DETAILED ACTION
Response to Arguments
The amendment filed 11 November 2025 has been entered in full. Accordingly, claims 1, 3-11, 13-20 are pending in the application.
The applicant acknowledges the examiner’s claim interpretations under 35 U.S.C. 112(f). The claim interpretations are respectfully maintained.
Regarding the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) over Xu, the applicant argues on page 7 of the Remarks that:
PNG
media_image1.png
198
524
media_image1.png
Greyscale
The examiner respectfully disagrees. The Xu reference names additional authors Dongmei Xu, Hao Wang, Zhongjie Mi, and Zhe Wang. The MPEP states in 2153.01(a):
Specifically, Office personnel may not apply a disclosure as prior art under AIA 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) if the disclosure: (1) was made one year or less before the effective filing date of the claimed invention; (2) names the inventor or a joint inventor as an author or an inventor; and (3) does not name additional persons as authors on a printed publication or joint inventors on a patent.
Accordingly, Xu qualifies as prior art under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1). However, a declaration under Rule 130(a) may be field to disqualify the reference under 102(b)(1)(A).
For these reasons, the art rejections under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) over Xu are respectfully maintained.
Regarding the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) over Jiang, the applicant amends independent claims 1 and 11 to incorporate the limitations of dependent claims 2 and 12, respectively. Accordingly, these art rejections are withdrawn.
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Such claim limitation(s) is/are: “recompression detection engine” in claims 1 and 11.
Because this/these claim limitation(s) is/are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, it/they is/are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
If applicant does not intend to have this/these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 3-11, and 13-20 are is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Xu et al. (Detecting double H.266/VVC compression with the same coding parameters, 2022, Neurocomputing, Vol. 514, Pages 231-244), hereinafter “Xu”.
Regarding claim 1, Xu teaches:
A system for analyzing compressed video (See the Abstract.), comprising: a recompression detection engine arranged to analyze a compressed video sequence associated with a raw video sequence and to determine whether the compressed video has been processed by a predetermined video compression codec for multiple times using a same set of coding parameters (See the proposed algorithm in section 3 on pages 234-235.); wherein the predetermined video compression codec includes a Versatile Video Coding (H.266/VVC) compression standard (See page 232: “In this paper, we propose an algorithm to detect H.266/VVC double compression.”).
Regarding claim 3, Xu teaches:
The system of claim 1, wherein the recompression detection engine includes a machine-learning based processing engine (See page 237: “After successively iteration, a trained SVM model can be obtained, which can be further used for H.266/VVC double compression detection.”).
Regarding claim 4, Xu teaches:
The system of claim 3, wherein the recompression detection engine is trained by: - obtaining multiple sets of positive samples of recompressed video sequence each represent the compressed video sequence which has been processed by the predetermined video compression codec for multiple times using the same set of coding parameters; - obtaining multiple sets of negative samples of recompressed video sequence each represent the compressed video sequence which has been processed by the predetermined video compression codec once only (See page 238: “In this work, single compressed H.266/VVC video clips are defined as negative samples. The positive samples are obtained by decoding and recompressing those singly compressed video clips with the same coding parameters.”); and - providing the multiple sets of positive samples and negative samples of recompressed video sequence so as to train the recompression detection engine in a machine learning process (See page 237: “For the training procedure, Ffusion extracted from double compressed H.266/VVC video clips are tagged as 1, and those from single compressed samples are labeled as 0.”).
Regarding claim 5, Xu teaches:
The system of claim 4, wherein the recompressed video sequence is reprocessed by the predetermined video compression codec for at least once using the same set of coding parameters, after processing the raw video sequence with an initial compression and decompression cycle using the predetermined video compression codec and the same set of coding parameters (See page 232: “(2) We calculate the variation of partition modes and consistency of prediction modes of coding units after consecutive compressions and decompressions to characterize the double compression traces.”).
Regarding claim 6, Xu teaches:
The system of claim 4, wherein the raw video sequences decompressed video sequences obtained after at least one compression and decompression cycle include YUV sequences (See page 237: “Video multiple compression and decompression. The input YUV sequence Y0 is first encoded into H.266/VVC video V1 with parameters P, then V1 is decoded into YUV sequence Y1, and futher recompressed into H.266/VVC video V2. The recompression parameters are consistent with P. Repeat this continuous encoding and decoding procedures 3 times.”).
Regarding claim 7, Xu teaches:
The system of claim 5, wherein during each decoding procedure in the compression and decompression cycle, statistics of coding unit (CU) partition and prediction modes from I-frames of the video is extracted, and wherein different CU partition modes and prediction mode statics for all coding units are labeled with a corresponding mode number (See page 237: “(2) CU partition and prediction modes extraction. During each decoding procedure, extract the statistics of CU partition and prediction modes from I-frames of the videos. For partition modes of 32 x 32; 16 x 16; 8 x 8; 4 x 4; 4 x 8; 8 x 4; 8 x 16; 16 x 8; 16 x 32; 32 x 16; 4 x 16; 16 x 4; 8 x 32; 32 x 8; 4 x 32; 32 x 4, we label them with numbers from 1 to 16. Prediction mode statistics for all units in I-frames are also labeled with their mode numbers.”).
Regarding claim 8, Xu teaches:
The system of claim 7, wherein different CU partition modes consists of different number of 4 x 4 minimum units (See Fig. 6 on page 235.).
Regarding claim 9, Xu teaches:
The system of claim 8, wherein during each decoding procedure after ith compression, minimum unit mapping and subunit prediction mapping are performed to facilitate feature construction, and wherein a difference of the number of 4 x 4 minimum units with the same label after two consecutive compressions is measured (See page 236, Eq. 5.).
Regarding claim 10, Xu teaches:
The system of claim 9, wherein during each decoding procedure after ith compression, prediction mode based feature set is further concatenated into a fusion feature for detection in the training process, wherein the prediction modes based feature set is obtained based on consistency ratios of adjacent prediction mode pairs in horizonal, vertical, major diagonal and minor diagonal directions after multiple compressions (See page 243: “We calculate the strength of the variation in the number of CUs and the consistency ratio of adjacent prediction mode pairs in the horizontal, vertical, major diagonal, and minor diagonal directions after multiple compressions on the basis of the mapped data. Further, CU partition and prediction modes based features are concatenated into a 60-D vector for the detection.”).
Regarding claim 11, Xu teaches:
A method of analyzing compressed video, comprising the step of utilizing a recompression detection engine to analyze a compressed video sequence associated with a raw video sequence and to determine whether the compressed video has been processed by a predetermined video compression codec for multiple times using a same set of coding parameters (See the proposed algorithm in section 3 on pages 234-235.); wherein the predetermined video compression codec includes a Versatile Video Coding (H.266/VVC) compression standard (See page 232: “In this paper, we propose an algorithm to detect H.266/VVC double compression.”).
Xu teaches claim 13 for the reasons given in the treatment of claim 3.
Xu teaches claim 14 for the reasons given in the treatment of claim 4.
Xu teaches claim 15 for the reasons given in the treatment of claim 5.
Xu teaches claim 16 for the reasons given in the treatment of claim 6.
Xu teaches claim 17 for the reasons given in the treatment of claim 7.
Xu teaches claim 18 for the reasons given in the treatment of claim 8.
Xu teaches claim 19 for the reasons given in the treatment of claim 9.
Xu teaches claim 20 for the reasons given in the treatment of claim 10.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Contact
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JONATHAN S LEE whose telephone number is (571)272-1981. The examiner can normally be reached 11:30 AM - 7:30 PM.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Andrew Bee can be reached at (571)270-5183. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/Jonathan S Lee/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2677