DETAILED ACTION
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see application, filed 05/13/2026, with respect to the 112 rejections, 102 rejections and the non-statutory double patenting rejection have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejections above have been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments filed 05/13/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to independent claims 21, 29 and 33 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
Applicant has four different Provisional’s associated with this instant application. Based on the examiner’s review, only the most recent provisional contains support for the claimed equation. Therefore, this application has an effective filing date of 07-02-2018.
Terminal Disclaimer
The terminal disclaimer filed on 05/13/2026 disclaiming the terminal portion of any patent granted on this application which would extend beyond the expiration date of U.S. Patent No. 11,044,470 has been reviewed and is accepted. The terminal disclaimer has been recorded.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 21, 25-26, 28-29, 31-33 and 35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Drugeon et al. (herein after will be referred to as Drugeon) (US 20200195955) in view of Lee (US 20190238835).
Regarding claim 21, Drugeon discloses a video signal processing method comprising:
obtaining reference samples corresponding to a first side of a current block and reference samples corresponding to a second side thereof based on reconstructed samples around the current block, [See Drugeon [0309] Information to be input to the calculation process is reference samples located adjacent to the upper side of a block, reference samples located adjacent to the left side of the block, and the size of the block.]
wherein a length of the first side corresponding to a height of the current block and a length of the second side corresponding to a width of the current block are different from each other; [See Drugeon [Figs. 14-15 and 0311] Horizontal or vertical non-square block.]
obtaining a direct current (DC) value for prediction of the current block based on a reference sample set comprising 2^n reference samples corresponding to a longer side of the first side and the second side, [See Drugeon [Figs. 14-15 and 0305, 0311. For a non-square block, Intra predictor refers to reference samples located to the longer side of two sides of the block and calculates DC value using reference samples located to the longer side. Also, see Fig. 14, the reference sample set corresponding to the longer side is 16 (i.e. power of 2), and/or para. 0265. Additionally, see 0068 and/or 0287, power of 2.]
reconstructing the current block based on the DC value. [See Drugeon [Figs. 14-15 and 0311]
Chen does not explicitly disclose
wherein when the length of the first side is greater than the length of the second side, the reference samples corresponding to the first side are determined based on a line spaced apart by a specific interval from the first side indicated by a reference line index, and
wherein when the length of the second side is greater than the length of the first side, the reference samples corresponding to the second side are determined based on a line spaced apart by the specific interval from the second side indicated by the reference line index; and
However, Lee does disclose
wherein when the length of the first side is greater than the length of the second side, the reference samples corresponding to the first side are determined based on a line spaced apart by a specific interval from the first side indicated by a reference line index, and [See Lee [0241] Decode from a bitstream, index information specifying at least one of a plurality of reference lines. Also, see 0204, 0241 and 0244, For DC mode, a prediction signal is generated using the reference samples included in the reference line. Also, see 0226-0227, When a current block is non-square, a number of reference samples included in a reference line is determined according to horizontal and vertical lengths of a current block.]
wherein when the length of the second side is greater than the length of the first side, the reference samples corresponding to the second side are determined based on a line spaced apart by the specific interval from the second side indicated by the reference line index; and [See Lee [0241] Decode from a bitstream, index information specifying at least one of a plurality of reference lines. Also, see 0204, 0241 and 0244, For DC mode, a prediction signal is generated using the reference samples included in the reference line. Also, see 0226-0227, When a current block is non-square, a number of reference samples included in a reference line is determined according to horizontal and vertical lengths of a current block.]
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date to modify the method by Drugeon to add the teachings of Lee, in order to signal in the bitstream which reference line is utilized when multi-reference line intra prediction is utilized in Drugeon (Drugeon, para. 0290-0291, selecting a reference line comprising reference samples for DC prediction). The improvement of using multi-reference line prediction is known to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Regarding claim 25, Drugeon (modified by Lee) disclose the method of claim 21. Furthermore, Drugeon discloses
wherein, when the length of the first side is greater than the length of the second side, the obtaining the DC value is based on the reference sample set comprising reference samples corresponding to the first side [See Drugeon [Fig. 15] Reference samples correspond to only one side for DC calculation. Also, see 0311, comparison between W and H.]
Regarding claim 26, Drugeon (modified by Lee) disclose the method of claim 25. Furthermore, Drugeon discloses
wherein obtaining the DC value comprises obtaining the DC value based on an average of the reference samples corresponding to the first side if the length of the first side is greater than the length of the second side. [See Drugeon [Fig. 15] Reference samples correspond to only one side for DC calculation.]
Regarding claim 28, Drugeon (modified by Lee) disclose the method of claim 21. Furthermore, Drugeon discloses
wherein obtaining the DC value comprises: performing a shift operation on a sum of sample values of reference samples included in the reference sample set by a shift parameter determined based on a number of reference samples in the reference sample set. [See Drugeon [0068, 0265, 0287, 0300] Calculation done via bit shifting. Also, see Fig. 15, >>log2(w or h).
Regarding claim 29, see examiners rejection for claim 21 which is analogous and applicable for the rejection of claim 29.
Regarding claim 31, see examiners rejection for claim 25 which is analogous and applicable for the rejection of claim 31.
Regarding claim 32, see examiners rejection for claim 26 which is analogous and applicable for the rejection of claim 32.
Regarding claim 33, see examiners rejection for claim 21 which is analogous and applicable for the rejection of claim 33.
Regarding claim 35, see examiners rejection for claim 26 which is analogous and applicable for the rejection of claim 35.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Filippov et al. (US 20210099730) – However, Prov. ‘297 dated 06-06-15-2018, fails to provide support for log2 (width or height) in the claimed equation in this instant application but provides support for the overall equation.
Drugeon et al. “CE3: DC mode without divisions and modifications to intra filtering (Tests 1.3.1, 2.2.2. and 2.5.1)”, upload date of 07-02-2018, fails to qualify as prior art as its upload date is the same date of applicant’s prov. date for KR prov ‘740.
Lin et al. “Modification to DC prediction in SDIP”, 07-2011.
Qi et al. “Cross-check of JVET-K0122: CE3 related: Alternative techniques for DC mode without division”, upload date of 07-11-2018, fails to qualify as prior art.
Filippov et al. “CE3-related: Alternative techniques for DC mode without division, upload date of 07-03-2018, fails to qualify as prior art.
Kim et al. “CE3-related: DC mode with only shifter operators based on sub-sampling, upload date of 07-04-2018, fails to qualify as prior art.
Van der Auwera “Description of Core Experiment 3: Intra Prediction and Mode Coding, 04-2018.
Chen et al. (US 20180131962)
Li et al. (US 20190141318)
Liu et al. (US 20180332284)
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/JAMES T BOYLAN/Examiner, Art Unit 2486
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