows a diagram of an example of how a(k) may be configured as a frequency dependent vector.” (Id.) The Examiner finds that “[wjhile Gao does not explicitly mention the variability of the emphasis component based on frequency, Gao does teach variability based upon bitrate.” (Office Act. 8.) According to the Examiner, Shlomot links bit rate to frequency bands such that for a frequency band, a particular bit rate is used. (Id.) Therefore, the Examiner concludes that “[w]hen combined with the teachings of Gao, this yields a post-processing filter that varies an emphasis component with respect to frequency sub- 4 Appeal 2016-007613 Application 13/104,565 bands because the emphasis component varies based on bitrate[,] which effectively depends on frequency.” {Id. at 8-9.) Appellants contend that Gao’s “emphasis value is never frequency dependent in processing a single time segment of an audio signal over the MDCT spectrum.” (App. Br. 7; Reply 2-3.) Appellants’ contention is not persuasive because, as discussed above, the Examiner is relying on Shlomot, not Gao, for dependency based on frequency. (Office Act. 8-9; Ans. 11.) Rather, the Examiner is relying on Gao for the teaching that the emphasis component may vary based on the bit rate. (Office Act. 8-9; Ans. 11; Gao 130 (“Although the value of a may be constant for each bit rate, the value of a may vary based on the bit rate.’ ’ ) (emphasis added).) Appellants also contend that in Shlomot the bit rate is constant for one frame during decoding and post filter processing, which corresponds to the one sample of MDCT coefficients. Thus, for decoding this one frame of MDCT coefficients, there is not [sic] description in Shlomot of using a frequency dependent emphasis component over the MDCT spectrum for the sample. (App. Br. 8, underling omitted, italics added.) Figure 1 of Shlomot is reproduced below. Adi: l v a, v. v.