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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 08/29/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-2 5-8 12-16 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oh et al. US 2020/0186833 in view of Horowitz US 2012/0163453 and further in view of Wang WO 2014/051893
Oh discloses:
15. and under similar/complementary rationales 1. And 8. A decoder comprising: a receiver configured to receive a bitstream comprising a subpicture containing a slice, wherein the bitstream further comprises a slice header associated with the slice (Fig. 6: receiver; Fig. 8: 800 receiving the bitstream; 0221-2); and a processor coupled to the receiver (Fig. 6: reception processor), the processor configured to: and decode the slice of the subpicture based on the slice address (0222).
While Oh appears to be silent about obtain a slice address that is a subpicture level slice index of the slice when the slice is a rectangular slice, wherein the slice address and a subpicture identifier (ID) are contained in the slice header, Oh teaches it would be obvious to obtain a slice address that is a subpicture level slice index of the slice when the slice is a rectangular slice, wherein the slice address and a subpicture identifier (ID) are contained in the slice header (0189: an MCTS may include at least one tile, and a tile may represent a rectangular area being configured of coding tree blocks (CTBs) of a 2D picture; 0223; Figs. 14-9; 0264; also since a tile is a rectangular area of coding tree blocks/units which could also be a definition of a rectangular slice and tiles and slices are often given similar functions within encoding/decoding as evidenced by applicants disclosure, Fig. 5D and related description 0105 of PGPUB As shown, slice 515 (or a tile 517 of a slice 515) of a picture 500 may contain one or more CTUs 519; 0221; 0226; 0231: MCTSs corresponding to the areas, an MCTS index may be signaled; 0234: In order to configure an outBitstream image, the receiving device may need to re-designate a slice segment address of a slice header. In this case, the receiving device may rearrange MCTSs by an order of b, a, d, c and positions (or arranges) MCTSs in a raster scan order according to a width given in pic_width_in_luma_samples. In this case, an output picture (sub-picture) may be configured,; 0246; 0278: the slice header may include slice segment address information)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill before the effective filing date to modify the reference(s) as above in order to relate the areas a, b, c, d and the areas e, f are spatially spaced apart on the 2D picture, the areas may cover their neighboring areas on a 3D spherical surface or 360 (Oh 0238 Figs. 14, 16).
Horowitz teaches the subpicture is a rectangular region capable of containing two or more slices within a picture (0026)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill before the effective filing date to modify the reference(s) as above in order to effectively produce rectangular slices (Horowitz 0026).
Wang teaches deriving a subpicture index based on the subpicture ID(0155-0164: “the video coder may code the unique identifier for each decoding unit as an index of the decoding unit into the list of all decoding units in the access unit in decoding order…” “operation on the sub-picture level is allowed for access unit “)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill before the effective filing date to modify the reference(s) as above in order to let the video encoder signal identifiers for the decoding units (Wang 0155).
16. 2. The decoder of claim 15, wherein the processor is further configured to: obtain the subpicture ID of the subpicture containing the slice (0226); and position the slice in the subpicture based on the slice address and subpicture ID (Fig. 18: output picture; 0264).
19. 5. 12. The decoder of claim 15, wherein the slice address is contained in a sliceaddress syntax element, and wherein the subpicture ID is contained in a slice _subpicid syntax element (0221; 0226; 0231; 0234; 0246; 0278).
20. 6. 13. The decoder of claim 16, wherein the bitstream further comprises a sequence parameter set (SPS), wherein the SPS contains a description of the subpicture, and wherein the subpicture ID references the description of the subpicture (0221; 0226; 0231; 0234; 0278; tables 2-3; 0246).
7. and 14. The method of claim 6, wherein the description of the subpicture includes a width of the subpicture in units of coding tree blocks (CTBs), a height of the subpicture in units of CTBs, and an offset of the subpicture specified as a vertical position of a top left coding tree unit (CTU) of the subpicture and a horizontal position of the top left CTU of the subpicture (tables 2-3).
Claim(s) 4, 11, 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oh and Horowitz and Wang in view of Aono et al. WO 2019/078169
18. 4. 11. The decoder of claim 15,
Oh does not explicitly disclose the following, however Aono teaches wherein the slice is a rectangular region when a rectslice flag is equal to one (Fig. 7 rectangular slice flag).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill before the effective filing date to modify the reference(s) as above in order to a flag indicating whether the shape of a slice is rectangular or not is decoded, and in the case when the flag indicates the slice shape to be rectangular, the position and size of the rectangular slice is not changed over a period during which the same SPS is being referenced. In addition, the rectangular slice is independently decoded without reference to information of other slices. (Aono Abstract)
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSEPH W BECKER whose telephone number is (571)270-7301. The examiner can normally be reached flexible usually 10-6.
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/JOSEPH W BECKER/Examiner, Art Unit 2483
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