Ex Parte Huizer et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Feb 10, 2003

08683994 (B.P.A.I. Feb. 10, 2003)

1 Application for patent filed July 19, 1996, which claims the foreign
filing priority benefit under 35 U.S.C. § 119 of the European Application No.
EPO 95202019.6, filed July 21, 1995.
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for publication and is not binding precedent of the Board.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. 17
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________
Ex parte CORNELIS M. HUIZER, LUCAS M.W.M. KAREL,
FRANK BOSVELD and PIETER JAN DE VISSER
____________
Appeal No. 2002-1162
Application No. 08/683,9941
____________
ON BRIEF
____________
Before LEVY, BLANKENSHIP and SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judges.
SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1-13, which are all of the claims pending in
this application.
We reverse.
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BACKGROUND
Appellants’ invention is directed to a method of
transmitting and receiving compressed television signals that
marks the transmitted signal with position labels at positions
where the transmission of the signal can be resumed after an
interruption. Appellants utilize a transmission strategy in
which a decoder throws away all bits that are delivered by the
network after the “Pause” command has been issued (specification,
page 2). According to Appellants, the server cannot exactly
determine the stream position at the time the pause was affected
at the decoder due to the delay in communication (id.). By
transmitting position labels, decoders can precisely determine
which bits are stored and which ones are to be thrown away after
the “Pause” command is detected wherein the continuation of the
stream involves the request for new bits starting at the
appropriate position label (specification, page 3).
Representative independent claim 1 is reproduced below:
1. A method of transmitting a compressed television
signal, comprising the steps of inserting position labels
into said signal at positions where the transmission of said
signal can be resumed after an interruption, wherein
reproduction of said signal is interrupted upon detection of
a position label after a pause command is received.
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The Examiner relies on the following reference in rejecting
the claims:
Kostreski et al. (Kostreski) 5,635,979 Jun. 3, 1997
(filed May 27, 1994)
Claims 1-13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being
anticipated by Kostreski.
We make reference to the answer (Paper No. 16, mailed
November 21, 2000) for the Examiner’s complete reasoning in
support of the rejection and to the appeal brief (Paper No. 15,
filed September 18, 2000) for Appellants’ arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
The Examiner equates the claimed “position label” with the
“time stamp” of Kostreski which is derived from the MPEG data of
a “frozen frame” and is sent back to the server along with a
“pause” command (answer, page 4). Additionally, the Examiner
characterizes Kostreski’s “deriving” action (Col. 17, lines 63-
67) indicated by extracting the “time stamp” already present in
the data stream when the “pause” command is actuated as
resumption of the transmission signal (answer, page 4).
Appellants rely on the disclosure of Kostreski in Column 17,
lines 59-64 and argue that the time stamp disclosed in the prior
art is neither inserted into the signal at positions where the
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transmission of the signal can be resumed after an interruption
nor is the reproduction of the signal interrupted upon detection
of a position label after a pause command is received (brief,
pages 4 & 5). Additionally, Appellants assert that when a
subscriber enters a “pause” command, the decoding is immediately
frozen and the last decoded frame is displayed (brief, page 5).
Appellants further argue that Kostreski’s time stamp is not the
same as the claimed position labels because the time stamp is
derived from the MPEG data of the frozen frame and is transmitted
after the decoding is frozen (id.).
In response to Appellants’ arguments, the Examiner asserts
that the positioning of the frames is encoded as part of the
normal MPEG data stream whereas time stamps are interleaved with
the frame data which are extracted in the client hardware
(answer, page 5). The Examiner further relies on the timing and
frame information during the normal display of the movie and
concludes that such timing information, which is embedded in the
MPEG data stream before the data stream is transmitted to the
client, reads on the claimed “position labels” (id.).
A rejection for anticipation under section 102 requires that
the four corners of a single prior art document describe every
element of the claimed invention, either expressly or inherently,
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such that a person of ordinary skill in the art could practice
the invention without undue experimentation. See Atlas Powder
Co. v. Ireco Inc., 190 F.3d 1342, 1347, 51 USPQ2d 1943, 1947
(Fed. Cir. 1999); In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1478-79, 31 USPQ2d
1671, 1673 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
After a review of Kostreski, we agree with Appellants’
assertion that the time stamps are not inserted into the signal
and the decoding is actually frozen before the time stamp is
transmitted. Kostreski relates to a programmable digital
entertainment terminal (DET) that may be dynamically reprogrammed
on an as-needed basis to provide a wide range of functionally
different broadband services (Col. 1, lines 8-12 and Col. 3,
lines 60-65). As depicted in figure 3, a video on demand
application with an enhanced pause functionality is disclosed
wherein upon receiving a “PAUSE” command from the subscriber, the
DET provides for immediately freezing the decoding and displaying
the last decoded frame (col. 17, lines 57-60). It is clear that
once the pause of the program is detected, the DET transmits a
time stamp derived from the MPEG data of the frozen frame as well
as a pause command to the server (Col. 17, lines 60-65) which
stops transmitting video and stores the time stamp (Col. 17,
lines 65 & 66). Therefore, as pointed out by Appellants, instead
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of the claimed “reproduction of said signal is interrupted upon
detection of a position label after a pause command is received,”
Kostreski provides for transmitting a time stamp derived from the
MPEG data of a frozen frame. In other words, the transmission is
first frozen and then a time stamp is sent to the server which
later resumes transmission from the frame group identified by the
time stamp.
We find Appellants’ distinction of the steps or means for
resuming transmission after an interruption at positions where
the position labels are inserted and interrupting the signal when
a position label is detected, as recited in claims 1 and 7, over
the time stamp of Kostreski to be persuasive. As discussed
above, the time stamps are not inserted into the video signal and
are, in fact, generated and transmitted after freezing the
decoding of the signal. We note that claims 7 and 12, in
addition to the above discussed features, require that upon
receiving the pause command, the received signal following the
position label be thrown away. As discussed above, the Examiner
neither points to any specific portion of Kostreski that
discloses the discarding of the received signal following the
position label, nor do we find the time stamp of Kostreski to
include information for directing such task. Accordingly,
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Kostreski cannot anticipate any of independent claims 1, 6, 7 and
12, nor claims 2-5, 8-11 and 13 dependent therefrom.
CONCLUSION
In view of the foregoing, the decision of the Examiner
rejecting claims 1-13 under 35 U.S.C. § 102 is reversed.
REVERSED
STUART S. LEVY )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
HOWARD B. BLANKENSHIP ) APPEALS
Administrative Patent Judge ) AND
) INTERFERENCES
)
)
)
MAHSHID D. SAADAT )
Administrative Patent Judge )
MDS/ki
Appeal No. 2002-1162
Application No. 08/683,994
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