Ex Parte Koslov et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 17, 2017

12448224 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 17, 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.
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.
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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.
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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
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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
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