Appeal No. 2001-0867
Application 09/016,571
portions of the applied prior art but reach opposite conclusions
as to what the prior art teaches or suggests.
We do not sustain the examiner’s rejection of any of the
independent claims on appeal. We essentially agree with the
arguments made by appellants in the briefs. Each of the
independent claims on appeal recites the calculation of a
“predicted rate-distortion slope” for use in determining the
order of encoding symbols or bits of the digital image. We agree
with appellants that neither Li nor the admitted prior art
teaches or suggests such a calculation. The portions of Li and
the admitted prior art which are relied on by the examiner teach
nothing more than the fact that the rate-distortion slope of a
transmitted image was a measure of the quality of the
transmission. The fact that the rate-distortion slope of a
transmitted digital image was a known measure of the quality of
the transmission does not teach or suggest that such a measure
should be or could be predicted in advance and used to determine
the encoding order of symbols and bits as claimed. Therefore, a
key feature of each of the independent claims on appeal is not
taught or suggested by the applied prior art.
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