Ex Parte Hensgen et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jan 18, 2012

09765965 (B.P.A.I. Jan. 18, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte DEBRA HENSGEN and LUDOVIC PIERRE
____________

Appeal 2009-011122
Application 09/765,965
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, MARC S. HOFF, and CARLA M.
KIRVAK, Administrative Patent Judges.

RUGGIERO, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 1-5 and 7-56, which are all of the pending claims. Claim 6 has
been canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm-in-part.
Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner,
reference is made to the Appeal Brief (filed Sep. 10, 2008), the Answer
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(mailed Dec. 3, 2008), and the Reply Brief (filed Feb. 3, 2009). Only those
arguments actually made by Appellants have been considered in this
decision. Arguments which Appellants could have made but chose not to
make in the Briefs have not been considered and are deemed to be waived
(see 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii)).

Appellants’ Invention
Appellants’ invention relates to interactive video delivery mediums
such as interactive television and, particularly, to the presentation of at least
one of a plurality of perspectives of a broadcast program to a viewer. The
plurality of perspectives are automatically recorded in a storage device and
alternate recorded perspectives can be played for the viewer without
interrupting the recording of the broadcast. See generally Spec. 1:14-16 and
6:2-8.

Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows:
1. A method for processing broadcasts, comprising:

receiving a broadcast of a program, the broadcast containing a
plurality of perspectives of the program, each of the perspectives providing a
view of a given scene from a different angle;

presenting a first perspective of the plurality of perspectives to a
viewer, said first perspective comprising a first perspective of a portion of
the program;

storing at least one of the plurality of perspectives;

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providing input from a viewer which indicates a desire to replay the
portion of the program from a second perspective of the plurality of
perspectives;

identifying in the first perspective a first point in time in the program
which corresponds to the beginning of said portion, responsive to the input;

automatically determining a second point in time in the second
perspective, wherein the second point in time comprises an approximation of
the first point in time in the program;

presenting the portion of the program from the second perspective to
the viewer beginning at the second point in time; and

periodically storing broadcast meta-data corresponding to each of one
or more of the received plurality of perspectives of the program, said meta-
data comprising at least time and/or offset information for each of the
corresponding one or more plurality of perspectives.

The Examiner’s Rejections
The Examiner relies on the following prior art references to show
unpatentability:
Jain (Jain ‘471) US 5,729,471 Mar. 17, 19981
Jain (Jain ‘375) US 6,144,375 Nov. 7, 2000
(filed Aug. 14, 1998)
Abecassis US 6,289,165 B1 Sep. 11, 2001
(filed Feb. 9, 1999)

Claims 1-5, 7-22, and 25-56 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e)
as being anticipated by Jain ‘375.2

1 Jain ‘471 is incorporated by reference in Jain ‘375
2 The Examiner has withdrawn the 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph,
rejection of claims 1, 15, 20, 31, and 45 (Ans. 11).
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Claims 23 and 24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Jain’375 in view of Abecassis.

ANALYSIS
35 U.S.C. § 102(e) REJECTION
Claims 1-5, 7, 9, 10, 15, 17, 20-22, 26, 29-35, 39, 40, 43-46, 48, 49,
51, 53, and 54

Appellants’ arguments with respect to the Examiner’s anticipation
rejection of independent claims 1, 15, 20, 31, and 45 initially focus on the
alleged failure of Jain ‘375 to disclose the storing of metadata corresponding
to a received plurality of perspectives of a broadcast program wherein the
metadata “comprises at least time and/or offset information” for each of the
plurality of perspectives. According to Appellants (App. Br. 13-14), Jain
‘375 discloses the use of various filtering criteria in developing a multi-
media database, but not the use of time and offset information. In a related
argument (App. Br. 15-16), Appellants contend that, while Jain ‘375
discloses the use of a time clock, the time clock refers to the time of an
event, such as a football program, not the time of each perspective of a
program.
Appellants’ arguments are not persuasive in convincing us of any
error in the Examiner stated position. We find that ample evidence exists in
at least the portions of Jain ‘375 cited by the Examiner at pages 3-5 of the
Answer, and the additional citations in the “Response to Argument”
portion of the Answer at pages 11-13, to support the Examiner’s position
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that Jain ‘375 discloses the storing of time information for each of a plurality
of perspectives of a program.3
As disclosed by Jain ‘375, the multiple perspective interactive (MPI)
system includes a video database in which each camera sequence is stored
along with its metadata (col. 7, ll. 35-43). It is apparent that this metadata
includes time information since Jain ‘375 discloses that a video window can
display video data streams from different camera perspectives, events are
synchronized and organized along a system time line, and a “virtual replay”
button enables a viewer to view a selected replay event from a “best”
perspective (Fig. 7, col. 22, ll. 60-67, col. 24, ll. 50-53, and col. 25, ll. 13-
21). Similarly, Jain ‘375 discloses that a viewer can use VCR-type controls
to fast forward or reverse between events organized on a time line, as well as
view the events from different camera angle perspectives (Fig. 7, col. 25, l.
57-col. 26, l. 6, col. 26, ll. 26-67, and col. 27, ll. 14-31).
We further find to be unpersuasive Appellants’ arguments (App. Br.
16-17; Reply Br. 7-12) that Jain’ 375 has no disclosure of relating first and
second points in time in first and second viewing perspectives as claimed.
As previously discussed, Jain ‘375 discloses enabling a viewer to replay
selected events along a time line from different camera perspectives. We
agree with the Examiner (Ans. 12-13) that an ordinarily skilled artisan
would recognize and appreciate that Jain ‘375’s disclosed replay feature
would require the determination of a point in time in a second perspective
(second point, as claimed) that corresponds to a first point in time of a first

3 The language in each of the independent claims 1, 15, 20, 31, and 45 recites
the time and offset feature in alternative format (“at least time and/or offset
information”).
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perspective (beginning point, as claimed). We also find that, while the
language of independent claims 1, 15, 20, 31, and 45 recites that the second
point in the second perspective is an “approximation” of the first point in the
first perspective, the exact camera perspective synchronization provided by
the digitally determined time line of Jain ‘375 is the best case of an
“approximation.”
We further find that the disclosure of Jain ‘471, incorporated by
reference in Jain ‘375, and discussed by the Examiner at page 12 of the
Answer, provides further evidence in support of the Examiner’s position.
For example, Figures 17-21 of Jain ‘471, and the accompanying description
at column 33, line 30 through column 34, line 54, disclose the acquisition
and storing of time data associated with a plurality of cameras and their
perspectives.
Lastly, although Appellants, at pages 5-7 of the Reply Brief, draw
attention to the claimed requirement of a viewer input indicating a desire to
replay portions of a program from a different perspective, we find no error in
the Examiner’s stated position. For example, the afore-mentioned Jain ‘471
discloses the ability of the described system to enable a viewer to select and
replay events in a scene from different camera perspectives (col. 7, ll. 63-
66). Similarly, we find multiple portions of Jain ‘375 discuss that a viewer
can select to replay program events from different camera perspectives (col.
25, ll. 16-21 and col. 26, ll. 26-28 and 60-64).
In view of the above discussion, we find that the Examiner did not err
in concluding that all of the limitations of independent claims 1, 15, 20, 31,
and 45 are present in the disclosure of Jain ‘375. Accordingly, the
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Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) rejection of independent claims 1, 15, 20, 31,
and 45, as well as dependent claims 2-5, 7, 9, 10, 17, 21-24, 26, 29, 30, 32-
35, 39, 40, 43, 44, 46, 48, 49, 51, 53, 54 not separately argued by
Appellants, is sustained.

Claims 8, 11-14, 16, 18, 19, 25, 27, 28, 36-38, 41, 42, 47, 50, 52, 55,
and 56

We do not sustain the Examiner’s anticipation rejection of claims 8,
11-14, 16, 18, 19, 25, 27, 28, 36-38, 41, 42, 47, 50, 52, 55, and 56. Each of
these claims includes features directed to the identification of points in time
in different perspectives by identifying or locating “offsets” in stored files
that correspond to the different perspectives. As illustrated in Figure 11 of
Appellants’ drawings and described at pages 26-28 of the Specification, the
identification or location of offsets involves the determination of the amount
of bytes of information from the beginning of the stored files that contain the
different perspectives.
We agree with Appellants (App. Br. 17-21; Reply Br. 7-14) that none
of the cited portions of Jain ‘375, or the incorporated by reference Jain ‘471,
provides any teaching or suggestion of the determination of perspective
offset information as claimed. We find that the Examiner’s analysis (Ans. 6,
7, and 11-13) simply does not explain where in the cited references a
corresponding disclosure of perspective offset determination exists.

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35 U.S.C. § 103(a) REJECTION
We sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection, based on the
combination of Jain ‘375 and Abecassis, of dependent claims 23 and 24.
Appellants (App. Br. 21) have provided no separate arguments for the
patentability of the rejected claims but, instead, have relied upon arguments
presented against the anticipation rejection of independent claim 20. As
discussed supra, we have found these arguments to be unpersuasive.

CONCLUSION
Based on the analysis above, we conclude that Appellants have not
shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-5, 7, 9, 10, 15, 17, 20-
22, 23, 24, 26, 29-35, 39, 40, 43-46, 48, 49, 51, 53, and 54, but have shown
the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 8, 11-14, 16, 18, 19, 25, 27, 28, 36-
38, 41, 42, 47, 50, 52, 55, and 56.

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-5 and 7-56 under
35 U.S.C. § 102(e) is affirmed-in-part.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED-IN-PART

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