DETAILED ACTION
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 02/19/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
Applicant previously filed claims 1-20. Claims 1, 9, and 16 have been amended. Accordingly, claims 1-20 remain pending in the current application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 01/06/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Some of Applicant’s arguments with respect to the 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.
Applicant argues that Mukherjee et al fails to teach “selectively omit at least some coefficients of the 4x4 data block regardless of their values.” Examiner respectfully disagrees. Mukherjee et al. in Section II.D teaches “This block is used to encode the total number of zeros present in the 4x4 quantized block. The zeros present after the last non-zero coefficient are ignored as there is a prior knowledge of the total coefficients in the block. Therefore, the number of zeros after the last non-zero coefficient will be (16 — total non-zero coefficients — zeros before last non-zero coefficient). The Yofal Zeros are encoded depending on the total number of zeros and the total coefficients. it has been observed from the standard that the length of encoded bit stream in the look-up table to encode Total Zeros does not vary to a large extent. Hence, the LUT used for storing the length of encoded data can be replaced with a combinatorial circuit.” The ignoring and skipping of values described is interpreted to meet the claim limitations as filed.
Regarding the 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph rejection of claims 1, 9 and 16, the applicant’s amendments do not address the issues of indefiniteness raised by the original rejection and that rejection is therefore maintained. The word "regardless" renders the claim indefinite because it is unclear whether the limitations following “regardless” are part of the claimed invention. See MPEP § 2173.05(d). It remains unclear what the recitation of the phrase “regardless of their values” achieves and how it is even implemented in the encoding process. Therefore the recitation of “regardless of their values” is not given patentable weight. Applicant is still required to amend to more particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor regards as the invention.
Applicant's arguments fail to comply with 37 CFR 1.111(b) because they amount to a general allegation that the claims define a patentable invention without specifically pointing out how the language of the claims patentably distinguishes them from the references.
Applicant's arguments do not comply with 37 CFR 1.111(c) because they do not clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. Further, they do not show how the amendments avoid such references or objections.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding claims 1, 9 and 16, the word "regardless" renders the claim indefinite because it is unclear whether the limitations following “regardless” are part of the claimed invention. See MPEP § 2173.05(d). Further the claim recites both “selectively” omitting coefficients, but also that they are omitted “regardless” of value. It is unclear whether the omitting is “selective” or not selective which would be Implied by the word “regardless”. Therefore the recitation of “regardless of their values” is not given patentable weight. Applicant is required to amend to more particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor regards as the invention.
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mukherjee et al. (NPL; “High Performance VLSI Implementation of Context-based Adaptive Variable Length Coding (CAVLC) for H.264 Encoder,” 2013 Fourth National Conference on Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition, Image Processing and Graphics (NCVPRIPG), IEEE, 18 December 2013) in view of Joshi et al. (US 20130114730 A1)..
Regarding Claim 1, Mukherjee et al. teaches an apparatus comprising: a video-data encoder (abstract) to:
encode a 4x4 data block into a bit stream according to a context adaptive variable length coding, the 4x4 data block representative of video data (Section 1, Paragraph 1); and
while encoding the 4x4 data block, selectively omit at least some coefficients of the 4x4 data block regardless of their values (Section II.D).
However, Mukherjee et al. does not explicitly teach selectively omitting based on respective positions within the 4x4 data block, at least some coefficients.
Joshi et a., however, teaches selectively omitting based on respective positions within the 4x4 data block, at least some coefficients (Paragraphs 10-13).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing of the invention to have modified the encoding apparatus of Mukherjee et al. to include the selective omission based on coefficient position, as taught in Joshi et al. above, in order to more efficiently code digital video information (See Joshi et al. Paragraph 7).
Regarding Claim 2, Mukherjee et al. and Joshi et al. teach the apparatus of claim 1, Mukherjee et al. further teaches wherein the video-data encoder to selectively omit the at least some coefficients of the 4x4 data block by setting the at least some coefficients of the 4x4 data block to zero prior to encoding the 4x4 data block (Section II.D).
Regarding Claim 3, Mukherjee et al. and Joshi et al. teach the apparatus of claim 2, Mukherjee et al. further teaches wherein after setting the at least some coefficients of the 4x4 data block to zero, the video-data encoder, so as to encode the 4x4 data block into the bit stream, to: count a number of non-zero coefficients of the 4x4 data block; count a number of trailing ones of the 4x4 data block; encode the number of non-zero coefficients and the number of trailing ones according to the context adaptive variable length coding; encode a sign of each of the trailing ones according to the context adaptive variable length coding; encode levels of coefficients according to the context adaptive variable length coding; encode a count of zeroes before a last non-zero coefficient according to the context adaptive variable length coding; and encode zeroes before the last non-zero coefficient according to the context adaptive variable length coding (Section I; Section II).
Regarding Claim 4, Mukherjee et al. and Joshi et al. teach the apparatus of claim 1, Mukherjee et al. further teaches wherein the video-data encoder to, so as to selectively omit at least some coefficients of the 4x4 data block while encoding the 4x4 data block, one or more of: not count the at least some coefficients as non-zero coefficients when counting non-zero coefficients according to the context adaptive variable length coding; not count the at least some coefficients as trailing ones when counting trailing ones according to the context adaptive variable length coding; not encode a sign of the at least some coefficients when encoding signs of trailing ones according to the context adaptive variable length coding; not encode a level of the at least some coefficients when encoding levels according to the context adaptive variable length coding; and not include the at least some coefficients when identifying a last non-zero coefficient according to the context adaptive variable length coding (Section I; Section II).
Regarding Claim 5, Mukherjee et al. and Joshi et al. teach the apparatus of claim 1, Mukherjee et al. further teaches wherein the at least some coefficients comprise at least two coefficients (Section II.B).
Regarding Claim 6, Mukherjee et al. and Joshi et al. teach the apparatus of claim 1, Mukherjee et al. further teaches wherein the at least some coefficients comprise a last two coefficients of the 4x4 data block, according to a zig-zag scan pattern of the coefficients in the 4x4 data block (Section II.B).
Regarding Claim 7, Mukherjee et al. and Joshi et al. teach the apparatus of claim 1, Mukherjee et al. further teaches wherein the video-data encoder to encode the number of non-zero coefficients and the number of trailing ones and to encode the sign of each of the trailing ones during the same clock cycle (Section II).
Regarding Claim 8, Mukherjee et al. and Joshi et al. teach the apparatus of claim 1, Mukherjee et al. further teaches wherein the video-data encoder to encode the 4x4 data block into the bit stream in 16, or fewer, clock cycles (Section II).
Claims 9-14 are similar and nearly identical to claims 1-6 and are rejected for the reasons as used above.
Regarding Claim 15, Mukherjee et al. and Joshi et al. teach the apparatus of claim 9, Mukherjee et al. further teaches wherein the video-data encoder to: transform a data block representative of a group of pixels of an image of the video data, using an integer transform; and quantize the transformed data block to generate the 4x4 data block (Section I; Section II).
Method claims 16-20 are drawn to the method of using corresponding apparatus claimed in claims 9-12 and 15. These claims are rejected for the same reasons as used above.
Conclusion
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/FARHAN MAHMUD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2483