Appeal No. 1999-2018
Application 08/571,204
degree of correlation. Appellant observes that where two or
more B-pictures exist between I- and P-pictures or between
P-pictures, as in Fig. 7, the correlation degree between the
B-picture and the past reference picture, and between the
B-picture and the future reference picture depend on the
distance (specification, pp. 16-17):
[T]he correlation degree with the past reference
picture and the correlation degree with the future
reference picture depend upon the distance between the
B-picture and the past reference picture and the
distance between the B-picture and the future reference
picture. Therefore, in the present invention, the
coding of the B-picture is performed by adaptively
switching the prediction coding of the B-picture in
accordance with the distance between the B-picture and
the past reference picture and the distance between the
B-picture and the future reference picture. Note that
the aforementioned distance can be considered as time.
The estimation errors Ef, Eb are measures of correlation
degree and are directly related to distance. For example,
in Fig. 7, Ef1 < Ef2 < Ef3 in the forward direction and
Eb3 < Eb2 < Eb1 in the backward direction (specification,
p. 16). Therefore, forward estimation error Ef can be
considered a "first inter picture distance indicating a
nominal distance between said moving image signal and a past
reference picture signal" (claim 2) and backward estimation
error Eb can be considered a "second inter picture distance
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