Ex Parte Zhou

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 24, 2017

13523772 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 24, 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.
13/523,772 06/14/2012 Minhua Zhou TI-70636A 9927
23494 7590 01/26/2017
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
P O BOX 655474, M/S 3999
DALLAS, TX 75265
EXAMINER
ZHOU, ZHIHAN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2482
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/26/2017 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):
uspto@ti.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MINHUA ZHOU
Appeal 2016-001519
Application 13/523,772
Technology Center 2400
Before DEBRA K. STEPHENS, JON M. JURGOVAN, and
JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judges.
JURGOVAN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 seeks review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final
Rejection of claims 25—55, the only pending claims in this appeal. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.2
1 The Appeal Brief identifies Texas Instruments Incorporated as the real
party in interest. (App. Br. 3.)
2 Our Decision refers to the Specification (“Spec.”) filed June 14, 2012, the
Final Office Action (“Final Act.”) mailed Mar. 4, 2015, the Appeal Brief
(“App. Br.”) filed June 9, 2015, the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.”) mailed
Sept. 25, 2015, and the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”) filed Nov. 19, 2015.
Appeal 2016-001519
Application 13/523,772
CLAIMED INVENTION
The claims are directed to video coding using a maximum allowed
number of inter-prediction candidates for a plurality of prediction units
encoded into a slice header. (Spec. Title, Abstract, and 1141.) Claim 25,
reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
25. A method for encoding a picture, comprising:
determining a maximum allowed number of candidates for
a plurality of merge candidate lists for a plurality of prediction
units (PU) for a slice region in the picture;
binarizing a merge candidate index for one of the plurality
of prediction units in the slice region using a truncated unary
coding in which a maximum codeword size is one less than the
maximum allowed number of candidates in the at least one slice
region;
encoding the maximum allowed number of candidates in
a slice header for the slice region into a bit stream; and
encoding the binarized merge candidate index into the bit
stream.
REJECTIONS
Claims 25—36 and 40-47 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
based on Chien (US 2012/0195368 Al, Aug. 2, 2012) and Sugio I (US
2012/0300846 Al, Nov. 29, 2012). (Final Act. 2-9.)
Claims 37—39 and 48—55 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
based on Chien, Sugio I, and Sugio II (US 2013/0010869 Al, Jan. 10, 2013).
(Final Act. 9—14.)
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Appeal 2016-001519
Application 13/523,772
ANALYSIS
Claims 25—36 and 40—47
Appellant states that claim 25 recites determining a maximum
allowed number of candidates for a plurality of prediction units and
encoding this single maximum in a slice header. (App. Br. 20; Reply Br. 2—
3.) Appellant contends that Sugio I, the reference upon which the Examiner
relies for this feature, teaches determination of maximum numbers of
prediction candidates for each block on a block-by-block basis for inclusion
in a slice header. {Id. (citing Sugio 11224).) Appellant thus argues the
claimed invention encodes a single maximum for multiple candidates for
prediction units of a slice whereas Sugio I encodes multiple maximum
numbers of candidates corresponding to each block of a slice.
Appellant’s argument hinges on interpretation of the indefinite article
“a” in the claim as meaning a single maximum allowed number of
candidates that is used for multiple prediction units. However, this
interpretation is contrary to the general rule established by our reviewing
court that “an indefinite article ‘a’ or ‘an’ in patent parlance carries the
meaning of ‘one or more’ in open-ended claims containing the transitional
phrase ‘comprising’.” Baldwin Graphic Systems, Inc. v. Siebert, Inc., 512
F.3d 1338, 1342—43 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (quoting KJC Corp. v. Kinetic
Concepts, Inc., 223 F.3d 1351, 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2000)). “The exceptions to
this rule are extremely limited: a patentee must ‘evince[] a clear intent’ to
limit ‘a’ or ‘an’ to ‘one.’” Id. The court in Baldwin proceeded with analysis
of whether the claims, specification, and prosecution history at issue in that
case evinced such intent, concluding they did not. Baldwin concerned an
issued patent whereas the claims at issue here involve a pending application.
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Appeal 2016-001519
Application 13/523,772
“[Cjlaims yet unpatented are to be given the broadest
reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification
during the examination of a patent application since the
applicant may then amend his claims, the thought being to
reduce the possibility that, after the patent is granted, the claims
may be interpreted as giving broader coverage than is justified.”
88 J. Pat. & Trademark Off. Soc’y 279, 288 (2006) (emphasis omitted)
(quoting In re Prater, 415 F.2d 1393, 1404—05 (CCPA 1969); citing In re
Amer. Acad. ofSci. Tech Center, 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004); In re
Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 322 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (“Only in this way can
uncertainties of claim scope be removed, as much as possible, during the
administrative process.”)). “Construing claims broadly during prosecution is
not unfair to the applicant. . ., because the applicant has the opportunity to
amend the claims to obtain more precise claim coverage.” Id. (quoting
Amer. Acad. ofSci. Tech Center, 367 F.3d at 1364). Application of broadest
reasonable interpretation also provides the opportunity to remove
ambiguities from the claims. Id. (citing In re Bigio, 381 F.3d 1320, 1324
(Fed. Cir. 2004)).
Appellant cites to no definition or other language in the Specification
or claims requiring a restrictive interpretation of the indefinite article “a” in
claim 25 to mean a single maximum allowed number candidates for the
prediction units of a slice. We likewise find no such language in the cited
paragraphs of the Specification. (See, e.g., App. Br. 5 (citing || 52, 65, 67,
81, Fig. 6).) Accordingly, on this record, we find Appellant’s Specification
does not evince any intent to construe the indefinite article “a” in the
claimed context to mean a single maximum allowed number of candidates
for the prediction units of a slice. Appellant’s argument is thus insufficient
to overcome the general rule that the indefinite article “a” is interpreted
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Appeal 2016-001519
Application 13/523,772
open-endedly in a claim using the ‘comprising’ transition. Accordingly, the
claimed limitation encompasses multiple maxima for respective blocks of a
slice, as taught by Sugio I, and we sustain the Examiner’s rejection.
With respect to claims 25, 29, 35, 40, and 45, Appellant lists various
features of the claims and asserts they are not obvious in view of Chien,
Sugio I, and Sugio II. (App. Br. 21—24.) This form of argument is
ineffective to show Examiner error. See In reLovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357
(Fed. Cir. 2011) (Appellants’ contentions “require more substantive
arguments in an appeal brief than a mere recitation of the claim elements and
a naked assertion that the corresponding elements were not found in the
prior art.”). Appellant also asserts unexpected error resistance and coding
efficiency is obtained with the claimed invention. (App. Br. 21 (citing
Minhua Zhou, Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC) oflTU-
T SGI6 WP3 and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11, 7th Meeting: Geneva, CH,
19—30 (2011)). However, this argument is predicated upon Appellant’s
interpretation of the indefinite article “a” in the claim as meaning a single
maximum allowed number of candidates that is used for multiple prediction
units which, as discussed supra, we find unpersuasive.
Appellant presents the same arguments for the dependent claims,
which we find unpersuasive for the stated reasons. (App. Br. 21—23.)
Claims 37—39 and 48—55
Appellant’s arguments for claims 37—39 and 48—55 are similar to
those previously stated. (App. Br. 24—25; Reply Br. 2-A.) For the stated
reasons, we are not persuaded the Examiner errs in the obviousness rejection
of these claims.
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Appeal 2016-001519
Application 13/523,772
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 25—55 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a).
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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