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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 10/30/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 10/30/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The Applicant argues with respect to claim 1 that the combination of Pettersson in view of Deshpande fails to disclose: wherein the first enabled flag is obtained based on a second enabled flag specifying whether the temporal motion vector predictor is enabled for a coded layer video sequence (CLVS). Applicant cites figure 14A of the specification for support. However, Deshpande contains an identical pseudocode for pic-level MVP enablement checking based on sequence level checking, in Table 31. Checking at a picture level based on sequence level enablement would have been obvious, as a finer-grained processing of temporal motion vector prediction. Therefore, Deshpande makes this feature obvious. The Examiner further respectfully maintains that the combination of Pettersson in view of Deshpande makes obvious the main feature of checking for a slice header or picture header location of identification information (reference picture index), based on both TMVP being indicated as enabled, and based on predetermined signaling information indicating which of a slice or picture header contains this information. As indicated in the abstract of Pettersson, constant_slice_header_params_enabled_-flag first indicates whether a parameter value is found in a slice or picture header, and among the listed parameter values is a “pps_collocated_ref_idx_plus1”, which is a picture header-level reference picture ID. The corresponding slice_collocated_ref_idx_plus1 is disclosed in Pettersson as being found when the “pps_collocated_ref_idx_plus1” equals zero. See page 3. Therefore, the examiner maintains the grounds of rejection.
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 1, 10, 11, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pettersson, “AHG17: On selectively signal slice header parameters in PPS.” Joint Video Experts Team (JVET) of ITU-T SG 16 WP 3 and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 16th Meeting: Geneva, CH, 1–11 October 2019, in view of Deshpande, US 2022/0394301 A1.
Regarding claim 1, Pettersson discloses: an image decoding method performed by an image decoding apparatus, the image decoding method comprising:
deriving a temporal motion vector predictor for a current block based on a collocated picture for the current block (Note that the definition of a “slice_collocated_ref_idx” in Section 2.1, halfway through page 6, indicates that this syntax specifies reference index for a collocated picture used for temporal motion vector prediction.);
deriving a motion vector of the current block based on the temporal motion vector predictor (See 2.1, “pps_temporal_mvp_enabled_idc”); and generating a prediction block of the current block based on the motion vector (Section 2.1, these steps follow from using a collocated picture for temporal motion vector prediction; a motion vector is derived, and a prediction block generated based on the motion vector. See also, slice_disable_bdof_dmvr_flag at top of page 7.),
wherein the collocated picture is determined based on identification information of the collocated picture (See pages 4-5, code for a slice_header() includes, on page 5, “slice_collocated_ref_idx”) the identification information being included in a slice header of a current slice including the current block or in a picture header of a current picture including the current block (See Abstract: “This contribution… use[s] the same mechanism provided by the “constant_slice_header_params_enabled_flag” to either signal a parameter value in the PPS or in the slice headers:.”),
wherein whether the identification information of the collocated picture is included in the slice header or the picture header is determined based on both predetermined signaling information and an enabled flag (Pettersson discloses a “constant_slice_header_params_enabled_flag” as a “predetermined signaling information.”),
wherein the signaling information specifies whether the identification information of the collocated picture is included in either the slice header or the picture header (pps_collocated_ref_idx_plus1 equal to 0 specifies that the syntax element slice_collocated_ref_idx is present in slice header of slices referring to the PPS.),
Pettersson fails to explicitly disclose making the identification information location contingent on the value of a TMVP enabled flag, and does not disclose a second enabled flag:
wherein whether the identification information of the collocated picture is included in the slice header or the picture header is determined based on both predetermined signaling information and an enabled flag
wherein, based on (i) the signaling information having a first value and (ii) the first enabled flag specifying that the temporal motion vector predictor is enabled for the current picture, the identification information of the collocated picture can be included in the slice header (),
wherein, based on (i) the signaling information having a first value and (ii) the enabled flag specifying that the temporal motion vector predictor is enabled for the current picture, the identification information of the collocated picture can be included in the slice header,
wherein, based on (i) the signaling information having a second value and (ii) the enabled flag specifying that the temporal motion vector predictor is enabled for the current picture, the identification information of the collocated picture is included in the picture header
wherein whether the identification information of the collocated picture is included in the slice header or the picture header is determined based on both predetermined signaling information and an enabled flag,
wherein the enabled flag specifies whether the temporal motion vector predictor is enabled for the current picture,
However, Deshpande discloses in [0274]: It should be noted that in JVET-P2001, the indication of whether TMVP is used is provided in the picture header, but the information related to which reference picture to use for predicting motion vectors, the collocated picture, is provided in the slice headers.” In other words, both references disclose a TMVP enabled flag. This aspect would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the applicant’s effective filing date, because if TMVP is disabled, there is simply no reference picture to identify, making the location of identification information- slice or picture header- moot.
Deshpande also discloses in Table 31, within a picture header: “if(sps_temporal_mvp_enabled_flag ) {pic_temporal_mvp_enabled_flag}]. Deshpande thus discloses a sequence level (CLVS) MVP enabled flag conditions the checking of picture level MVP enabled flag(s) within said sequence. Therefore Deshpande discloses:
wherein the first enabled flag is encoded based on whether the temporal motion vector predictor is enabled for a coded layer video sequence (CLVS) - a second enabled flag specifying whether the temporal motion vector predictor is enabled for the CL VS being encoded.
Deshpande discloses that a “first flag indicat[es] whether temporal motion vector predictor can be enabled for a picture associated with the picture header and (b) second flag indicating information associated with reference picture list are equal to 1. Deshpande further discloses in [0150], halfway down on page 32, “pic_temporal_mvp_eable_flag specifies whether temporal motion vector predictors can be used for inter prediction for slices associated with the [picture header]. If pic_temporal_mvp_enabled_flag is equal to 0, the syntax elements of the slices associated with the PH shall be constrained such that no temporal motion vector predictor is used in decoding of the slices. Otherwise (pic_temporal_mvp_enabled_flag is equal to 1.),”
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the applicant’s effective filing date to incorporate into Pettersson a check for picture header-level tmvp flag specifying whether tmvp is enabled for a current picture, before checking a flag indicating the location of collocated picture information as being in one of a slice or picture header; checking this flag would prevent superfluous checking for reference picture information in the case that TMVP is not enabled for the current picture. When TMVP is disabled for a picture, the location of reference picture identification information is moot because there is no reference picture, as one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized before the effective filing date, based at least on [0274] in Deshpande. Thereby checking TMVP as a basis for checking identification information location would reduce computational overhead while decoding. The combination of these two features would merely entail adding the TMVP enabled/disabled check disclosed in Deshpande into Pettersson; one of ordinary skill in the art could have incorporated this check into the video decoder of Lee with predictable results, and without modifying the respective functions of either element. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 415-421, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1395-97 (2007).
Image decoding apparatus claim 10 and image encoding method claim 11 correspond substantially to image decoding method claim 1, and are rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used above for claim 1.
Regarding claim 15, the combination of Petersson in view of Deshpande discloses the limitations of claim 11, upon which depends claim 15. This combination, specifically Lee, further discloses: a method of transmitting a bitstream generated by the image encoding method of claim 11 (See [0008]).
Claims 6 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Petersson, in view of Deshpande, in further view of Hendry, US 2021/0195236 A1.
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Pettersson in view of Deshpande discloses the limitations of claim 1, upon which depends claim 6. This combination does not disclose: the image decoding method of claim 1, wherein the identification information of the collocated picture comprises direction information of a reference picture list including the collocated picture and reference picture index information specifying the collocated picture in the reference picture list.
However, Lee discloses this limitation in an analogous art: See [0080], last 4 lines, “The prediction unit may also obtain or derive a reference picture index or the like indicating the reference picture from the information on the prediction.”
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the applicant’s effective filing date to incorporate directional information as part of an identification information, in order to accurately reference prediction samples in a directional prediction mode. See Lee [0046].
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Pettersson, in view of Deshpande, in view of Lee discloses the limitations of claim 6, upon which depends claim 7. This combination, specifically Pettersson, further discloses: the image decoding method of claim 6, wherein, based on the slice header and the picture header not including the reference picture index information, the reference picture index information is inferred as a first value.
Pettersson discloses this limitation in an analogous art. As disclosed at bottom of page 6, the value of slice_collocated_ref_idx is inferred to be equal to 0 when not present in slice header and when ((collocated_from_l0_flag && NumRefIdxActive[ 0 ] > 1 ) | | ( !collocated_from_l0_flag && NumRefIdxActive[ 1 ] > 1 ) is not true. This condition occurs when pps_collocated_ref_idx_plus1 is greater than zero.
Claims 8 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pettersson, in view of Deshpande, in further view of Hendry, US 2021/0195236 A1.
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Pettersson in view of Deshpande discloses the limitations of claim 1, upon which depends claim 8. This combination not disclose: the image decoding method of claim 1, wherein the identification information of the collocated picture included in the picture header comprises information on a difference in picture order count (POC) between the collocated picture and the current picture.
Hendry discloses in [0125]-[0126] placing in a picture parameter set (PPS) a delta POC value, which indicates a difference a POC of a current frame and a reference frame.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the applicant’s effective filing date to incorporate delta POC information, instead of providing an absolute POC value, in a PPS in Petersson, as disclosed in Hendry, in order to conserve bits, simplify the coding process, and thereby improve the user experience. See Hendry [0005].
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Petersson, in view of Deshpande, discloses the limitations of claim 1, upon which depends claim 9. However, this combination does not disclose: the image decoding method of claim 1, wherein the identification information on the collocated picture included in the picture header comprises information on an absolute value and sign of a difference in picture order count (POC) between the collocated picture and the current picture.
However Hendry discloses in [0125]-[0126] an all_rpl_entries_same_sign_flag that, when equal to 1, indicates another flag is signaled to indicate the sign value of delta POC value entries in a reference picture list (RPL). When this flag is 0, it indicates that all delta POCs in a given RPL have the same sign value, either positive or negative. Additionally, Hendry discloses here that the absolute value is delta POC value is coded using unsigned integer 0-th order Exp-Golomb coding (e.g., ue(v)).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the applicant’s effective filing date to signal both an absolute value of the delta POCs in an RPL, as well as the sign values, either collectively, (all_rpl_entries_same_sign_flag = 1), or individually (all_rpl_entries_same_sign_flag = 0), in order to improve the efficiency of reference picture list coding by reducing bit count for signaling POC values. Such a combination would have entailed no change in the respective functions of the two inventions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results for one of ordinary skill in the art. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. at 416, 82 USPQ2d at 1395.
Conclusion
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/KYLE M LOTFI/Examiner, Art Unit 2425