DETAILED ACTION
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 09/23/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
On page 13 of the Remarks, Applicant contends the teachings of He are deficient because He does not teach or suggest determining an indicator designating a spatial neighboring block as unavailable in response to the spatial neighboring block being coded with intra-block copy (IBC) mode. Examiner disagrees. He very explicitly teaches that if a block is intra-coded, it is considered as unavailable. See Applicant’s reproduction of He’s paragraph [0109]; Remarks, 13. Examiner finds the plain language of the prior art could not be any clearer. Even with this level of clarity, Examiner further cited to Xu, which leaves no doubt regarding the propriety of the rejection. Xu explicitly teaches, “the IntraBC coded block is treated as unavailable.” See Applicant’s reproduction of Xu’s paragraph [0069]; Remarks, 14. Again, Examiner finds the teachings of the prior art could not be more explicit. Accordingly, the claims are unpatentable as obvious under 35 U.S.C. 103.
On page 14 of the Remarks, Applicant contends the teachings of Xu do not make up for the deficiencies of He. Examiner disagrees for the reasons explained, supra.
Examiner notes Sugio is cited under the Conclusion Section of this Office Action for teaching “indicating” unavailability of neighboring blocks for the motion vector candidate list.
Other claims are not argued separately. Remarks, 14.
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 of this title, 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 1–6, 8, and 10–21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee (US 2020/0084441 A1), He (US 2017/0289566 A1), and Xu (US 2017/0280159 A1).
Regarding claim 1, the combination of Lee, He, and Xu teaches or suggests a method of coding video data, comprising: determining, for a first conversion between a first video block of a video and a bitstream of the video (Applicant’s original claims 12 and 13 explain this “conversion” means video encoding or decoding; Lee, Abstract: explaining that the subject matter is drawn to video encoding and decoding methods and apparatuses), that the first video block is coded with a subblock-based temporal motion vector prediction mode (Lee, ¶ 0537: teaches STMVP; Lee, ¶ 0678: teaches the derived motion vector can be from a sub-block; Lee, ¶ 0703: teaches the derived motion vector can be from a sub-block; Lee, Claim 23: teaches for any inter-prediction mode the motion vectors can be for sub-blocks); in response to a spatial neighboring block of the first video block being coded with intra-block copy (IBC) mode, determining that motion information of the spatial neighboring block is unavailable, determining an indicator designating the spatial neighboring block as unavailable ((He, ¶ 0109: explains that intra-coded blocks (like IBC mode) are considered unavailable for TMVP; He’s teachings regarding TMVP would also apply if the blocks were sub-blocks, i.e. STMVP; Lee, ¶ 0537: teaches STMVP; Lee, ¶ 0678: teaches the derived motion vector can be from a sub-block; As explained in the prosecution record, He alone is considered sufficient to teach to the skilled artisan excluding blocks from the candidate list that are coded using IBC; However, to expedite prosecution, Xu, ¶ 0069: teaches, “In the Merge candidate and AMVP MV predictor derivation, the IntraBC coded block is treated as unavailable.”), and identifying, without using the motion information of the spatial neighboring block, at least one video region in a collocated picture corresponding to the first video block (He, ¶ 0167: teaches an inter merge process that identifies temporal collocated blocks without using motion information of neighboring blocks); and performing the first conversion based on the determinings and the at least one video region that is identified (Lee, Abstract: teaches the embodiments described in the publication are encoding and decoding methods and apparatuses), wherein at least one motion vector of at least one sub-block in the first video block is used as at least one motion vector candidate of a second video block of the video (Lee, ¶ 0537: teaches STMVP; Lee, ¶ 0678: teaches the derived motion vector can be from a sub-block; Examiner notes STMVP is the process of using sub-blocks as predictors for other blocks in the video), wherein for the IBC mode, a prediction is derived from sample values of a same slice as determined by block vectors (Xu, ¶ 0035: teaches IBC uses block vectors; Xu, ¶ 0054: teaches IBC mode can be performed at the slice level; He, ¶ 0179: teaches block vectors are checked to make sure they are within the current slice), wherein the method further comprises: determining whether the video region is coded with the IBC mode; and determining that motion information of the video region is unavailable in response to determining that the video region is coded with the IBC mode (Xu, ¶ 0069: teaches, “In the Merge candidate and AMVP MV predictor derivation, the IntraBC coded block is treated as unavailable.”).
One of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would have been motivated to combine the elements taught by Lee, with those of He, because both references are drawn to the same field of endeavor and because, as He explains in ¶ 0153, intraBC (block vector) candidates do not benefit from motion vectors. Thus, because pair-wise averaged vectors are only useful for motion vectors, He’s teaching suggests excluding pairwise averaged block vectors from the candidate list. Furthermore, Examiner notes the negative limitation and the fact that there is no known teaching in the prior art that says a block vector candidate list must include pair-wise averaged block vectors. This rationale applies to all combinations of Lee and He used in this Office Action unless otherwise noted.
One of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would have been motivated to combine the elements taught by Lee and He, with those of Xu, because all three references are drawn to the same field of endeavor such that one wishing to practice merge candidate prediction techniques would be led to their relevant teachings and because, while He explains in ¶ 0153 intraBC (block vector) candidates do not benefit from motion vectors, Xu more explicitly explains that IntraBC coded blocks should be treated as unavailable for TMVP. Thus, the combination is a mere combination of prior art elements, according to known methods, to yield a predictable result. This rationale applies to all combinations of Lee, He, and Xu used in this Office Action unless otherwise noted.
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Lee, He, and Xu teaches or suggests the method of claim 1, further comprising: constructing, for a second conversion between the second video block of the video and the bitstream of the video, a motion vector candidate list comprising the at least one motion vector candidate (Lee, ¶ 0136: teaches a motion vector candidate list); performing the second conversion based on the motion vector candidate list (Lee, Abstract: teaches the embodiments described in the publication are encoding and decoding methods and apparatuses), wherein the motion vector candidate list is constructed by applying a pair-wise averaging operation, and a pair-wise average merge candidate associated with a motion vector derived from the pair-wise averaging operation is added to the motion vector candidate list (Lee, ¶¶ 0327 and 0328: teaches spatial and temporal motion candidates; Lee, ¶ 0582: teaches the derived motion vectors can be the product of the weighted average of motion vectors; Lee, ¶ 0142: teaches merge candidates in inter-prediction wherein the merge candidates are motion vectors obtained by combining candidates; Lee, ¶ 0445: explains that combining candidates can include pair-wise averaging of motion information from list 0 and list 1 motion vectors; Lee, ¶ 0582: teaches the combination can be an averaging; see also Lee, ¶ 0569, teaching the motion vectors are derived from first and second merge candidates, but compare Lee, ¶ 0570), wherein the motion vector is derived based on a weighted average of a plurality of motion vectors (Lee, ¶ 0582: teaches the derived motion vectors can be the product of the weighted average of motion vectors; Lee, ¶ 0297: teaches inter-prediction uses reference pictures, which are pictures that are not the current picture; Examiner notes the “first picture” is interpreted as the current picture; This limitation is also saying IBC (also known as intraBC) is not part of the process of making MV candidates; In other words, this limitation is saying that, when utilizing intra-prediction using a block vector rather than inter-prediction using a motion vector, the block vector is not pair-wise averaged; see above for citations to Lee explaining that “combined” candidates are the result of averaging; Lee, ¶ 0443: teaches that “combined” (averaged) motion information is averaged between list zero (L0) and list one (L1), which are lists of reference pictures before and after the current picture, but not the current picture, and thus not able to produce block vectors; Lee, ¶ 0446: explains that if the information in the candidate list is not L0 or L1 is not motion information (e.g. a block vector), then combining is turned off; While the teachings of Lee alone would appear to suggest that pair-wise averaged blocks do not make it into the block vector candidate list (i.e. vectors from the same current picture), Lee is not explicit; However, in the same field of endeavor, He, ¶ 0171: teaches that block vectors use uni-prediction; To the skilled artisan, this means that reference blocks (to which the BV points) are not available in both directions and thus there would be no pairwise averaging as in the case of inter-prediction; He, ¶ 0171 explains as much in explaining the reference picture for block vectors is the partially reconstructed current picture; see also He, ¶ 0153: explaining that intraBC (block vector) candidates do not benefit from motion vectors; Thus, because pair-wise averaged vectors are only useful for motion vectors, He’s teaching suggests excluding pairwise averaged block vectors from the candidate list), and wherein the plurality of motion vectors are derived based on a second two candidates in a merge candidate list of the second video block (Lee, ¶ 0569, teaching the motion vectors are derived from first and second merge candidates); and constructing, for a third conversion between a third video block of the video and the bitstream of the video, a block vector candidate list comprising at least one block vector candidate (He, ¶ 0005: teaches selecting between motion vector (MV) candidates and block vector (BV) candidates); and performing the third conversion based on the block vector candidate list, wherein the block vector candidate list is constructed by excluding the pair-wise averaging operation (As explained for the rejection of claim 1, it is obvious to exclude BVs from the pairwise averaging process), and wherein a prediction of the third video block is derived from blocks of sample values of a same picture which includes the third video block, wherein the same picture is not a picture type which is indicated as a long-term reference picture (Examiner finds this limitation appears to be the opposite of what Applicant’s published paragraph [0091] says about IBC, i.e. “To be compatible with main profile HEVC, the current picture is marked as a ‘long-term’ reference picture in the Decoded Picture Buffer (DPB).”; Examiner notes marking the picture as long-term or not has no effect on the prior art’s use of the current picture for BVs).
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Lee, He, and Xu teaches or suggests the method of claim 2, further comprising applying equal weights to all the plurality of motion vectors (Examiner notes that applying equal weights is equivalent to applying no weighting at all, i.e. plain averaging; Lee, ¶ 0582: teaches the combination of motion vectors can be obtained by averaging or weighted averaging).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Lee, He, and Xu teaches or suggests the method of claim 2, wherein the pair-wise average merge candidate is a motion vector of a pair-wise average merge candidate in inter prediction mode (Lee, ¶ 0142: teaches merge candidates in inter-prediction wherein the merge candidates are motion vectors obtained by combining candidates; Lee, ¶ 0445: explains that combining candidates can include pair-wise averaging of motion information from list 0 and list 1 motion vectors; Lee, ¶ 0582: teaches the combination can be an averaging; see also Lee, ¶ 0569, but compare Lee, ¶ 0570).
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Lee, He, and Xu teaches or suggests the method of claim 4, wherein the pair-wise average merge candidate is derived based on a weighted average of a first motion vector of a first merge candidate and a second motion vector of a second merge candidate (Lee, ¶ 0142: teaches merge candidates in inter-prediction wherein the merge candidates are motion vectors obtained by combining candidates; Lee, ¶ 0445: explains that combining candidates can include pair-wise averaging of motion information from list 0 and list 1 motion vectors; Lee, ¶ 0582: teaches the combination can be an averaging; see also Lee, ¶ 0569, but compare Lee, ¶ 0570).
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Lee, He, and Xu teaches or suggests the method of claim 2, wherein all the plurality of motion vectors refer to a reference picture not identical to a second picture which includes the second video block, or all the plurality of motion vectors refer to the reference picture identical to the second picture (Lee, ¶ 0443: teaches that “combined” (averaged) motion information is averaged between list zero (L0) and list one (L1), which are lists of reference pictures before and after the current picture, but not the current picture, and thus not able to produce block vectors; Lee, ¶ 0446: explains that if the information in the candidate list is not L0 or L1 is not motion information (e.g. a block vector), then combining is turned off; While the teachings of Lee alone would appear to suggest that pair-wise averaged blocks do not make it into the block vector candidate list (i.e. vectors from the same current picture), Lee is not explicit; However, in the same field of endeavor, He, ¶ 0171: teaches that block vectors use uni-prediction; To the skilled artisan, this means that reference blocks (to which the BV points) are not available in both directions and thus there would be no pairwise averaging as in the case of inter-prediction; He, ¶ 0171 explains as much in explaining the reference picture for block vectors is the partially reconstructed current picture; see also He, ¶ 0153: explaining that intraBC (block vector) candidates do not benefit from motion vectors; Thus, because pair-wise averaged vectors are only useful for motion vectors, He’s teaching suggests excluding pairwise averaged block vectors from the candidate list).
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Lee, He, and Xu teaches or suggests the method of claim 2, wherein a reference picture used in the first conversion is marked as a short-term reference picture or a long-term reference picture (Examiner views this limitation as reciting Applicant-Admitted Prior Art; see Applicant’s published paragraphs [0028]–[0029]; He, ¶ 0121: likewise teaches the prior art approach of marking reference pictures as either short or long term reference pictures).
Regarding claim 10, the combination of Lee, He, and Xu teaches or suggests the method of claim 1, wherein a reference picture of the first video block and a reference picture of the video region in the collocated picture are marked as a same picture type (He, ¶ 0121: teaches the reference picture type, i.e. long-term or short-term, must match between the reference picture of the current picture and reference picture of the collocated PU (colPU) in order for the temporal candidate to be considered available).
Regarding claim 11, the combination of Lee, He, and Xu teaches or suggests the method of claim 10, wherein the same picture type is indicated as a short-term reference picture or a long-term reference picture (He, ¶ 0121: teaches the reference picture type, i.e. long-term or short-term must match between the reference picture of the current picture and reference picture of the collocated PU (colPU) in order for the temporal candidate to be considered available).
Regarding claim 12, the combination of Lee, He, and Xu teaches or suggests the method of claim 1, wherein the first conversion includes encoding the first video block into the bitstream (Lee, Abstract: teaches the embodiments described in the publication are encoding and decoding methods and apparatuses).
Regarding claim 13, the combination of Lee, He, and Xu teaches or suggests the method of claim 1, wherein the first conversion includes decoding the first video block from the bitstream (Lee, Abstract: teaches the embodiments described in the publication are encoding and decoding methods and apparatuses).
Claim 14 lists the same elements as claim 1, but is drawn to an apparatus rather than a method. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 1 applies to the instant claim.
Claim 15 lists the same elements as claim 2, but is drawn to an apparatus rather than a method. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 2 applies to the instant claim.
Claim 16 lists the same elements as claim 3, but is drawn to an apparatus rather than a method. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 3 applies to the instant claim.
Claim 17 lists the same elements as claim 4, but is drawn to an apparatus rather than a method. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 4 applies to the instant claim.
Claim 18 lists the same elements as claim 5, but is drawn to an apparatus rather than a method. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 5 applies to the instant claim.
Claim 19 lists the same elements as claim 1, but is in CRM form rather than method form. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 1 applies to the instant claim. See Lee, ¶ 0729.
Claim 20 lists the same elements as claim 1, but is drawn to the resultant product-by-process rather than the method. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 1 applies to the instant claim. See Lee, ¶ 0729.
Claim 21 lists the same elements as claim 6, but is drawn to an apparatus rather than a method. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 6 applies to the instant claim.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Lee (US 2017/0332099 A1) teaches merge candidate derivation and STMVP (¶ 0230), among other features of the present claims.
Liu (US 2020/0084454 A1) teaches identical subject matter in its paragraph [0032] as Applicant discloses in published paragraph [0098].
Xu (US 2017/0280159 A1) teaches IntraBC candidates are treated as unavailable (e.g. ¶ 0069).
Chuang (US 2021/0176485 A1) teaches STMVP utilizes derived motion vectors for sub-blocks (e.g. ¶ 0068 and Fig. 3).
Liu (US 2018/0139461 A1) teaches there are scenarios in which there is only one slice in the picture (¶¶ 0100–0101).
Sugio (US 2014/0169477 A1) teaches indicating a motion vector candidate for an adjacent block encoded by intra prediction as unavailable for the motion vector candidate list (¶ 0098).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Michael J Hess whose telephone number is (571)270-7933. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon - Fri 9:00am-5:30pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, William Vaughn can be reached on (571)272-3922. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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MICHAEL J. HESS
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2481
/MICHAEL J HESS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2481