Ex Parte Haimi-Cohen

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

May 21, 2019

14310548 - (D) (P.T.A.B. May. 21, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/310,548 06/20/2014
76614 7590
Terry W. Kramer, Esq.
Kramer & Amado, P.C.
330 John Carlyle Street
3rd Floor
Alexandria, VA 22314
05/23/2019
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Raziel Haimi-Cohen
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.
ALC 3935 8019
EXAMINER
ESKRIDGE, CORYW
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3624
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/23/2019 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):
mail@krameramado.com
nokia.ipr@nokia.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Exparte RAZIEL HAIMI-COHEN
Appeal2018-007439
Application 14/310,548
Technology Center 2800
Before JEFFREY T. SMITH, LINDA M. GAUDETTE, and
CHRISTOPHER C. KENNEDY, Administrative Patent Judges.
GAUDETTE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL 1
1 This Decision includes citations to the following documents: Specification
filed June 20, 2014 ("Spec."); Final Office Action dated February 8, 2018
("Final"); Appeal Brief filed April 4, 2018 ("Appeal Br."); Examiner's
Answer dated June 27, 2018 ("Ans."); and Reply Brief filed July 13, 2018
("Reply Br.").
Appeal2018-007439
Application 14/310,548
The Appellant2 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
decision finally rejecting claims 1, 3-16, and 18-30 under 35 U.S.C.
§ l 12(a) as failing to comply with the written description requirement, and
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(l) as anticipated by Conklin (US 6,765,964 Bl,
issued July 20, 2004). 3
We REVERSE.
The invention relates to compressed sensing, which the inventor
describes as "an emerging technology that acquires, compresses and
transmits a set of measurements that represent some sort of data signal"
(Spec. ,-J 2), such as a video or a picture (id. ,-i 39). According to the
Specification, "[ c Jompressed sensing is often used for transmission, where
the measurements are generated at one place (the transmitter) sent over a
channel and then received by a receiver which reconstructs the original
signal." Id. "The measurements are obtained by linear operations on the
signal." Id. Measurements transmitted via a communication channel are
quantized into codewords and the quantization codewords are transmitted
using some form of channel coding. Id. "The communication channel may
be a wired or wireless link or it can be a storage medium into which the
transmitter writes the measurements, and possibly related data, and from
which the receiver reads the measurements, and possibly related data." Id.
,-J 44. "The goal of the quantization and channel coding is to minimize the
data rate, i.e. the number of bits required for the transmission of each
measurement, while keeping the distortion at a certain level, or equivalently,
to minimize the distortion while keeping the data rate at a certain level." Id.
2 The Appellant is the Applicant, Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc.
3 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
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Appeal2018-007439
Application 14/310,548
,i 39. For example, where measurements are highly dependent, data rate may
be reduced by quantizing and transmitting the residual (i.e., the prediction
error) instead of the actual measurement. Id. ,i 46. The residual has a much
lower energy, and can be encoded at a much lower data rate, than the
original predicted measurement. Id.
In order to decode measurements, "the decoder needs to 'know' the
settings of the encoder, for example, the step size of the quantizer or the
linear prediction coefficients." Spec. ,i 4 7. Because the encoder settings are
signal-dependent, they cannot be provided to the decoder in advance, but
must be transmitted to the receiver as side information. Id. According to the
Specification, to achieve a substantial data rate reduction, "the data rate
needed for transmitting the side information must be substantially lower than
the data rate reduction in the measurements' data rate," thereby precluding
direct transmission of the encoder's settings. Id. The Specification thus
describes "ways to represent the statistical information that determines the
settings of the encoder by a parametric model that is determined by a small
number of parameters, which may be estimated from the input signal."
Id. ,i 48. According to the Specification, "these few parameters, whose
number is fixed and not dependent on the number of measurements, are the
only side information that needs to be transmitted in order to enable the
receiver to compute the information necessary to decode the measurements."
Id.
Of the appealed claims, claims 1, 10, 16, and 25 are independent. See
generally Appeal Br. 14-21 (Claims Appendix). Claims 1 and 16 are
representative, and are reproduced below:
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Appeal2018-007439
Application 14/310,548
1. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium
encoded with instructions for execution by a source device for
compressed sensing of a signal, wherein the source device
acquires a set of compressed sensing measurements using a
structured sensing matrix, the non-transitory machine-readable
medium comprising:
instructions for determining a signal specific coding
scheme for the set of compressed sensing measurements;
instructions for coding the compressed sensing
measurements using the determined signal specific coding
scheme;
instructions for determining a parametric model
describing the signal specific coding scheme for the encoded set
of compressed sensing measurements; and
instructions for transmitting a description of the
parametric model via a side communications channel, wherein
the side communications channel has a substantially lower data
rate than a data rate needed for transmitting the compressed
sensing measurements on a main transmission channel.
16. A source device comprising:
a memory device; and
a processor in communication with the memory device,
the processor being configured to acquire a set of compressed
sensing measurements of the signal using a structured sensing
matrix, determine a signal specific coding scheme for the set of
compressed sensing measurements, code the compressed
sensing measurements using the determined signal specific
coding scheme, determine a parametric model describing the
signal specific coding scheme for the encoded set of
compressed sensing measurements, and transmit a description
of the parametric model via a side communications channel,
wherein the side communications channel has a substantially
lower data rate than a data rate needed for transmitting the
compressed sensing measurements on a main transmission
channel.
Id. at 14, 18.
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Appeal2018-007439
Application 14/310,548
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 3-16, and 18-30 under 35 U.S.C.
§ l 12(a) as failing to comply with the written description requirement, and
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(l) as anticipated by Conklin. Independent claims 1
and 10 recite "[a] non-transitory machine-readable storage medium encoded
with instructions." The Specification discloses that "[a] machine-readable
storage medium may include any mechanism for storing information in a
form readable by a machine, such as a personal or laptop computer, a server,
or other computing device," and that "a non-transitory machine-readable
storage medium may include read-only memory (ROM), random-access
memory (RAM), magnetic disk storage media, optical storage media, flash-
memory devices, and similar storage media." Spec. ,-J 88.
Claim 1 recites that the instructions are for execution by "a source
device" and claim 10 recites that the instructions are for execution by "a
destination device." Independent claim 16 recites "[a] source device" and
independent claim 25 recites "[a] destination device." A source device and a
l 12
Input
Signal
114
S1911al
Actiuisilkm
System
Structured
Sensing Matrix
Geiieralot
110
Recorstmcted
Compressed
Measurement
Gerwrator
116
136
Input Signal Compressed
------ Mtas·urement
Decoder
Channel
Encoder
118
130 138
Cminnm
Deoocter
FIG. 1
5
Side Channer
Parametric Model
Information
Side Channet
Parametric Model
Information
Appeal2018-007439
Application 14/310,548
destination device are described in connection with Figure 1, reproduced
below:
Figure 1 "illustrates a communication system using compressed
measurements to transmit a signal." Spec. ,i 67. Communication system 100
includes at least one source device 110 for acquiring, encoding and/ or
transmitting signal data, and at least one destination device 130 for receiving
and decoding the received signal data. Id. "[S]ource device 110 may be any
type of device capable of acquiring signal data and encoding the signal data .
. . . [S]ource device 110 may include at least one processor and a memory
for storing instructions to be carried out by the processor." Id. ,i 68.
"[D]estination device 130 may be any type of device capable of receiving,
decoding and displaying signal data that may receive signal data from the
network 120. The receiving and decoding or any other function of the
destination device 130 may be controlled by at least one processor." Id. ,i 69.
Communication system 100 also includes transmission channel 120 that may
be any known transmission, wireless or wired channel, or a storage medium
to which source device 110 writes data and from which destination device
130 reads data. Id. ,i 67.
Claims 1 and 10 recite that the non-transitory machine-readable
medium comprises instructions "for transmitting a description of the
parametric model" ( claim 1) or "for receiving a parametric model" ( claim
10) "via a side communications channel" ( claims 1, 10). Claims 16 and 25
recite that the source device or destination device, respectively, comprises a
memory device and a "processor in communication with the memory
device" ( claims 16, 25). Claims 16 and 25 recite that the processor is
"configured to" "determine a parametric model ... and transmit a
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Appeal2018-007439
Application 14/310,548
description of the parametric model" ( claim 16) or "receive a parametric
model" ( claim 25) "via a side communications channel" ( claims 16 and 25).
Each of independent claims 1, 10, 16, and 25 recites "wherein the side
communications channel has a substantially lower data rate than a data rate
needed for transmitting the compressed sensing measurements on a main
transmission channel" ("the wherein clause"). The Appellant and the
Examiner disagree over whether the written description supports the wherein
clause and whether Conklin discloses the features recited in the wherein
clause.
The Examiner found the written description does not support the
wherein clause in claims 1, 10, 16, and 25 because "[t]here is no teaching of
a 'main transmission channel' that is separate from a 'side communications
channel."' Final 3. The Examiner found "[t]he [S]pecification appears to
simply teach 'side information' which is transmitted via 'the
communications channel' 120." Id. The Examiner found Conklin's
transmission media 9 meets the limitation recited in the wherein clause (see
Final 4, 6, 8, 9). In the Answer, the Examiner explains that this finding is
based on an interpretation of the claims as requiring only "a single
transmission channel having a required data rate that is lower than a
hypothetical transmission channel that would be required to transmit the
compressed sensing measurements." Ans. 3. The Examiner contends the
claims do not recite that the compressed sensing measurements are
transmitted, and "there is no required side communications channel, only a
primary transmission channel which has a lower required data rate than a
transmission channel that would be used to transmit the compressed sensing
measurements." Id. at 3-4.
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Application 14/310,548
The Appellant contends Specification paragraphs 47, 75, and 76
provide support for a side channel that differs from the channel that is used
for direct transmission (transmission channel 120). Appeal Br. 7. The
Appellant argues "Conklin cannot anticipate the claimed subject matter
because Conklin only discloses transmission through medium 9, a single
channel with only one data rate." Id. at 9 (emphasis omitted).
For the reasons discussed below, the Appellant's arguments are
persuasive of reversible error in the Examiner's rejections of claims 1, 3-16,
and 18-30 under 35 U.S.C. § l 12(a) and under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(l).
Turning first to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § l 12(a), the Examiner
attempts to support a finding that the Specification fails to teach a main
transmission channel that is separate from a side communications channel by
relying on Figure 1. See Ans. 2. The Examiner argues Figure 1 "illustrates
diagonal lines with arrows pointing to a transmission channel 120[, but]
[t]here is no indication of a side communication channel in the drawings."
Id. ( emphasis omitted).
"[D]rawings in a patent need not illustrate the full scope of the
invention." See Arlington Indus., Inc. v. Bridgeport Fittings, Inc., 632 F.3d
1246, 1254 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (citing MBO Labs., Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson &
Co., 474 F.3d 1323, 1333 (Fed. Cir. 2007) ("[P]atent coverage is not
necessarily limited to inventions that look like the ones in the figures. To
hold otherwise would be to import limitations onto the claim from the
specification, which is fraught with danger.")). With reference to Figure 1,
the Specification discloses that destination device 130 receives encoded
compressed sensing measurements from source device 110 via transmission
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Appeal2018-007439
Application 14/310,548
channel 120, and that source device 110 generates a parametric model that is
transmitted to destination device 130 as side information. See Spec.
,i,i 85, 86. The Specification discloses, more specifically, that channel
decoder 138 in destination device 110 "receive[s] a parametric model and
parametric data via a side channel from the channel encoder 118" that is
used to decode the encoded compressed sensing measurements. Id. ,i 75. The
Examiner has not explained persuasively why the ordinary artisan would not
have understood the disclosure in paragraphs 75, 85, and 86 as describing
two separate channels. Nor has the Examiner explained why the ordinary
artisan would not have understood Specification paragraph 4 7, quoted on
page 3, above, as disclosing that "the side communications channel has a
substantially lower data rate than a data rate needed for transmitting the
compressed sensing measurements on a main transmission channel" ( claims
1, 10, 16, 25).
Accordingly, because the Appellant has argued persuasively that the
Examiner has not met the burden to show that the claims lack written
descriptive support, we do not sustain the rejection of claims 1, 3-16, and
18-30 under 35 U.S.C. § l 12(a).
Turning next to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(l), the
Examiner contends the wherein clause reads on Conklin' s transmission
media 9 because the claims require only "a single transmission channel
having a required data rate that is lower than a hypothetical transmission
channel that would be required to transmit the compressed sensing
measurements." Ans. 3. The Examiner contends the claims do not recite that
the compressed sensing measurements are transmitted, and "there is no
required side communications channel, only a primary transmission channel
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Appeal2018-007439
Application 14/310,548
which has a lower required data rate than a transmission channel that would
be used to transmit the compressed sensing measurements." Id. at 3-4. The
Examiner's claim interpretation is incorrect for at least the following two
reasons.
First, none of the claims positively recite either a side
communications channel or a main transmission channel as an element of
the claims. Second, the Examiner fails to appreciate that although "there is
no required side communications channel" in the claims (Ans. 3-4), claims 1
and 10 require a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium
comprising instructions for transmitting or receiving a parametric model
"via a side communications channel ... ha[ ving] a substantially lower data
rate than a data rate needed for transmitting the compressed sensing
measurements on a main transmission channel," and claims 16 and 25
require a source device or a destination device comprising a processor
configured to transmit or receive a parametric model "via a side
communications channel ... ha[ ving] a substantially lower data rate than a
data rate needed for transmitting the compressed sensing measurements on a
main transmission channel." The Examiner has not identified with sufficient
specificity a description in Conklin of a non-transitory machine-readable
storage medium comprising instructions as recited in claims 1 and 10, or of a
processor configured in the manner recited in claims 16 and 25. See Final 4,
6, 8, 9.
Because the Examiner has not identified in Conklin a teaching of each
and every claim limitation recited in independent claims 1, 10, 16, and 25
we do not sustain the rejection of claims 1, 3-16, and 18-30 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(a)(l). REVERSED
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