Ex Parte XIAO et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 27, 2017

13572980 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 27, 2017)

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.
13/572,980 08/13/2012 Wei XIAO HUAW01-58909 5981
90073 7590
Docket Clerk/HTCL
P.O. Drawer 800889
Dallas, TX 75380
11/29/2017 EXAMINER
HAQUE, MD NAZMUL
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2487
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/29/2017 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):
patents @ munckwilson. com
uspatent@huawei.com
rmccutcheon @ munckwilson. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte WEI XIAO
and QING ZHANG
Appeal 2017-002039
Application 13/572,9801
Technology Center 2400
Before JAMES R. HUGHES, JUSTIN BUSCH, and CARL L.
SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judges.
SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1, 3-8, 10-14, 16-21, and 23-26, which constitute
all the pending rejected claims. Final Act. 1. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 The real party in interest is identified as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd.
App. Br. 2.
Appeal 2017-002039
Application 13/572,980
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants’ invention relates to encoding and decoding techniques.
Abstract; Spec. 2, 8, 42. Claim 1 is exemplary of the matter on appeal
(emphases added):
1. An encoding method performed by an encoder, the
encoding method comprising:
determining a flatness of a current coefficient to be
encoded of a current subband based on coefficients that have
been encoded;
selecting at least one dimension vector from at least two
dimension vectors to partition the current coefficient to be
encoded of the current subband and coefficients right adjacent
to the current coefficient to be encoded into vectors', according
to the number of the coefficients to be encoded contained in the
current subband and the flatness of the current coefficient to be
encoded;
quantizing the vectors partitioned from the coefficients to
be encoded into lattice vectors according to the selected
dimension, and then mapping the lattice vectors to lattice index
vectors; and
performing lossless encoding on the lattice index vectors.
App. Br. 16 (Claims Appendix).
REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 8, 14, and 21 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over by Vasilache (US 2007/0168197 Al; pub. July
19, 2007) and Iwakami et al. (US 6,658,382 Bl; iss. December 2, 2003)
(“Iwakami”). Final Act. 3-6.
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Application 13/572,980
Claims 3-6, 10-12, 16-19, and 23-25 are rejected under pre-AIA
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Vasilache, Iwakami, and Xie
et al. (US 2008/0097749 Al; pub. April 24, 2008) (“Xie”). Final Act. 7-10.
Claims 7, 13, 20, and 26 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Vasilache, Iwakami, Xie, and Andras
Mehes, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INFORMATION THEORY, VOL. 44.
NO. I, January 1998). Final Act 11-12.
ANALYSIS
Appellants argue the Examiner errs in finding the combination of
Vasilache and Iwakami teaches the claim 1 limitations:
determining a flatness of a current coefficient to be
encoded of a current subband based on coefficients that have
been encoded;
selecting at least one dimension vector from at least two
dimension vectors to partition the current coefficient to be
encoded of the current subband and coefficients right adjacent
to the current coefficient to be encoded into vectors, according
to the number of the coefficients to be encoded contained in the
current subband and the flatness of the current coefficient to be
encoded.
App. Br. 9-13; Reply Br. 3-5.
Appellants argue:
According to claim 1, before partitioning coefficients to
be encoded of a current subband into vectors, a flatness of a
current coefficient to be encoded of a current subband based on
coefficients that have been encoded is determined. See paragraph
[0042] of the original specification. Then, according to the
number of the coefficients to be encoded of the current sub band
and the determined flatness of the current coefficient to be
encoded, at least one dimension vector is selected from at least
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Application 13/572,980
two dimension vectors to partition the current coefficient to be
encoded of the current subband and coefficients right adjacent to
the current coefficient to be encoded into a vector. See id. Then,
the vectors partitioned from the coefficients to be encoded are
quantized into lattice vectors according to the selected
dimension, the lattice vectors are mapped to lattice index vectors,
and lossless encoding is performed on the lattice index vectors.
App. Br. 10 (emphasis added).
Appellants argue Vasilache teaches grouping lattice points into sets
“but does not mention flatness at all” and the Examiner errs in finding
Iwakami cures the deficiency regarding the disputed claim limitations. App.
Br. 10-13; Reply Br. 3-5. According to Appellants, Iwakami does not teach
the disputed limitations because the Iwakami flattening is calculated after
classifying the coefficient segments, the flattening information to be used for
flattening the coefficient segments of Iwakami is not identical to the flatness
of a current coefficient, and Iwakami does not teach selecting at least one
dimension vector . . . according to the determined flatness. Id. at 10-13
(citing Iwakami claims 1, 5, Figs. 9, 10, 11A. 11B, 2:15-20, 14, 19); see
also Reply Br. 3-5.
Appellants argue
The method of Iwakami divides the frequency-domain
coefficients into coefficient segments, classifying the
coefficients segments into one of at least two groups according
to the intensities of the coefficient segments, calculating a value
representing intensities of coefficient segments as flattening
information, normalizing the coefficient segments with the
flattening information to obtain a single flattened sequence, and
then encoding and outputting the single flattened sequence.
App. Br. 11.
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Application 13/572,980
Appellants argue “Iwakami calculates flattening information after
classifying the coefficient segments into one of at least two groups according
to the intensities of the coefficient segments.” App. Br. 11 (citing Iwakami
Figs. 9, 10, 11 A, 11B, col. 14). In particular, Appellants refer to Iwakami
teaching “the coefficient segment groups EgO and Egl (Rows E and D) from
the coefficient segment classifying part 14 and their sizes SO and SI are fed
to the flattening/combining part 20, ” and argue this is in contrast to claim 1
in which “determining a flatness of a current coefficient to be encoded is
performed before selecting at least one dimension vector from at least two
dimension vectors to partition the coefficients according to the determined
flatness.” Id.
The Examiner finds Iwakami’s statement that bandwidths of subbands
are flattened (normalized) teaches the limitation “determining a flatness of a
current coefficient to be encoded.” Final Act. 5 (citing Iwakami Fig. 17A,
2:15-20). The Examiner finds Iwakami teaches the limitation “selecting at
least one dimension vector.” Id. In particular, the Examiner finds Iwakami
teaches “two groups of coefficient segments thus flattened (Rows G and F)
are arranged at their original positions on the same frequency axis based on
the coefficient segment classification information G(q) to obtain a sequence
of flattened frequency-domain coefficients e(q, m) (Row H).” Id. (citing
Fig. 11A-11B and 14: 34-55).
In the Answer, the Examiner finds Iwakami teaches “determining the
flatness of the current coefficient to be encoded”:
Iwakami shows on figure 10 the flattening of frequency-domain
coefficients. Row A shows the state in which the frequency
domain coefficients provided from the time-frequency
transformation part 11 are defined as a coefficient segment
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Application 13/572,980
E(g, m) by the coefficient segment generating part 12. Rows B[
]and C separately show the coefficient segment of the group
G(q)=l and the coefficient segment of the group G(q)=0
determined by the coefficient segment classification determining
part 12.
Id. at 4-5.
In the Reply Brief, Appellants argue Iwakami Figure 10 teaches
classifying based on intensity threshold value, not based on flatness. Reply
Br. 4 (citing Iwakami Fig. 10, 8:46-51, 14:17-58). According to
Appellants, the operations of classifying and flattening are performed on a
basis of coefficient segment, for example, coefficient segments (1 to 20)
which have fixed size, but not on a basis of subband. Id.
Although the Examiner refers to Iwakami’s teaching of utilizing
flatness, the Examiner does not sufficiently explain how Iwakami (and the
combination of Vasilache and Iwakami) teaches the disputed limitations.
Ans. 4-5. In particular, the Examiner does not sufficiently explain how
these references teach “determining the flatness of a current coefficient to be
encoded of a current subband based on coefficients that have been encoded”
and then “selecting at least one dimension vector ... to partition the current
coefficient to be encoded ... according to the flatness of the current
coefficient to be encoded.”
We are persuaded by Appellants’ arguments based on the record
before us and, therefore, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 1, and
independent claims 8, 14, and 21 which recite the disputed limitations. We
also do not sustain the rejection of dependent claims 3-7, 10-13, 16-20, and
23-26 as the Examiner does not cite the additional references to cure the
deficiency discussed, supra.
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Application 13/572,980
Because our decision with regard to the disputed limitations is
dispositive of the rejections, we do not address additional arguments raised
by Appellants.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 3-8, 10-14,
16-21, and 23-26
REVERSED
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