Prior art

The USPTO database confirms that US Patent 7,707,214 is "Active" and has an "adjusted expiration" date of "2027-11-20".

To identify the most relevant prior art for US patent 7707214, I need to access the cited references within the patent document itself. Since I already have the full patent text, I will analyze the "References Cited" section of US7707214B2 to extract the prior art and then assess their relevance.

Here's the analysis of the prior art cited in US Patent 7,707,214:

Cited Patent Documents:

• U.S. Pat. No. 5,699,121 to Zakhor and Neff
  • Full Citation: U.S. Pat. No. 5,699,121, 16 Dec. 1997, Zakhor and Neff.
  • Publication/Filing Date: Issued December 16, 1997. The filing date is not explicitly stated in the provided text but is prior to the publication date.
  • Brief Description: This patent describes a "Method and apparatus for compression of very low bit rate video signals." The patent US7707214B2 specifically mentions it in the context of Matching Pursuits (MP) methods being applied to 2D video coding.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): This patent is highly relevant to claims 37, 49, and 61 (video encoding method, system, and computer-readable medium). It anticipates the general application of MP methods to video coding. However, US7707214B2 distinguishes itself by teaching a hierarchical data structure with efficient updating for extremum location within the MP process. Therefore, while it establishes prior art for MP video coding, it would not necessarily anticipate the specific hierarchical data structure and update scheme claimed in US7707214B2. A close examination would be needed to see if Zakhor and Neff implicitly or explicitly suggest such a hierarchical extremum search.

Cited Non-Patent Literature:

• S. G. Mallat and Z. Zhang, “Matching pursuits with time-frequency dictionaries”

  • Full Citation: S. G. Mallat and Z. Zhang, “Matching pursuits with time-frequency dictionaries”, IEEE Trans. Signal Processing, vol. 41, pp. 3397-3415, December 1993.
  • Publication/Filing Date: December 1993.
  • Brief Description: This paper introduces the Matching Pursuits (MP) method with respect to coding of raw 1D audio signals.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): This reference establishes the foundational concept of Matching Pursuits algorithms. It is relevant to the background and general application of MP in signal processing. While it introduces the core idea of identifying basis functions yielding the largest inner products, it does not describe the hierarchical data structure for efficiently updating extremum locations as claimed in US7707214B2. Therefore, it would likely not anticipate claims 1, 13, 26, 37, 49, or 61, as the distinguishing feature of US7707214B2 is the hierarchical data structure and its efficient update scheme, not the MP algorithm itself.

• R. Neff and A. Zakhor, “Very low bit rate video coding based on matching pursuits”

  • Full Citation: R. Neff and A. Zakhor, “Very low bit rate video coding based on matching pursuits” IEEE Trans. Circuits and Systems for Video Tech., vol. 7, pp. 158-171, February 1997.
  • Publication/Filing Date: February 1997.
  • Brief Description: This paper discusses the application of MP methods to 2D video coding.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Similar to the Zakhor and Neff patent, this paper is highly relevant to claims 37, 49, and 61 (video encoding method, system, and computer-readable medium) by demonstrating the use of MP in video coding. It solidifies the prior art for applying MP to video. However, its relevance in anticipating US7707214B2's specific hierarchical data structure and update mechanism for extremum location would need a detailed comparison. It likely does not explicitly describe the hierarchical updating that is central to US7707214B2.

• D. M. Monro, J-L Aufranc, M. A. Bowers and W Poh, “Visual embedding of wavelet transform coefficients”

  • Full Citation: D. M. Monro, J-L Aufranc, M. A. Bowers and W Poh, “Visual embedding of wavelet transform coefficients”, IEEE Int. Conf. Image Process. (ICIP 2000), September 2000.
  • Publication/Filing Date: September 2000.
  • Brief Description: This paper discusses a Precision Limited Quantization (PLQ) method for quantizing Atom amplitudes.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): This reference is cited in US7707214B2 to provide context for quantization techniques that can be used after Atoms are identified by the MP process. It relates to a component of the overall video encoding scheme (quantization) but does not appear to describe the core hierarchical data structure for extremum location or its efficient updating. Therefore, it is unlikely to anticipate any of the claims of US7707214B2, as its focus is on a different aspect of the encoding process.

• Yuan Yuan and Monro, D. M., “improved Matching Pursuits Image Coding”

  • Full Citation: Yuan Yuan and Monro, D. M., “improved Matching Pursuits Image Coding”, IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing ICASSP 2005, Philadelphia, March 2005.
  • Publication/Filing Date: March 2005.
  • Brief Description: This paper is mentioned in US7707214B2 as an example of a lossless coding process (MERGE code employing PLQ quantization) that can be used after MP processing.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Similar to the Monro et al. (2000) paper, this reference concerns a specific technique (lossless coding and quantization) that can be integrated with an MP process, but it does not describe the hierarchical data structure for efficiently finding and updating extremum locations. Therefore, it is unlikely to anticipate any of the claims of US7707214B2.

Most Relevant Prior Art:

The most relevant prior art appears to be U.S. Pat. No. 5,699,121 to Zakhor and Neff and R. Neff and A. Zakhor, “Very low bit rate video coding based on matching pursuits” (February 1997). These references establish the use of Matching Pursuits algorithms for video coding, which is a key application area for the hierarchical data structure described in US7707214B2. While they introduce the general context of finding "largest inner products," the core inventive step of US7707214B2 lies in the efficient hierarchical data structure and its update scheme for extremum location with indirect addressing, particularly how it minimizes comparisons when data values change. The cited prior art broadly covers MP for video but does not appear to explicitly disclose this specific hierarchical organization and update efficiency. Therefore, a thorough anticipation analysis would focus on whether these prior art references, individually or in combination, teach or suggest the particular hierarchical data structure and its efficient update mechanism as claimed in US7707214B2.