Ex Parte Liang

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jan 18, 2011

10670949 (B.P.A.I. Jan. 18, 2011)

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.
10/670,949 09/25/2003 Kai-Chieh Liang SLA1325 2056
7590 01/18/2011
Gerald W. Maliszewski
P.O. Box 270829
San Diego, CA 92198-2829
EXAMINER
LUONG, ALAN H
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2427
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/18/2011 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________________

Ex parte KAI-CHIEH LIANG
____________________

Appeal 2009-008206
Application 10/670,949
Technology Center 2600
____________________

Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, ALLEN R. MacDONALD and
CARLA M. KRIVAK, Administrative Patent Judges.

MacDONALD, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL1

1 The two-month time period for filing an appeal or commencing a civil
action, as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 1.304, or for filing a request for rehearing,
as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 41.52, begins to run from the “MAIL DATE”
(paper delivery mode) or the “NOTIFICATION DATE” (electronic delivery
mode) shown on the PTOL-90A cover letter attached to this decision.
Appeal 2009-008206
Application 10/670,949

2
STATEMENT OF CASE
Introduction
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a final rejection of
claims 1, 6-15, 20-26, 31-40, and 45-50. Claims 2-5, 16-19, 27-30, and 41-
44 have been canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We
reverse.
Exemplary Claim(s)
Exemplary independent claim 1 under appeal reads as follows (with
emphases added):
1. A uniform resource indictor (URI) pointer method for the
retrieving Moving Picture Experts Group 4 (MPEG-4) data pointers in a
Moving Picture Experts Group 2 (MPEG-2) transport stream (TS), the
method comprising:

receiving an MPEG-2 TS embedded with MPEG-4 resources
organized in Object Carousal (OC) transport protocol;

locating a URI in the TS using a local identifier (lid) retrieved from
the MPEG-2 TS;

retrieving MPEG-4 resources from the MPEG-2 TS using lid URIs to
provide a binding name and access scheme to the objects in the OC; and,

decoding the MPEG-4 resources.

Rejections
1. The Examiner rejected claims 1 and 6-14 as being unpatentable
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over the combination of Appellant’s Admitted
Prior Art (Spec. 2:1-6:2; and see Liang US 2005/0081143 A1, ¶¶ [0006]-
[0025]) (hereinafter, “AAPA”); Carston Herpel, Elementary Stream
Appeal 2009-008206
Application 10/670,949

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Management in MPEG-4, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS
FOR VIDEO TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 9, NO. 2, pp. 315-24, March 1999
(hereinafter, “Herpel”); and Waki, EP 1 045 564 A1.
2. The Examiner rejected dependent claims 15 and 20-39 as being
unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over combination of AAPA; Herpel;
Waki; and Yokomizo, US 2002/0124263 A1.
3. The Examiner rejected dependent claims 40 and 46-50 as being
unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over combination of AAPA;
Yokomizo; and Ito, US 6,377,309 B1.
Appellant’s Contentions
Appellant asserts (App. Br. 10) that a local identifier Universal
Resource Indicator (lid URI) is defined in the Specification in accordance
with SMPTE 343M-2002 (see Spec. 26:16-22).
Appellant contends (App. Br. 11-13, 16, and 19-22; Reply Br. 4) that
the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1, 6-15, 20-26, 31-40, and 45-50
because none of the applied references to AAPA, Herpel, Waki, Yokomizo,
or Ito teach, disclose, or suggest the limitations of using a local identifier
(lid) to access MPEG-4 resources in an MPEG-2 transport stream (TS) by
using a lid URI to provide a binding name and access scheme to objects in
an Object Carousel (OC). Appellant also contends that no combination of
the applied references teaches, discloses, or suggests such a lid URI feature,
nor is such a lid URI feature well-known (App. Br. 17, 20, and 22; Reply Br.
4).
Appellant contends that Herpel describes addressing resources using
URLs (Universal Resource Locators) instead of lid URIs (Reply Br. 3).

Appeal 2009-008206
Application 10/670,949

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Issue on Appeal
Whether the Examiner has erred in rejecting claims 1, 6-15, 20-26,
31-40, and 45-50 as being obvious because AAPA, Herpel, Waki,
Yokomizo, and/or Ito, individually or in combination, fail to teach or
suggest the lid URI claim limitations at issue?

ANALYSIS
We agree with the Appellant’s contentions above.
The terms “lid,” “URI,” and “lid URI” are defined and described in
Appellant’s Specification as follows:
The address access unit 206 may locate different kind of
URIs, to sources such as a local cache address, a Web
protocol identifier, such as ftp or http, and/or a local
identifier (lid). URIs can be used to identify various
points of content, such as a page of text, a video or sound
clip, a still or animated image, or a particular a MPEG-4
resource. The most common form of URI is the Web
page address (e.g. [,] an http address), which is a
particular form or subset of URI called a Uniform
Resource Locator (URL). In this invention, we use a
local identifier (lid) URI, which is defined in SMPTE
343M-2002, for referencing resources in a broadcast
transport.
In some aspects, the address access unit 206
receives an MPEG-2 TS embedded with MPEG-4
resources. The AAU 206 uses lid URIs retrieved from
the MPEG-2 TS to retrieve MPEG-4 resources from the
MPEG-2 TS. More specifically, the MPEG-4 resources
are organized in Object Carousal (OC) transport protocol.
Spec. 9:24-10:12.
Appeal 2009-008206
Application 10/670,949

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In the following paragraphs, the use of a Universal
(or Uniform) Resource Identifier (URI) is described, for
the binding names of the U-U Objects. With an
appropriate URI scheme and the U-U Object Carousels, a
mechanism can be built for delivering MPEG-4 data in a
MPEG-2 broadcasting network.

URI, as defined in RFC2396, is a simple, unified
and extensible mechanism for identifying a resource.
URI is a generic form (superset) of Universal Resource
Locator (URL). It is not limited to the existing Internet
protocols and can be expanded with new access
technology. The ISO/IEC 13818-1 specification uses
URL as an alternative, yet undefined, approach for
referencing MPEG-4 data elements. This invention
expands the URL concept to a more generic URI format
for an access framework and broader scope of data
reference.

A particular URI called Local Identifier (lid:) is
used in this invention. The lid URI scheme, as defined in
SMPTE 343M-2002, is designed for identifying
resources, e.g. [,] HTML pages and graphics files, which
are transmitted through unidirectional means such as
television broadcast. By using the lid scheme in the
invention, resources, such as MPEG-4 scenes and
associated streams, are transmitted and identified in the
unidirectional broadcasting channel. There is no need for
a return channel to access the resources remotely such as
over the Internet. When resolving a lid reference, the
receiver may first look for the resource in cache (if cache
is used in the receiver). If it is not found, the receiver can
just report the resource is not available, or it can wait for
the resource to appear in the broadcast stream. The
receiver can time out and report the resource is not
available, if the resource does not appear after some
period of time.

Spec. 26:3-27:3.
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Application 10/670,949

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We find that none of the references to Herpel (pp. 319-324), Waki (¶¶
[0017]-[0019], [0132], and [0136]-[0141]), and Yokomizo (Figs. 8A, 8B; ¶¶
[0115]-[0117]) disclose, teach, or suggest a lid URI or using a lid URI to
address an OC.
The combinations of AAPA and the various secondary references to
Herpel, Waki, Yokomizo, and/or Ito do not teach or suggest a lid URI used
to locate a URI in an MPEG-2 TS, nor do these combinations teach or
suggest using lid URIs to provide a binding name and access scheme to
objects in an object carousel, as set forth in independent claims 1, 15, 26,
and 40.2

CONCLUSIONS
(1) Appellant has established that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claims 1, 6-15, 20-26, 31-40, and 45-50 as being unpatentable under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
(2) On this record, claims 1, 6-15, 20-26, 31-40, and 45-50 have not
been shown to be unpatentable.

2 The issue of whether it would have been obvious to combine the lid URI as
described in the SMPTE Standard 343M-2002 (see Appellant’s Evidence
Appendix at App. Br. 34) with the disclosures of any of the various applied
references is not before us, and accordingly, we make no determinations or
conclusions in that regard.
Appeal 2009-008206
Application 10/670,949

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DECISION
The Examiner's rejections of claims 1, 6-15, 20-26, 31-40, and 45-50
are reversed.

REVERSED

KIS

GERALD W. MALISZEWSKI
P.O. BOX 270829
SAN DIEGO, CA 92198-2829