Ex Parte Ouyang

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 21, 2018

11719490 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 21, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
11/719,490 05/16/2007 Xuemei Ouyang
24737 7590 08/23/2018
PHILIPS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY & STANDARDS
465 Columbus A venue
Suite 340
Valhalla, NY 10595
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
2004P02603WOUS 8313
EXAMINER
TIM ORY, KABIR A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2631
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/23/2018 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):
patti. demichele@Philips.com
marianne.fox@philips.com
katelyn.mulroy@philips.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte XUEMEI OUY ANG
Appeal2018-002279
Application 11/719,490
Technology Center 2600
Before JASON V. MORGAN, DANIEL N. FISHMAN, and
CATHERINE SHIANG, Administrative Patent Judges.
SHIANG, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
final rejection of claims 1, 2, 8, 9, 12, 13, 19, 20, and 23, which are all the
claims pending and rejected in the application. 2 We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Koninklijke Philips
Electronics N.V. App. Br. 3.
2 The Examiner's objection to the Specification (Final Act. 12-13) is not
before us.
Appeal2018-002279
Application 11/719,490
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
According to the Specification, the present invention relates to a
multiple in multiple out ("MIMO") based wireless multimedia
communication system. See generally Spec. 1. Claim 1 is exemplary:
1. A method for multimedia transmission in a multiple in
multiple out MIMO system over a wireless MIMO channel H,
the method comprising:
decomposing an estimated channel matrix Hn for the
MIMO channel H by a singular value decomposition (SVD) in
such a way that:
H0 = U0 D0 V~,
where Un and V n are unitary matrices of
dimensions RxM and MxL respectively,
and Dn is a diagonal matrix of dimension
MxM containing, in descending order, non-
negative singular values of Hn, which are
square roots of eigenvalues of H0 H~ or
H~H0 ;
pre-equalizing a signal with a unitary matrix Vn received
from a receiver;
using the diagonal matrix obtained from said SVD to
separate the pre-equalized signal into a plurality of different
source coding streams, the plurality of different source coding
streams comprising a base layer and at least one enhancement
layer, wherein the base layer enables decoding of at least one
multimedia content that is carried in the plurality of source
coding streams and the enhancement layer is usable to improve
a quality of the at least one multimedia content of the base layer
when the base layer is decoded;
mapping said base layer onto a stream of said plurality of
different source coding streams having a largest signal-to-noise
ratio (SNR);
mapping said at least one enhancement layer to others of
said plurality of different source coding streams than the stream
having the largest SNR; and
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Application 11/719,490
mapping each of the plurality of different source coding
streams onto an antenna for transmission.
References and Rejections
Claims 1, 2, 8, 9, 12, 13, 19, 20, and 23 are rejected under pre-AIA
35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written
description requirement.
Claims 1, 2, 12, 13, and 23 3 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C.
§ I03(a) as being unpatentable over Oprea (US 2003/0218973 Al; publ.
Nov. 27, 2003), Thielecke (US 2003/0003863 Al; publ. Jan. 2, 2003), and
Lane (US 2004/0253980 Al; publ. Dec. 16, 2004).
Claims 8 and 19 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
being unpatentable over Oprea, Thielecke, Lane, and Medvedev (US
2004/0042556 Al; publ. Mar. 4, 2004).
Claims 9 and 20 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
being unpatentable over Oprea, Thielecke, Lane, and Applicant's Admitted
Prior Art (Spec. 1 :9-35) ("AAP A").
ANALYSIS
Written Description
The Examiner determines claims 1, 2, 8, 9, 12, 13, 19, 20, and 23 fail
to comply with the written description requirement with respect to the
limitation "wherein the base layer enables decoding of at least one
multimedia content that is carried in the plurality of source coding streams,"
3 The heading incorrectly includes claims 8 and 19. Final Act. 15. Claims 8
and 19 are rejected over a different combination as indicated below. The
Examiner's error in this regard is harmless.
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Application 11/719,490
as recited in independent claims 1, 12, and 23, and corresponding dependent
claims. See Final Act. 13-14; Ans. 3-7.
To satisfy the written description requirement, the disclosure must
reasonably convey to ordinarily skilled artisans that Appellant possessed the
claimed invention as of the filing date. See Ariad Pharms., Inc. v. Eli Lilly
& Co., 598 F.3d 1336, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (en bane). Specifically, the
description must "clearly allow persons of ordinary skill in the art to
recognize that [the inventor] invented what is claimed" and
the test requires an objective inquiry into the four comers of the
specification from the perspective of a person of ordinary skill in
the art. Based on that inquiry, the specification must describe an
invention understandable to that skilled artisan and show that the
inventor actually invented the invention claimed.
Id. (internal quotations and citations omitted).
Appellant cites excerpts from pages 1 and 2 of the Specification for
supporting the disputed claim limitations. See App. Br. 9-10; Reply Br.
2-3. In particular, Appellant quotes excerpts from page 1 of the
Specification that states: "for FGS, the essential base layer needs to be
transmitted" and "if the base layer is not correctly received, the multimedia
contents cannot be recovered." Reply Br. 2-3 ( citing Spec. 1 ). In other
words, the "base layer" is required to recover (decode) the multimedia
contents-hence the base layer enables decoding of multimedia content as
recited in the claims. Having review the cited Specification excerpts, we
agree with Appellant that the cited portions reasonably convey to ordinarily
skilled artisans that Appellant possessed the claimed invention as of the
filing date. See App. Br. 9-10; Reply Br. 2-3. In particular, we agree with
Appellant that the Specification describes the invention in a manner
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Application 11/719,490
understandable to the ordinarily skilled artisan. See App. Br. 10-11; Reply
Br. 3--4.
Because the Examiner has not articulated a sufficient basis for the
rejection, we reverse the Examiner's rejection of claims 1, 2, 8, 9, 12, 13, 19,
20, and 23 under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph.
Obviousness
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejection in light of Appellant's
contentions and the evidence of record. We concur with Appellant's
contention that the Examiner erred in finding the cited portions of Oprea
teach "pre-equalizing a signal with a unitary matrix V n received from a
receiver; using the diagonal matrix obtained from said SVD to separate the
pre-equalized signal into a plurality of different source coding streams," as
recited in independent claim 1 (emphasis added). 4 See App. Br. 12-15;
Reply Br. 4--9.
The Examiner cites Oprea's paragraph 10 and finds "Oprea et al.
disclose that spatial-subspace channels are coded data symbol stream. Thus,
the examiner makes his broadest reasonable interpretation that spatial-
subspace channels as taught by Oprea et al. to be source coding streams."
Final Act. 18; Ans. 15 ( emphasis omitted).
We agree with Appellant that the Examiner has not adequately
explained why one skilled in the art would understand Oprea's spatial-
subspace channels to be the claimed "source coding streams." In particular,
the Examiner has not explained why and how Oprea's spatial-subspace
4 Appellant raises additional arguments with respect to the obviousness
rejections. Because the identified issue is dispositive of the appeal, we do
not reach the additional arguments.
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Application 11/719,490
channels constitute the claimed "source coding" streams, because the
Examiner has not explained why one skilled in the art would understand
Oprea's spatial-subspace channels to be "source coding" streams.
Because the Examiner fails to provide sufficient evidence or
explanation to support the rejection, we are constrained by the record to
reverse the Examiner's rejection of claim 1.
Each of independent claims 12 and 23 recites "source coding
streams." See claims 12 and 23. Therefore, for similar reasons, we reverse
the Examiner's rejection of independent claims 12 and 23.
We also reverse the Examiner's rejections of corresponding dependent
claims 2, 8, 9, 13, 19, and 20. Although the Examiner cites additional
references for rejecting some dependent claims, the Examiner has not shown
the additional references overcome the deficiency discussed above regarding
the rejection of claim 1.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1, 2, 8, 9, 12, 13,
19, 20, and 23 under pre-AIA (i) 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph; and (ii) 35
U.S.C. § 103.
REVERSED
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