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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pp.7-9, filed November 24, 2025, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1, 4, 15, and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of newly considered prior art.
In regards to the amended formerly independent withdrawn claims, these amended claims contain newly added limitations and these newly added limitations have change the scope of the claims and would require further search and consideration.
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) 1-3, 15-16, and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhao et al. (US 2017/0094314) in view of Zhao et al. (US 2020/0084447, hereinafter “’447”).
Regarding claim 1 Zhao discloses a method of coding video data, the method comprising:
determining that transform unit (TU) partitioning is used for a first coding unit (CU) of the video data; based on the determination that TU partitioning is used for the first CU, refraining from applying a secondary transform to a TU of the first CU; and coding the TU of the first CU without applying the secondary transform (video encoder may skip signaling of the NSST index for a current TU if there is no non-zero coefficient transmitted for the current TU; skipping encoding of data indicative of the NSST index for the current TU if there is no non-zero coefficient encoded for the current TU – [0152]; this disclosure may refer to the index indicating the selected non-separable secondary transform as a non-separable secondary transform (NSST) index – [0150]).
However, fails to explicitly disclose based solely on the determination that TU partitioning is used for the first CU, refraining from applying a secondary transform to a TU of the first CU.
In his disclosure ‘447 teaches based solely on the determination that TU partitioning is used for the first CU, refraining from applying a secondary transform to a TU of the first CU (‘447 teaches that based solely on the determination that a specific partitioning is used for the first CU, refraining from applying a secondary transform to partition of the first CU – [0111-0113]; ‘447 also discloses a CU can be partitioned into transform units TUs – [0003]; the Examiner notes that under the broadest reasonable interpretation, ‘447 teaches refraining from applying a secondary transform to a TU partition of a CU based solely on the determination that the TU partition is used for the CU).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the teachings of ‘447 into the teachings of Zhao because such incorporation minimizes the complexity of the process (paragraph 23).
Regarding claim 2 Zhao discloses the method of claim 1, wherein coding comprises encoding and wherein refraining from applying the secondary transform comprises refraining from signaling the secondary transform (skipping encoding of data indicative of the NSST index for the current TU if there is no non-zero coefficient encoded for the current TU – [0152]; this disclosure may refer to the index indicating the selected non-separable secondary transform as a non-separable secondary transform (NSST) index – [0150]).
Regarding claim 3 Zhao discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the TU of the first CU is not a same size as the first CU (Fig. 2 shows an example where a CU includes ten TUs, labeled with the letters a to j, and the corresponding block partitioning. Each node of the RQT may actually be a TU – [0099]).
Claim 15 corresponds to the device performing the method of claim 1. Therefore, claim 15 is being rejected on the same basis as claim 1.
Claim 16 corresponds to the device performing the method of claim 2. Therefore, claim 16 is being rejected on the same basis as claim 2.
Claim 17 corresponds to the device performing the method of claim 3. Therefore, claim 17 is being rejected on the same basis as claim 3.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-6, 18-20 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARIA E VAZQUEZ COLON whose telephone number is (571)270-1103. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30 AM-3:30 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, CHRISTOPHER S KELLEY can be reached at (571)272-7331. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MARIA E VAZQUEZ COLON/ Examiner, Art Unit 2482