Appeal No. 1999-2018
Application 08/571,204
indicating a nominal distance between said moving image
signal and a future reference picture signal" (claim 2).
Claim 2 does not particularly recite that the distance
is a count of the number of pictures from a past or future
reference picture, as disclosed. Nor does it particularly
recite the disclosed selection method. The disclosed
invention assigns a distance Df between a B-picture and a
past reference picture (an I- or P-picture) and a distance
Db between the B-picture and a future reference picture (a
P-picture) based on a count of the number of B-pictures from
the past or future reference picture (specification, p. 22;
Fig. 9). The distances Df, Db from the inter picture
distance calculation circuit 10 are output to the predictive
mode determination circuit 8 which selects one of the intra
mode, the forward predictive mode, the backward predictive
mode, or the bidirectionally predictive mode (specification,
pp. 22-23; Fig. 8), based on two stored curves, one for
Df=1, Db=2 and one for Df=2, Db=1 (for the case where there
are two B-pictures between past and future reference
pictures), as shown in Figs. 11A and 11B. Based on
calculated values of Ef and Eb, and based on Df and Db, one
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