Ex Parte Subramanian et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 24, 2014

10892897 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 24, 2014)

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.
10/892,897 07/16/2004 Mk Subramanian 106861-0541 2434
121312 7590 07/25/2014
Foley & Lardner LLP/ Broadcom Corporation
3000 K Street N.W, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20007-5109
EXAMINER
CZEKAJ, DAVID J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2487
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/25/2014 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 PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte MIK SUBRAMANIAN, SANDEEP BHATIA,
SANTOSH SAVEKAR, GAURAV AGGARWAL,
and K. SHIVAPIRAKASAN
____________

Appeal 2012-003506
Application 10/892,897
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before JOHN A. JEFFERY, DENISE M. POTHIER, and
JEREMY J. CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judges.

JEFFERY, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
decision to reject claims 1-24. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants’ invention displays pictures using audio visual
synchronization. A presentation time stamp (PTS) associated with the
picture is extracted and compared to a local time clock value. The picture is
deemed mature for presentation if the PTS exceeds the local time clock
value by less than a first predetermined threshold. The picture is also
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deemed mature if the local time clock value exceeds the PTS by less than a
second predetermined threshold. See generally Abstract. Claim 1 is
illustrative:
1. A method for displaying pictures, said method comprising:
receiving an identifier, said identifier associated with a frame buffer
storing a decompressed picture at a circuit;
extracting a presentation time stamp associated with the picture,
wherein the picture is associated with a time stamp;
comparing a local time clock value to the presentation time stamp;
determining that the picture is mature for presentation if the
presentation time stamp exceeds the local time clock value by less than a
first predetermined threshold; and
determining that the picture is mature for presentation if the local time
clock value exceeds the presentation time stamp by less than a second
predetermined threshold.

THE REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 11, 15, 17, 18, 22, and 24
1

under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Min (US 6,970,526 B2, Nov.
29, 2005), Shimizu (US 6,339,675 B1, Jan. 15, 2002), and Cheney (US
5,668,599, Sept. 16, 1997). Ans. 4-6.
2

1
Although the Examiner includes claims 9 and 16 in this rejection, these
claims were grouped together with claim 2 in the Briefs due to their
commensurate limitations. See App. Br. 11-13; Reply Br. 13-17. Because
claim 2 was rejected over Min, Shimizu, Cheney, and Himeno, we presume
that the Examiner intended to so reject claims 9 and 16. In addition, the
Examiner’s reference to the rejections of claims 1-4 (which includes claim
2) in connection with claims 8-11 and 15-18 (which includes claims 9 and
16) further supports this presumption. See Ans. 6. Accordingly, we present
the corrected claim listing here consistent with this presumption.
2
Throughout this opinion, we refer to (1) the Appeal Brief filed July 13,
2011 (“App. Br.”); (2) the Examiner’s Answer mailed October 18, 2011
(“Ans.”); and (3) the Reply Brief filed December 14, 2011 (“Reply Br.”).
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The Examiner rejected claims 2, 9, 16, and 23 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Min, Shimizu, Cheney, and Himeno (US
7,088,911 B2, Aug. 8, 2006). Ans. 6-7.
The Examiner rejected claims 5-7, 12-14, and 19-21 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Min, Shimizu, Cheney, and Kesselring (US
US 6,674,803 B1, Jan. 6, 2004). Ans. 7-8.

THE REJECTION OVER MIN, SHIMIZU, AND CHENEY
Regarding claim 1, the Examiner finds that Min (1) extracts a PTS
associated with a picture; (2) compares a local time clock value to the PTS;
and (3) determines that the picture is mature if the PTS exceeds the local
time clock value by less than a first predetermined threshold. Ans. 4-5.
Although the Examiner acknowledges that Min lacks the second recited
determination step, the Examiner cites Shimizu for this feature. Ans. 5. The
Examiner also cites Cheney for teaching receiving an identifier associated
with a frame buffer storing a decompressed picture as claimed. Id. Based
on these collective teachings, the Examiner concludes that the claim would
have been obvious. Ans. 4-5, 8-9.
Appellants argue that the Examiner’s reliance on Cheney is flawed
because Cheney’s identifier would be received significantly later than Min’s
detecting PTS values and comparing them with System Time Clock (STC)
values. App. Br. 7-11; Reply Br. 7-13. As such, Appellants contend, the
picture referred to in Min cannot be the picture stored in Cheney’s frame
buffers because these buffers are provided near the end of decoding as
shown in Cheney’s Figure 3. App. Br. 11; Reply Br. 12-13. Appellants also
argue claim 24 separately.
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ISSUE
Under § 103, has the Examiner erred by:
(1) combining Cheney with Min and Shimizu in concluding that claim
1 would have been obvious?
(2) finding that these references collectively would have taught or
suggested comparing the PTS with the picture after decompressing the
picture as recited in claim 24?

ANALYSIS
Claims 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 11, 15, 17, 18, and 22
We begin by noting that because the Examiner’s findings regarding
Shimizu are undisputed, we confine our discussion to Min and Cheney. And
as noted above, the Examiner cites Min for teaching the second through
fourth clauses of claim 1, but cites Cheney for teaching the first clause.
It is this reliance on Cheney that forms the basis of this dispute, for
Appellants’ arguments are based solely on timing: namely, that Cheney’s
identifier would be received after Min’s extracting, comparing, and
determining steps. See App. Br. 7-11; Reply Br. 11-13.
Appellants’ arguments are therefore premised on the assumption that
the first recited step of method claim 1 must be performed before the other
recited steps. To be sure, method steps are not ordinarily construed to
require an order unless they expressly or implicitly require performance in
that order. Altiris, Inc. v. Symantec Corp., 318 F.3d 1363, 1369 (Fed. Cir.
2003) (citing Interactive Gift Express, Inc. v. Compuserve Inc., 256 F.3d
1323 (Fed. Cir. 2001)).
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That exception, however, applies here. In claim 1, the first
affirmative step is receiving an identifier that is associated with a frame
buffer storing a decompressed picture. Although there is no affirmative
storing step, the limitation nonetheless implicitly requires storing a
decompressed picture in a frame buffer at or before the time the identifier is
received. And as Appellants indicate (App. Br. 11), later references to “the
picture” in other limitations of claim refer to the decompressed picture
stored in the frame buffer. Thus, when considering the claim as a whole, the
first clause of claim 1 must be performed before the other clauses.
Turning to the rejection, the Examiner finds that because Min’s PTS
and STC value comparison is a display determination, it is performed after
decoding. Ans. 8. This finding is reasonably supported by Min despite
Appellants’ arguments to the contrary (Reply Br. 13). Notably, Min
performs two different detections and comparisons in connection with
decoding: one involving a Decode Time Stamp (DTS) that indicates when a
picture must be decoded, and another involving a PTS indicating when the
picture must be presented to the decoder output. Min, col. 3, ll. 29-36, 51-
60.
Because the latter PTS comparison for decoder output presentation is
distinct from the DTS comparison for decoding, Min at least suggests that
the PTS comparison involves a display determination after decompression
and decoding as the Examiner indicates, particularly since pictures would be
displayed after presenting them to the decoder’s output. See id.; see also
Cheney, col. 7, ll. 62-64 (noting that decoder output 151 goes to a pixel bus).
So even assuming, without deciding, that Cheney’s frame buffers 111, 121
and their associated address-based identifiers in Figure 3 are provided late in
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the decoding process as Appellants contend (Reply Br. 12),
3
we still see no
error in the Examiner’s position at least to the extent that the mapped PTS
extraction, comparison, and output-presentation determination steps in Min
can occur for decompressed and decoded pictures. See Ans. 8-9. Therefore,
the Examiner’s reliance on Cheney for teaching the first step of claim 1 and
Min for teaching the second through fourth steps of claim 1 is not erroneous.
Accordingly, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in
rejecting representative claim 1, and claims 3, 4, 8, 10, 11, 15, 17, 18, and 22
not argued separately with particularity. We add, however, that the frame
buffer in independent claims 8 and 15 does not store a decompressed picture
as in claim 1, but rather just “a picture.” As such, Appellants’ arguments
regarding various limitations having antecedent basis to a decompressed
picture in connection with claim 1 (App. Br. 11) are not commensurate with
the language of the other independent claims. Nevertheless, we are
unpersuaded of error in the Examiner’s position regarding claims 8 and 15
for the foregoing reasons.

Claim 24
We also sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 24 reciting
comparing the PTS with the picture after decompressing the picture.
Despite Appellants’ arguments to the contrary (App. Br. 13-15; Reply Br.
17-19), we see no error in the Examiner’s position at least to the extent that
because Min’s PTS comparison determines whether to display a picture

3
Although Appellants refer to Cheney’s usage of the beginning of the
“frame buffer to complete its decoding” in both lines 59 and 63 of column
14, that term is only used in line 59. Line 63 uses the term “to continue
decoding.”
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immediately, performing this comparison after decompression would have
been at least an obvious variation. See Ans. 6 (citing Min, col. 3, ll. 55-59).
Accord Ans. 8-9 (“[T]he picture referred to by Min[] is a picture after a
decompression/decoding process.”) (emphases added). To the extent that
Appellants contend that performing this comparison after decompression as
the Examiner proposes would somehow render the Min/Shimizu/Cheney
system unsuitable for its intended purpose or is otherwise beyond the level
of ordinarily skilled artisans, there is no persuasive evidence on this record
to substantiate that theory.
Although the Examiner did not provide a separate section in the
Answer’s Response to Arguments section regarding claim 24, the
Examiner’s above-noted position that Min at least suggests a post-
decompression comparison is nonetheless clear. Therefore, we do not agree
that Appellants’ arguments are “deemed agreed to by the Examiner” on page
19 of the Reply Brief. Nor have Appellants persuasively rebutted the
Examiner’s position in this regard. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s
rejection of claim 24.

THE REJECTION OVER MIN, SHIMIZU, CHENEY, AND HIMENO
We also sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 2 reciting
interpolating a PTS for the picture if the picture is not associated with a PTS.
The Examiner cites the interpolation functionality of Himeno’s video
packetized elementary stream (PES) conversion unit 2 for teaching this
feature. Ans. 6-7, 9. As shown in Himeno’s Figure 1, the video PES
conversion unit, among other things, is downstream from video encoder 1
and interpolates a PTS and DTS to convert a video elementary stream (ES)
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into a PES packet that is output to A/V mixer 5. Himeno, col. 9, ll. 37-49;
col. 17, ll. 50-58.
Even assuming, without deciding, that Himeno’s PTS
interpolation is performed in connection with encoding and not decoding as
Appellants contend (App. Br. 11-13; Reply Br. 13-17), we still see no reason
why such a technique could not be applied to a decoding process that uses a
PTS value for comparison, such as that in Min. Himeno interpolates a PTS
to convert data into a native, single-frame packet form. Himeno col. 17, ll.
55-57. Moreover, interpolation is estimating intermediate values between
two known values in a sequence. MICROSOFT COMPUTER DICTIONARY 285
(5th ed. 2002). In short, Appellants have not demonstrated persuasively why
such a PTS interpolation technique could not be applied to a decoding
process that uses a PTS, such as that in Min, to yield similar advantages of
such an interpolation. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417
(2007). Apart from alleging that (1) Himeno’s interpolating the PTS is
“easy” on the encoding side, and (2) placing Himeno’s video PES
conversion unit in Cheney and Min would render the device inoperable
(App. Br. 13; Reply Br. 16), Appellants do not provide any persuasive
evidence to support these contentions. Such attorney arguments without
supporting evidence have little probative value. See In re Geisler, 116 F.3d
1465, 1470 (Fed. Cir. 1997). Nevertheless, “a determination of obviousness
based on teachings from multiple references does not require an actual,
physical substitution of elements.” In re Mouttet, 686 F.3d 1322, 1332 (Fed.
Cir. 2012) (citations omitted). Nor is the test for obviousness whether a
secondary reference’s features can be bodily incorporated into the structure
of the primary reference. In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981).
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Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have
suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. Id.
On this record, skilled artisans would understand that applying a
known PTS interpolation technique to a decoding process that uses a PTS,
such as that in Min, would have been an obvious variation to yield a
predictable result. See KSR, 550 U.S. at 417. Nor have Appellants shown
that such an application is uniquely challenging or otherwise beyond the
level of ordinarily skilled artisans. See Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-
Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007).
Therefore, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting
representative claim 2, and claims 9, 16, and 23 not argued separately with
particularity.

THE REMAINING OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION
Because the Examiner’s rejection of dependent claims 5-7, 12-14, and
19-21 (Ans. 7-8) was not argued separately, we sustain this rejection for the
reasons previously discussed.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1-24 under § 103.

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-24 is affirmed.

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No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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