Appeal No. 2004-0042
Application 09/368,380
In view of the consideration in a comprehensive manner of
the teachings in O’Rourke, it is clear to us that O’Rourke does
not relate only to decoding operations and not any encoding
operations to the extent the encoding operations of the preamble
of independent claims 21 and 24 on appeal are to be imputed to
the body of these claims. There is no recitation of any encoding
operation per se in the body of these respective claims. In any
event, the question is moot because O’Rourke clearly teaches a
kind of encoding operation and decoding operation that involves
“at least in part” as claimed the use of the MRF model as argued
by the examiner. Because of this, we do not agree with appel-
lants’ characterization at the bottom of page 8 of the Brief that
Figure 7 of O’Rourke represents a conventional block-based motion
estimation figure. This could hardly be the case since both
appellants and the reference teach encoding, in proper context,
utilizing the MRF to the extent broadly recited.
Lastly, we consider the rejection of certain dependent
claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103 in light of the collective teachings
and showings of Tekalp in view of O’Rourke. We have concluded
from our review of the examiner’s and the appellants’ positions
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