Vid Scale, Inc.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMay 19, 20202019002413 (P.T.A.B. May. 19, 2020) Copy Citation 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. 14/743,662 06/18/2015 Yuwen He IDC-12193US02 1876 119110 7590 05/19/2020 Invention Mine IDC 216 S. Jefferson Suite 102 Chicago, IL 60661 EXAMINER SOSANYA, OBAFEMI OLUDAYO ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2423 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/19/2020 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): bob@inventionmine.com docket@inventionmine.com uspto@dockettrak.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte YUWEN HE, XIAOYU XIU, YAN YE, and RALPH NEFF ____________________ Appeal 2019-002413 Application 14/743,662 Technology Center 2400 ____________________ Before JOHNNY A. KUMAR, BRYAN F. MOORE, and BETH Z. SHAW, Administrative Patent Judges. KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1–20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. Illustrative Claim Independent claim 1 illustrates the invention as follows, with disputed elements highlighted in italics: 1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. According to Appellant, Vid Scale, Inc., is the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2019-002413 Application 14/743,662 2 1. A method of generating a bit stream encoding a video including an input video block, the method comprising: identifying a selected set of candidate blocks for prediction of the input video block, where the identification of the selected set includes performing a hash-based search of available video blocks; for each of the candidate blocks in the selected set, determining a correlation between luma and chroma components of the input video block and luma and chroma components of the respective candidate blocks; selecting a predictor block based on the correlation; and encoding the input video block in the bit stream using the selected predictor block for prediction of the input video block. Appeal Br. 15, Claims Appendix. Rejections on Appeal Claims 1–4, 11, 12, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Tasi et al. (US 2010/0284471 A1; published Nov. 11, 2010) (“Tsai”). Claims 5–7, 9, 13–16, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Tsai; in view of Lee (US 2014/0044361 A1; published Feb. 13, 2014) (“Lee”). Claims 8 and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable in view of a combination of Tsai with Sentinelli et al. (US 2013/0336590 A1; published Dec. 19, 2013 (“Sentinelli”). Claims 10 and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable in view of a combination of Tsai with Puri (US 2005/0031219 A1; published Feb. 10, 2005 (“Puri”). Appeal 2019-002413 Application 14/743,662 3 ANALYSIS In the Brief, Appellant asserts, among other things, the following claimed elements in independent claim 1 are not taught by Tsai: identifying a selected set of candidate blocks for prediction of the input video block, where the identification of the selected set includes performing a hash-based search of available video blocks; (hereinafter the hash-based search limitation); and for each of the candidate blocks in the selected set, determining a correlation between luma and chroma components of the input video block and luma and chroma components of the respective candidate blocks; (hereinafter the luma/chroma correlation limitation). See Appeal Br. 9–10. We agree. Regarding the hash-based search limitation, Appellant argues: “The examiner erroneously rejected claim 1 based on the contention that a hash- based search is disclosed in paragraph [0044] of Tsai. See Final Act. at 4.” Appellant argues Paragraph [0044] of Tsai does not disclose that feature and “makes no mention of any kind of searching, “hash-based” or otherwise.” Id. In response to the argument that paragraph [0044] of Tsai does not disclose any “hash-based" search, the examiner cites Tsai’s reference to a “hash table” in a list of storage media. [V]ideo encoder 20 may store the temporal spatial dependency for each block of a video frame. . . . The temporal spatial dependency information may be stored in a database, lookup table, linked list, hash table, tree, binary tree, or any other type of data structure in a storage device such memory. Appeal 2019-002413 Application 14/743,662 4 Tsai ¶ 43 (cited in Final Act. at 2). Appellant responds “Tsai’s perfunctory mention of a ‘hash table’ does not equate to the claim elements of ‘identifying a selected set of candidate blocks’ using “a hash-based search.’” Appeal Br. 9. We agree with Appellant regarding the disclosure of Tsai. The Examiner has not established, and we do not find, where the cited portions of Tsai discloses the hash-based search limitation. To affirm the Examiner on this record would require considerable speculation on our part. We decline to engage in speculation. See In re Steele, 305 F.2d 859, 862 (CCPA 1962). Regarding the luma/chroma correlation limitation, Appellant argues: The rejection of claim 1 depends on the contention that this step is disclosed in ¶ [0054] of Tsai. See Final Act. at 4. In all of Tsai, only a single sentence makes any mention of luma or chroma components. Neither this sentence nor any other portion of Tsai discloses any step of determining a correlation using luma or chroma components. The sentence merely lists the block sizes for which inter prediction and intra prediction are available in the H.264 video coding standard. Appeal Br. 9 (emphasis ours). Again, we agree with Appellant’s interpretation of the disclosure of Tsai. The Examiner has not established, and we do not find, where the cited portions of Tsai discloses the luma/chroma correlation limitation. To affirm the Examiner on this record would again require considerable speculation on our part. We decline to engage in speculation. See In re Steele, 305 F.2d at 862. Accordingly, we cannot sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1. Because these determinations resolve the appeal with Appeal 2019-002413 Application 14/743,662 5 respect to claims 1, 11, and 20, and their respective dependent claims, we need not address Appellant’s other arguments. CONCLUSION In summary: REVERSED Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s) Affirmed Reversed 1–4, 11, 12, 20 102(a) Tsai 1–4, 11, 12, 20 5–7, 9, 13–16, 18 103 Tsai, Lee 5–7, 9, 13–16, 18 8, 17 103 Tsai, Sentinelli 8, 17 10, 19 103 Tsai, Puri 10, 19 Overall Outcome 1–20 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation