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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 5/18/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 5/18/2027, with respect to claims 1-6, and 9-20 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 7 and 8 have been considered and are persuasive. See below.
The Applicant argues on page 8 that the Examiner “conflates two distinct concepts: (1) the
observation that any region defined relative to a block will have an absolute position that depends on the block's position versus (2) the specifically claimed calculation recited as a criterion for determining whether to include a candidate BVP in a list of candidate BVPs.”
This statement fails to elucidate how defining an invalid region by the method disclosed in Tabatabai, by using a block width and block height (Tabatabai fig. 1) and having “an absolute position that depends on the block's position” is distinct from the claimed “calculation recited as a criterion for determining whether to include a candidate BVP in a list of candidate BVPs,” which calculation also uses a block width and block height, and a block position within a frame, defined by its top left pixel coordinate, to fix the position of the invalid region with respect to the current block. The Examiner respectfully maintains, as set forth in the final office action and advisory action, that programming the size and position of the invalid region in figure 1 necessarily entails accounting for the current block coordinate position within the current frame. Absent any argument demonstrating the possibility of programming the invalid region position in Tabatabai without using the coordinate position of the current block in a difference calculation to set the bounds of the moving invalid reference region, the Examiner is compelled to maintain the rejection.
The Examiner respectfully maintains that using a “difference between horizontal/vertical position of the current block and a width/height of the current block” is, according to the Applicant’s specification (e.g. figs. 17b-c), merely a tool for describing the position of the invalid prediction region with respect to a current coding unit/CU, and is therefore not a novel or non-obvious feature over the prior art, Tabatabai. For instance, the difference between the vertical position of the current block, as measured from the top left corner of the block, and a height of the current block results in a vertical position cbY – cbHeight that is one block width above the top edge of the current block. In Tabatabai, this position is the border of the invalid region. In other words, the claimed “difference” appears only as a means to describe the location of the same invalid coding region with respect to current coding unit described in the secondary reference, Tabitabai. Tabitabai discloses this same region, with a width and position defined by the size and position, respectively, of a current CU. See Tabatabai figure 1.
The applicant further argues on page 8,
As taught by way of example in the specification, the claimed "difference" is a specific calculation used to determine whether to add a candidate BVP to the list of candidate BVPs. For example, the specification explains that "[t]he encoder and/or the decoder may generate at least one candidate BVP 1708 ... to indicate a horizontal displacement and a vertical displacement ... of -cbWidth and 0, respectively ... based on a horizontal position (e.g., x-coordinate) of a left edge of IBC reference region 1706 being less than or equal to cbX-cbWidth."
Noting Tabatabai does not perform any such position-based calculation to determine whether to include a candidate BVP in a list of candidate BVPs. Tabatabai's invalid region is a fixed 2Wx2H region that applies uniformly regardless of where the block is positioned in the frame.
The Examiner is persuaded that the combination of Xu in view of Tabitabai does not disclose or make obvious the limitations of claims 7 and 8, based on the above arguments, as the “horizontal/vertical distance of a vertical/horizontal edge of the IBC reference region, from a position of the current block is fixed in Tabatabai to be equal to the width/height of the current block, and thus the vertical and horizontal edges of the invalid region are not disclosed as being greater than the height/width of the current block in the prior art.
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 1-6, and 9-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu, US 2020/0236366 A1, in view of Tabatabai, US 2015/0049813 A1.
Regarding claim 1, Xu discloses: a method comprising:
updating, by a computing device, a list of candidate block vector predictors (BVPs) to include a candidate BVP based on a quantity of candidate BVPs in the list of candidate BVPs being a less than a threshold value (See [0127], which discloses adding candidates to a candidate list until a threshold number of candidates is reached. Note as disclosed in [0126], “In an example, the prediction mode is the IBC mode, and the candidate(s) can be BV predictor(s).”), wherein a determination to include the candidate BVP in the list of candidate BVPs is based on:
an intra block copy (IBC) reference region of a current block of content (See also last two lines in [0126], where it discloses that where the prediction mode for the current block is the IBC mode, the candidate predictors can be block vector predictors, (BVP).); and
performing, based on the updated list of candidate BVPs, at least one of:
encoding of the current block (See [0129], lines 1-4.), or
decoding of the current block (See [0129], lines 1-4.).
Xu does not disclose:
wherein determination of the candidate BVP is based on… at least one of:
a difference between a horizontal position of the current block and a width of the current block, or
a difference between a vertical position of the current block and a height of the current block
However, Tabatabai discloses this limitation in an analogous art.
See figure 1 in Tabatabai, which discloses an invalid candidate motion vector/block vector predictor search range in the vicinity of a current block. Specifically, an invalid range for a BVP is equal to the height of the current block in the y direction and is equal to a width of the current block in the x direction. See also [0027], which discloses, “As demonstrated in the figure, the absolute values of horizontal (MVx) and vertical (MVy) motion vector components in intra-block copying mode cannot be both less than the size of the current CU. In the other words, if MVx is less than CU width (W), abs(MVy) has to be larger than the height (H) of current CU. IMVyl can be reduced to save bits in coding the value.”
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the applicant’s effective filing date to prohibit BVP candidate selections from a region within a threshold distance of the current block defined by the height of current block in the vertical direction and the width of the current block in the y direction, as disclosed in Tabatabai, in order to prevent redundancy in MV coding of intra-block copy mode, as well as to prevent referencing a location that overlaps with the current block, causing prediction error. See Tabatabai, [0027].
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Xu in view of Tabatabai discloses the limitations of claim 1, upon which depends claim 2. This combination, specifically Xu, further discloses: the method of claim 1, wherein the encoding of the current block comprises:
encoding the current block based on a second candidate BVP in the updated list of candidate BVPs (See [0131], disclosing updating the candidate list using new vectors.), and
determining a prediction error between a reference block, associated with the second candidate BVP (See [0110], disclosing signaling a BV difference between a block vector and its predictor.), and the current block.
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Xu in view of Tabatabai discloses the limitations of claim 1, upon which depends claim 3. This combination, specifically Xu, further discloses: the method of claim 1, further comprising receiving an indication of a second candidate BVP in the updated list of candidate BVPs, wherein the decoding of the current block comprises decoding the current block based on the second candidate BVP (See [0131].).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Xu in view of Tabatabai discloses the limitations of claim 1, upon which depends claim 4. This combination, specifically Xu, further discloses: the method of claim 1, wherein the candidate BVP indicates a displacement from the current block to a boundary of the IBC reference region (See [0122], which discloses, “In an example, when a search range is restrained in intra block copy, a BV of a current block is bounded by a current CTB boundary,).
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Xu in view of Tabatabai discloses the limitations of claim 1, upon which depends claim 5. This combination, specifically Xu, further discloses: the method of claim 1, wherein the candidate BVP indicates a displacement from the current block to a position within the IBC reference region (See [0121], which discloses with respect to figure 9D a search range for a BV of a current block’s including previously coded blocks 916-918.).
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Xu in view of Tabatabai discloses the limitations of claim 1, upon which depends claim 6. This combination, specifically Xu, further discloses: the method of claim 1, wherein the candidate BVP indicates a displacement from the current block to a position that is between two boundaries of the IBC reference region (See figure 8, showing a block vector 850 pointing to a location within a search range (IBC reference region) 860.).
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Xu in view of the method of claim 1, wherein:
a width of the current block is cbWidth;
a height of the current block is cbHeight; and
the candidate BVP indicates a horizontal displacement and a vertical displacement, from a position of the current block, of -cbWidth and -cbHeight, respectively (See step 32 in figure 2.), based on:
a horizontal distance of a vertical edge of the IBC reference region, from the position of the current block, being greater than or equal to the width of the current block (See figure 1, showing an invalid IBC reference region within one width unit of the current block and one height unit of the current block.); and
a vertical distance of a horizontal edge of the IBC reference region, from the position of the current block, being greater than or equal to the height of the current block (See figure 1, showing an invalid IBC reference region within one width unit of the current block and one height unit of the current block.).
Method claim 10 differs from method claim 1 only in its recitation of receiving an indication of a candidate BVP in the update list of candidate BVPs.
This further limitation is also disclosed in Xu at least in [0132], where it discloses: “Additional signaling can indicate (i) which of the previous default vectors are to be inherited and/or (ii) whether one or more replacement or new vectors is to be added.”
Method claims 11-13 substantially correspond, respectively, to method claims 4-6, differing only in their inheritance of the above limitation from claim 10. Therefore, method claims are rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as set forth above with respect to claims
Regarding claim 14, the combination of Xu in view of Tabatabai discloses the limitations of claim 14, upon which depends claim 10. This combination, specifically Xu, further discloses: the method of claim 10, wherein the updating the list of candidate BVPs comprises replacing at least one second candidate BVP, in the list of candidate BVPs, with the at least one candidate BVP (See [0133], which disclose replacing vectors in a set of candidate block vector predictors.).
Regarding claim 15, the combination of Xu in view of Tabatabai discloses the limitations of claim 10, upon which depends claim 15. This combination, specifically Xu, further discloses: the method of claim 10, further comprising receiving an indication of a prediction error of the current block, wherein the decoding the current block comprises decoding the current block further based on the prediction error (See [0124], a “difference” is a prediction error between the current block and the reference block.).
Encoding claims 16-20 correspond, respectively, to decoding claims 10-14, insomuch as they differ only in their respective recitations of an “decoding method” or an “encoding method.” Therefore, encoding method claims 16-20 are rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as used above for decoding method claims 10-14, respectively.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7 and 8 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter. Regarding claims 7 and 8, Tabitabai does not disclose or make obvious the limitations of claims 7 and 8, as the “horizontal/vertical distance of a vertical/horizontal edge of the IBC reference region, from a position of the current block is fixed in Tabatabai to be equal to the width/height of the current block, and thus the vertical and horizontal edges of the invalid region are not disclosed as being greater than the height/width of the current block in the prior art.
“the height of the current block is cbHeight; and the candidate BVP indicates a horizontal displacement of zero and a vertical displacement of -cbHeight from the position of the current block based on a vertical distance of a horizontal edge of the IBC reference region, from a position of the current block, being greater than or equal to the height of the current block.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KYLE M LOTFI whose telephone number is (571)272-8762. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00-5:00.
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/KYLE M LOTFI/Examiner, Art Unit 2425
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