Ex Parte Wu

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 12, 2014

11558145 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 12, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte DAVID WU
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Appeal 2011-009323
Application 11/558,145
Technology Center 2600
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Before, JEFFREY T. SMITH, MAHSHID D. SAADAT, and
ROBERT E. NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judges.

PER CURIAM.

DECISION ON APPEAL

This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the rejection
of claims 1 through 30.
We reverse.
INVENTION
The invention is directed to a method for asynchronous pipeline
processing of audio information. See page 6 of Appellant’s Specification.
Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reproduced below:
Appeal 2011-009323
Application 11/558,145

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1. A method for processing audio signals, the method
comprising:
performing by one or more processors and/or circuits integrated
within a single chip:
processing metadata information generated from a decoded
pulse code modulation (PCM) frame, wherein said decoded PCM
frame comprises audio information; and
asynchronously pipeline processing said audio information in
said decoded PCM frame based on said processed metadata
information and an output decoding rate, wherein input of data into
each stage of said asynchronously pipeline processing is dynamically
controlled by said output decoding rate.

REJECTION AT ISSUE1
The Examiner has rejected claims 1 through 30 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Li et al. (U.S. 6,310,652 B1, issued Oct. 30,
2001) and Ichiro Kuroda & Takao Nishitani, Asynchronous Multirate System
Design for Programmable DSPs, IEEE ICASSP, Vol. 5, pp. 549-552
(1992)). Answer 3-9.2
ISSUE
Appellant’s arguments on pages 14 through 24, and 29 through 37 of
the Appeal Brief and pages 3 through 26 of the Reply Brief, directed to the
Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1, 11, and 21 present us with the
issue: did the Examiner err in finding the combination of Li and Kuroda

1 We note the final rejection dated June 29 2010, included a rejection under
35 U.S.C. § 101, which the Examiner has withdrawn. See page 16-17 of the
Answer.
2 Throughout this opinion we refer to the Appeal Brief dated January 13,
2011, Reply Brief dated May 12, 2011, and the Examiner’s Answer mailed
on April 1, 2011.
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Application 11/558,145

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teaches processing metadata information generated from a decoded pulse
code modulation (PCM) frame as claimed?
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed Appellant’s arguments in the Briefs, the
Examiner’s rejection and the Examiner’s response to the Appellant’s
arguments. We agree with Appellant’s conclusion that the Examiner erred
in rejecting claims 1 through 30. Each of independent claims 1, 11, and 21
recites a limitation directed to processing metadata information generated
from a decoded pulse code modulation (PCM) frame. The Examiner finds
that Li teaches the header of a frame which includes a presentation time
stamp (which the Examiner equates to the claimed metadata). Answer 9-10
(citing Figures 10 through 12, and col. 10, ll. 46-55 and col. 11, ll. 1-14).
Appellant argues that the frames depicted in Figure 10, from which the
presentation time stamp is read, are not decoded frames. App. Br. 15.
Further, Appellant argues that the time stamp is actually in the data frame
and not generated from the PCM frame as claimed. Reply Br. 5-6. We
concur, while the Examiner is correct in finding that Figures 11A, 11B, and
12 depict PCM frames, the claimed metadata is not generated from these
frames as claimed, but rather, read from a stream of data depicted in Figure
10 (which is not discussed as being coded data and not a decoded PCM
frame, see Li, col. 10., ll. 46-52). Thus, we do not find that the Examiner
has shown that the combination of references teaches processing metadata
information generated from a decoded pulse code modulation (PCM) frame.
Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent
claims 1, 11, 21 or dependent claims 2 through 10, 12 through 20, and 22
through 30.
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Application 11/558,145

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DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1 through 30 is
reversed.

REVERSED

cdc