Sony Corporation

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Feb 10, 2022

2021000371 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 10, 2022)

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. 15/250,331 08/29/2016 Teruhiko SUZUKI 10845US011CON 5016 154930 7590 02/10/2022 XSENSUS LLP 100 Daingerfield Road Suite 402 Alexandria, VA 22314 EXAMINER LEE, Y YOUNG ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2419 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 02/10/2022 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): Faith.Baggett@xsensus.com Sandy.Miles@Xsensus.com anaquadocketing@Xsensus.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte TERUHIKO SUZUKI Appeal 2021-000371 Application 15/250,331 Technology Center 2400 Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, ERIC S. FRAHM, and SCOTT RAEVSKY, Administrative Patent Judges. RAEVSKY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 2-5. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 We use the term “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Sony Corp. Appeal Br. 1. Appeal 2021-000371 Application 15/250,331 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims relate to a decoding device that processes bitstreams. Spec., Abstr. Claim 2, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter (with relevant limitation(s) emphasized): 1. A decoding method, comprising: acquiring, from a bitstream, identification information identifying whether pictures in a randomly accessible predetermined section do not refer to pictures included in another predetermined section, broken-link information, and buffer characteristic information, which is contained within the bitstream and includes a plurality of combinations of buffer size information in the bitstream and bit rate information in the bitstream as criteria for determining whether the bitstream is decodable, the buffer size information indicating a required buffer size of a buffer that stores the bitstream during decoding of the bitstream and the bit rate information indicating an input bit rate of the buffer; determining whether the bitstream is decodable using a decoder buffer size, a decoding bit rate, and the buffer characteristic information including the plurality of combinations of buffer size information and bit rate information contained within the bitstream; and decoding the bitstream using the identification information, the broken-link information, and the buffer characteristic information. REFERENCE The Examiner relies upon the following prior art: Name Reference Date Boon US 6,418,268 B1 July 9, 2002 Appeal 2021-000371 Application 15/250,331 3 REJECTION The Examiner makes the following rejection: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis 2-5 102(b) Boon ANALYSIS Prior Appeal2 In a prior appeal (Ex parte Suzuki, Appeal No. 2017-011841 (PTAB July 2, 2019) (“Decision” or “Dec.”)), Appellant appealed an anticipation rejection of claims 2-5 over the same reference at issue here, Boon. Dec. 3- 9. There, Appellant argued that Boon failed to disclose the following limitations: plurality of combinations of buffer size information and bit rate information; [and] . . . criteria for determining whether the bitstream is decodable using a decoder buffer size and a decoding bit rate. Id. at 3, 5. For instance, Appellant contended that Boon did not use the parameters “bit_rate” and “vbv_buffer_size” as “criteria for determining whether the bitstream is decodable using a decoder buffer size and a decoding bit rate.” Id. at 5 (emphasis omitted). In our Decision, we found that Appellant did not rebut the Examiner’s new findings in the Answer regarding Boon’s teachings of a “plurality of 2 We remind Appellant of its duty to inform the Board of all prior and pending appeals. Appeal Br. 1-2 (“Appellant’s legal representative and Assignee are aware of no appeals which will directly affect or be directly affected by or have any bearing on the Board’s decision in this appeal.”); 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(ii) (requiring Appeal Brief to include “[a] statement identifying by application, patent, appeal, interference, or trial number all other prior and pending appeals, interferences, trials before the Board, or judicial proceedings” (emphasis added)). Appeal 2021-000371 Application 15/250,331 4 combinations of buffer size information and bit rate information.” Dec. 4. We also explained that the argued “criteria for determining” limitation was not positively recited: Even if Appellant is correct that Boon does not disclose using these parameters as criteria for determining whether the bitstream is decodable, we find the aforementioned limitation is not positively recited. The phrase “criteria for determining whether the bitstream is decodable” merely recites a statement of intended use, and as such, is non-limiting. Id. at 6. As the argued limitation merely recited intended use, we affirmed the Examiner’s rejection. Id. at 6-9 (also addressing other arguments not relevant here). Appellant also raised other arguments that are not relevant to the present appeal. See id. at 3-8. Current Appeal Appellant has since amended claim 2 and argues the now positively- recited limitation, which was added during subsequent prosecution: determining whether the bitstream is decodable using a decoder buffer size, a decoding bit rate, and the buffer characteristic information including the plurality of combinations of buffer size information and bit rate information contained within the bitstream. Appeal Br. 4-9. The Examiner finds that Boon discloses this limitation as follows: determining whether the bitstream is decodable 305 using a decoder buffer size (e.g. vbv_buffer_size), a decoding bit rate (e.g. bit_rate), and the buffer characteristic information (e.g. header) including the plurality of combinations of buffer size information (e.g. vbv_buffer_size) and bit rate information (e.g. bit_rate) contained within the bitstream 511. Final Act. 3-4. Appeal 2021-000371 Application 15/250,331 5 Appellant contends that Boon does not disclose determining the capability of the decoder to decode the bitstream: While Boon3 may disclose that bit_rate and vbv_buffer_size are in the bitstream, there is absolutely no discussion in Boon regarding determining the capability of the decoder to decode the bitstream, much less using this information together with the buffer characteristics in the bitstream to determine whether the bitstream is decodable by the decoder. Appeal Br. 5. Appellant similarly contends that Boon “determines whether compressed image data is suitable for use in random access reproduction based on a value of an identification flag Hfd, without any consideration regarding the buffer size information and bit rate information.” Id. at 6 (citing Boon, 27:7-10, Fig. 7 (step 305)). In other words, Appellant views Boon as determining whether to decode “based on identification flag Hfd, not by using decoder buffer size, decoding bit rate, and buffer characteristic information.” Id. at 8 (citing Boon Fig. 7, 5:35-36). Appellant further argues that Boon’s lack of description of a decoder buffer size and decoding bit rate underscores its failure to teach the disputed limitation: Other than the listing of vbv_buffer_size in Tables 1 and 4 of Boon, the terms “buffer” and “size” are absent from Boon’s specification. The same applies for “bit rate” with no mention of the term other than bit_rate in Tables 1 and 4. There is also no description in Boon of anything that could possibly correspond to “a decoder buffer size” and “a decoding bit rate.” Id. 3 We omit Appellant’s underlining of reference names without specifying “emphasis omitted” throughout. Appeal 2021-000371 Application 15/250,331 6 In the Answer, the Examiner notes that “claim 2 was rephrased . . . by moving the same elements from the first paragraph into a separate paragraph.” Ans. 3. Accordingly, the Examiner asserts that “one of ordinary skill in the art would have had no difficulty in recognizing that each and every element in the new paragraph was previous addressed and affirmed by the Board.” Id. Further, the Examiner casts Appellant’s argument as contending that “Boon fails to disclose buffer size and bit rate information” but finds that “appellant concedes that Boon discloses both of these types of information.” Id. at 4. The Examiner overlooks that the key reason we affirmed previously was because Appellant’s non-positively recited limitation was a non-limiting intended use limitation. Dec. 6. Now, circumstances have changed because claim 2 positively recites the argued limitation, which we address below. As for the Examiner’s finding that Appellant concedes that Boon discloses buffer size and bit rate, we point out that Appellant’s argument is not that Boon fails to disclose buffer size and bit rate, but rather that Boon fails to disclose “determining whether the bit stream is decodable using a decoder buffer size [and] a decoding bit rate.” Appeal Br. 5. As for the aforementioned positively-recited limitation, we find that Boon’s disclosure about buffer size and bit rate is almost nonexistent. Its entire disclosure regarding these terms appears to be its listing of them in Table 4, reproduced below: Appeal 2021-000371 Application 15/250,331 7 See Boon, col. 16 (emphasis added). Boon states that Table 4 “show[s] an example of a structure of the compressed image data so produced, in particular, data alignment of the header.” Id. at 16:4-6. In Table 4, we have drawn a blue box around the parameters “bit_rate” and “vbv_buffer_size.” Boon says nothing about these parameters and certainly nothing about determining decodability based on these parameters. Instead, Boon conditions decodability on the identification flag Hfd, as Appellant correctly argues. Id. at 26:65-27:6 (“identification flag Hfd” used to “decide[] whether or not the compressed image data . . . is suitable for use in the random reproduction”), Fig. 7 (steps 304, 305). Thus, we agree with Appellant that Boon contains “absolutely no discussion . . . regarding determining the capability of the decoder to decode the bitstream, much less using this information together with the buffer Appeal 2021-000371 Application 15/250,331 8 characteristics in the bitstream to determine whether the bitstream is decodable by the decoder.” Appeal Br. 5. Consequently, we are constrained to reverse the Examiner’s anticipation rejection of claim 2 and its dependent claim 4. We also reverse the Examiner’s rejections of similar claim 3 and its dependent claim 5. We do not reach Appellant’s further allegations of error because we find the issue discussed above to be dispositive of the rejection of all the pending claims. DECISION SUMMARY Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 2-5 102(b) Boon 2-5 REVERSED