Appeal No. 1999-2018 Application 08/571,204 Claims 1-4 and 6-8 Anticipation The limitation at issue in claim 2 is "selecting a predictive coding mode based upon the values of [distance]." We find this limitation anticipated by Sugiyama because: (1) it only requires selecting one ("a") predictive coding mode based on distance, not one of several predictive coding modes based on distance, and is met by Sugiyama's selection of the bidirectionally predictive mode based on distance; and (2) the term "distance" does not distinguish over the forward and backward estimation error values in Sugiyama, which are used to select one of three predictive coding modes. (1) Appellant argues that Sugiyama uses inter picture distances "only to generate predicted picture signals in a bidirectional prediction mode, and not to select a prediction mode from among a multiple of available prediction modes" (Br8). It is argued that because the weight "W" is described as "0 < W < 1" (col. 11, line 3) for the bidirectional predictive mode, which does not include - 7 -Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007