Ex Parte Symes

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 17, 2018

13863607 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 17, 2018)

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.
13/863,607 04/16/2013 Dominic Hugo SYMES SCS-550-1598 1017
73459 7590 01/19/2018
NIXON & VANDERHYE, P.C.
901 NORTH GLEBE ROAD, 11TH FLOOR
ARLINGTON, VA 22203
EXAMINER
HANSELL JR., RICHARD A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2486
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/19/2018 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):
PTOMAIL@nixonvan.com
pair_nixon @ firsttofile. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DOMINIC HUGO SYMES
Appeal 2017-008925
Application 13/863,6071
Technology Center 2400
Before THU A. DANG, SCOTT B. HOWARD, and JOYCE CRAIG,
Administrative Patent Judges.
HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 1—20, which constitute all of the claims pending in this application.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 Appellant is the Applicant, ARM Limited, which is identified in the
Appeal Brief as the real party in interest. App. Br. 3.
Appeal 2017-008925
Application 13/863,607
THE INVENTION
The disclosed and claimed invention is directed “video decoding” and,
more specifically, “to the parallelisation of the video decoding process.”
Spec. 1:3—4.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
1. A video decoding apparatus for decoding an encoded
video bitstream, said encoded video bitstream representing a
sequence of video pictures, wherein at least one video picture of
said sequence of video pictures is encoded in said encoded
video bitstream in a plurality of slices, wherein each slice
comprises a sequence of raster scan order blocks which can be
decoded independently of another slice, said video decoding
apparatus comprising:
an array store configured to store an array of values, said
array comprising an array entry corresponding to each block
position in said at least one video picture, such that each block
position has its own corresponding array entry;
a plurality of parsing circuits, each parsing circuit
configured to perform a parsing operation on a selected
sequence of raster scan order blocks in a selected slice and to
write a value to a selected array entry in said array
corresponding to a first block in said selected sequence, said
value indicating a location of parsed data generated by said
parsing operation and required to render said selected sequence
of blocks; and
a rendering circuit configured to render said video
pictures using said parsed data with reference to said values
written to said array store,
wherein said plurality of parsing circuits are configured
to perform their respective parsing operations on said plurality
of slices in parallel with each other.
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Appeal 2017-008925
Application 13/863,607
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner as evidence in rejecting the
claims on appeal is:
Lee
Maclnnis
Sekiguchi
Teng
Segall
Wennersten
US 2003/0023982 A1
US 2003/0189982 A1
US 2004/0151252 A1
US 2008/0232478 A1
US 2012/0230398 A1
WO 2012/169952 A2
Jan. 30, 2003
Oct. 9, 2003
Aug. 5, 2004
Sept. 25, 2008
Sept. 13, 2012
Dec. 13,2012
REJECTIONS
Claims 1—11 and 18—20 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Segall and Wennersten. Final Act 5—13.
Claims 14 and 15 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Segall in view of Wennersten and Maclnnis. Final
Act. 13-14.
Claim 12 stands rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Segall in view of Wennersten and Sekiguchi. Final Act.
15-16.
Claim 13 stands rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Segall in view of Wennersten, Sekiguchi, and Teng. Final
Act. 16.
Claims 16 and 17 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Segall in view of Wennersten, Maclnnis, and Lee.
Final Act. 17—19.
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Appeal 2017-008925
Application 13/863,607
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s
arguments that the Examiner erred. In reaching this decision, we have
considered all evidence presented and all arguments made by Appellant. We
are persuaded by Appellant’s arguments regarding claims 1—20 that the
Examiner erred.
Appellant argues “[tjhere is no teaching that Segall’s ‘matrix of
values’ corresponds to the image frame, and in particular, that it includes ‘an
. . . entry corresponding to each block position in said at least one video
picture,’ as recited in claim 1.” App. Br. 10; see also id. at 8—10. Appellant
further argues the Examiner’s finding which maps the tiles to macroblocks is
inconsistent and contrary to what a person of ordinary skill in the art would
understand. Id. at 10-12; Reply Br. 3. Additionally, even if the mapping
was appropriate, Appellant argues “[i]n Segall’s Figure 8, even though slice
3 covers 3 tiles (the three columns divided by the thick black vertical lines
labelled ‘column boundaries’), slices 1 and 2 are both completely contained
within tile 1.” Reply Br. 4. Therefore, according to Appellant, “Figure 8
cannot satisfy the claim language using the Examiner's interpretation that
focuses only on slice 3 because slices 1 and 2 which are also in Figure 8 fail
to satisfy the language of claim 1 that ‘each slice comprises a sequence of
raster scan order blocks, [tiles.].”’ Id.
The Examiner determines that under the broadest reasonable
construction the plurality of tiles is “functionally analogous to Appellant's
disclosure of populating the elements of said array store with the block
positions of all macroblocks of said frame.” Ans. 4. The Examiner further
finds “that Fig[ure] 8 (see para 0035) does clearly illustrate three slices, of
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Appeal 2017-008925
Application 13/863,607
which one slice (i.e., slice 3) is composed of three tiles. Hence, contrary to
Appellant’s allegations, Segall’s teachings evidently reveal a plurality of
slices as recited in claim 1.” Id. at 7.
We are persuaded by Appellant’s arguments as the Examiner has not
identified sufficient evidence or provided sufficient explanation as to how
Segall teaches “a video decoding apparatus for decoding an encoded video
bitstream . . . wherein each slice comprises a sequence of raster scan order
blocks which can be decoded independently of another slice,” as recited in
claim 1. Specifically, we agree with Appellant, as set forth the Appeal Brief,
that the Examiner’s mapping of Segall’s tile, which contains a series of
macroblocks,2 as a “block” is inconsistent with the meaning of “block” in
other parts of the claim. For example, we agree with Appellant that “if ‘tile’
is substituted for ‘block’ in claim 1 . . ., then the meaning of a ‘tile position’
is unclear because even though the macroblocks each have defined positions
in an image, (e.g., enumerations 1-126 in Figure 7), there is no such
corresponding fixed position associated with each tile.” App. Br. 11.
Additionally, we agree with Appellant that the Examiner has not
identified slices (plural) each having blocks (plural). Although, as the
Examiner finds, Figure 8, slice 3 has a plurality of tiles (which are mapped
to blocks), slice 1 and 2 each only have a single tile/block. See Segall Fig. 8,
135.
Therefore, we agree with Appellant the Examiner’s finding that Segall
teaches the disputed limitation is in error because it is not supported by a
preponderance of the evidence. See In re Caveney, 761 F.2d 671, 674 (Fed.
Cir. 1985) (Examiner’s burden of proving non-patentability is by a
2 See Segall 135.
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Appeal 2017-008925
Application 13/863,607
preponderance of the evidence); see also In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017
(CCPA 1967) (“The Patent Office has the initial duty of supplying the
factual basis for its rejection. It may not, because it may doubt that the
invention is patentable, resort to speculation, unfounded assumptions or
hindsight reconstruction to supply deficiencies in its factual basis.”).3
Accordingly, we are constrained on this record to reverse the
Examiner’s rejection of claim 1, along with the rejection of claims 19 and
20, which recite limitations commensurate in scope to the disputed
limitations discussed above, and dependent claims 2—11 and 18.
Moreover, because the Examiner has not shown that the additionally
cited prior art references cure the foregoing deficiencies regarding the
rejection of the independent claims, we will not sustain the obviousness
rejections of dependent claims 12—17 for similar reasons.
DECISION
For the above reasons, we reverse the Examiner’s decisions rejecting
claims 1—20.
REVERSED
3 Appellant raises additional issues in the Appeal Brief. Because we are
persuaded the Examiner erred with respect to this dispositive issue, we do
not reach the additional issues.
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