Ex Parte Koslov et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 17, 201712448224 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 17, 2017) Copy Citation 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. 12/448,224 06/12/2009 Joshua Lawrence Koslov PU060207 6349 24498 7590 01/19/2017 Robert D. Shedd, Patent Operations THOMSON Licensing LLC 4 Research Way 3rd Floor Princeton, NJ 08543 EXAMINER MCKIE, GINA M ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2631 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/19/2017 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): uspto@technicolor.com pat. verlangieri @ technicolor.com russell. smith @ technicolor.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JOSHUA LAWRENCE KOSLOV, WEN GAO, and YIK CHUNG WU Appeal 2016-004146 Application 12/448,224 Technology Center 2600 Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, JON M. JURGOVAN, and MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges. MacDONALD, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2016-004146 Application 12/448,224 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1—3, 5, 6, and 8—24. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). Exemplary Claim Exemplary claim 1 under appeal reads as follows (emphasis added): 1. A method comprising: receiving initial encoded data that has been encoded with a rateless code; determining a quality metric for a communication medium on which the initial encoded data has been received; identifying a modulation scheme used in sending the initial encoded data on the communication medium; determining, based on the identified modulation scheme and the determined quality metric, an estimate of an amount of mutual information being received for the received rateless encoded data, wherein the amount of mutual information is useful for indicating whether a decoder is able to decode the received rateless encoded data; and determining an amount of mutual information being received based on the determined estimate. Rejection on Appeal The Examiner rejected claims 1—3, 5, 6, and 8—24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Kadous (US 7,508,748 B2; Mar. 24, 2009) and Kozat (US 2007/0133691 Al; June 14, 2007).1 1 Our decision as to claim 1 is determinative. Therefore, except for our ultimate decision, claims 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8—24 are not discussed further. 2 Appeal 2016-004146 Application 12/448,224 Appellants ’ Contention2 Appellants contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because: The final Office Action acknowledges that Kadous does not disclose estimating an amount of mutual information being received for the received rateless encoded data. . . . The final Office Action asserts that this feature can be found in FIG. 5 and paragraphs [0038-0039] of Kozat. However, neither the cited portions nor any other part of Kozat make any mention of mutual information, much less estimating an amount of mutual information being received for received rateless encoded data. App. Br. 8. Issue on Appeal Did the Examiner err in rejecting claim 1 as being obvious? PRINCIPLE OF LAW During examination, “claims ... are to be given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification, and ... claim language should be read in light of the specification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art.” In re Bond, 910 F.2d 831, 833 (Fed. Cir. 1990); In re Bass, 314 F.3d 575, 577 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (“[T]he PTO must apply the broadest reasonable meaning to the claim language, taking into account any definitions presented in the specification.”); In re Cortright, 165 F.3d 1353, 1358 (Fed. Cir. 1999) (“Although the PTO must give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation, this interpretation must 2 This contention is determinative as to the rejection on appeal. Therefore, Appellants’ other contentions are not discussed herein. 3 Appeal 2016-004146 Application 12/448,224 be consistent with the one that those skilled in the art would reach.”). Although we apply the broadest reasonable interpretation during examination, “[a]bove all, the broadest reasonable interpretation must be reasonable in light of the claims and specification.” PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Corning Optical Commc’ns RF, LLC, 815 F.3d 747, 755 (Fed. Cir. 2016). ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’ arguments that the Examiner has erred. As to Appellants’ above contention (covering claim 1), we agree. The Examiner responds: It is noted by the examiner that mutual information is undefined by the Appellant in the claims. The most that is known about mutual information is that an amount is “received” and “the amount of mutual information is useful for indicating whether a decoder is able to decode the received rateless encoded data.” Based on these characteristics of mutual information given in the claims, Kozat discloses mutual information in paragraph [0047]. . . . Kozat’s “extra information” is effectively the “mutual information” as recited in claims 1, 11, 18 and 21. Ans. 2—3. We disagree with the Examiner. Appellants’ Specification at paragraph 61 states “the computed mutual information (using an unconstrained channel capacity formula) may be much higher than the actual mutual information obtained in the receiver.” Further, those skilled in the telecommunications art would recognize that “[i]n telecommunications, the channel capacity is equal to the mutual information, maximized over all input distributions.” See Wikipedia “Mutual information” at the “Applications” section thereof; see also Wu et al. (US 2005/0009476 Al; pub. January 13, 2005) at paragraph 2 (“Channel 4 Appeal 2016-004146 Application 12/448,224 capacity is the maximum value of the so called mutual information between the transmitter and the receiver that is given by Claude Shannon’s famous formula.”); Pauli et al. (US 2004/0219883 Al; pub. November 4, 2004) at paragraph 111 (“The channel coding theorem states that an ideal code and decoder is capable of transmitting reliably at a code rate equal to the mutual information of the channel, which is in this example equals the channel capacity for BPSK transmission.”). We conclude that in the Specification the term “mutual information” is shown as a channel capacity relationship, and this use of the term was well-known by those skilled in the art. We conclude the Examiner is mistaken in construing “mutual information” as “undefined” and so broadly as to include the “extra information” of Kozat. CONCLUSIONS (1) Appellants have established that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1—3, 5, 6, and 8—24 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). (2) On this record, these claims have not been shown to be unpatentable. DECISION The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—3, 5, 6, and 8—24 is reversed. REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation