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 .
Applicant(s) Response to Official Action
The response filed on November 24, 2025 has been entered and made of record. Claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 26, and 27 are currently pending in the application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments see pages 8 – 10 with respect to the rejection of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ANONYMOUS, "Information Technology - MPEG Systems Technologies - Part 11: Energy - Efficient Media Consumption (Green Metadata)", International Organization for Standardization & International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC), ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11, Final Draft International Standard ISO/IEC 23001-11, 26 January 2018, 64 pages (See IDS filed on August 3, 2023) and in view of XU et al. (US 2022/0232224 A1) has been fully considered and are not persuasive. Examiner' s response to the presented arguments follows below:
Applicant argues on page 8 that “this rejection is based on improper hindsight. A PHOSITA would not have been motivated to combine the teachings of Green Metadata and Xu in the manner proposed by the present Office Action because the references address fundamentally different technical problems and operate in different contexts”. Examiner respectfully disagrees. In response to applicant’s argument that the Examiner's conclusion of obviousness is based upon improper hindsight reasoning, it must be recognized that any judgment on obviousness is in a sense necessarily a reconstruction based upon hindsight reasoning. But so long as it takes into account only knowledge which was within the level of ordinary skill at the time the claimed invention was made, and does not include knowledge gleaned only from the applicant's disclosure, such a reconstruction is proper. See In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392, 170 USPQ 209 (CCPA 1971).
Applicant further argues on page 9 that “the references are not analogous and solve different problem”. Examiner respectfully disagrees. In response to applicant's argument that XU is nonanalogous art, it has been held that a prior art reference must either be in the field of the inventor’s endeavor or, if not, then be reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the inventor was concerned, in order to be relied upon as a basis for rejection of the claimed invention. See In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 24 USPQ2d 1443 (Fed. Cir. 1992). In this case, both Green Metadata and XU are directed to efficient encoding and decoding tools. Green Metadata teaches syntax elements for AVC for complexity metrics and signaling of SEI messages in an AVC or HEVC stream (See Section 5.2.2-5.2.3). Similarly XU teaches signaling and syntax elements for AVC or HEVC streams (See Par. [0030]-[0035]) for minimize computational complexity and reducing encoding complexity (See XU, Par. [0044] and [0053]).
Applicant further argues on page 9 that “This is an internal optimization within the transform process itself; it is not a system for signaling metadata for external power management. Xu does not teach or suggest that the use of rectangular blocks in this context should be generalized as a basis for a complexity metric to be signaled to a decoder for power management”. In response to applicant's argument that the references fail to show certain features of the invention, it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., power management) are not recited in the rejected claim(s). Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Nowhere in the claims does it reference or describe the term power, nonetheless power management. The term “complexity metric” is not further defined by the claims. Given the broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the supporting disclosure, IS0/IEC 23001-11 in view of XU teaches the limitations as claimed.
Applicant further argues on page 9 that “The present Office Action has failed to provide a teaching, suggestion, or motivation for this combination. The proposed combination is a classic example of impermissible ex post facto reasoning, where disparate elements are pieced together only with the benefit of the Applicant's disclosure as a guide”. Examiner respectfully disagrees. In response to applicant’s argument that there is no teaching, suggestion, or motivation to combine the references, the Examiner recognizes that obviousness may be established by combining or modifying the teachings of the prior art to produce the claimed invention where there is some teaching, suggestion, or motivation to do so found either in the references themselves or in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 5 USPQ2d 1596 (Fed. Cir. 1988), In re Jones, 958 F.2d 347, 21 USPQ2d 1941 (Fed. Cir. 1992), and KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007). In this case, IS0/IEC 23001-11 does not specifically teach rectangular blocks. However, XU is relied upon for teaching this limitation. XU teaches encoding tool or feature is associated to information representative of a complexity metric depending on a number of rectangular blocks comprising a number of samples (Par. [0034] To reduce the complexity of large size DST-7 and DCT-8 (i.e. encoding tool), High frequency transform coefficients (i.e. complexity metric) are zeroed out for the DST-7 and DCT-8 blocks with size (width or height, or both width and height) equal to 32 (i.e. number of samples, which means the block is rectangular 4x8 or 8x4)). References IS0/IEC 23001-11 and XU are considered to be analogous art because they relate to video coding. Therefore, it would have been obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize the advantage of further specifying rectangular blocks instead of square blocks as suggested by XU in the invention of IS0/IEC 23001-11 in order that the transform skip is applicable for a CU when both block width and height are equal to or less than 32 to minimize computational complexity and memory space to store the transform coefficients (See XU, Par. [0035]). Given the broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the supporting disclosure, IS0/IEC 23001-11 in view of XU teaches the limitations as claimed.
Applicant argues on pages 9 and 10 that “While Xu uses rectangular blocks, it does not teach using them as a basis for a complexity metric to be signaled for power management” and further “The claimed invention recognizes that metrics based on rectangular blocks, which are prevalent in modern codecs like VVC, are advantageous for accurately representing decoder complexity (see Application as-filed, "The usage ratio (i.e. the CMS = the information representative of an energy consumption) for a given mode reported by a given syntax element is in some cases based on a concatenation of usage ratios for all various block sizes using the mode. As in VVC blocks can be rectangular, it is preferable to consider the number of samples per square and rectangular blocks, instead of considering the square blocks width/height as done in the existing green MPEG specification."). Examiner respectfully disagrees. Again, in response to applicant's argument that the references fail to show certain features of the invention, it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., power management) are not recited in the rejected claim(s). Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Nowhere in the claims does it reference or describe the term power, nonetheless power management or even energy consumption. The term “complexity metric” is not further described or defined by the claims. Given the broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the supporting disclosure, IS0/IEC 23001-11 in view of XU teaches the limitations as claimed.
Accordingly, the rejection is maintained.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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 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, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 26 and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ANONYMOUS, "Information Technology - MPEG Systems Technologies - Part 11: Energy - Efficient Media Consumption (Green Metadata)", International Organization for Standardization & International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC), ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11, Final Draft International Standard ISO/IEC 23001-11, 26 January 2018, 64 pages (See IDS filed on August 3, 2023) referred to as IS0/IEC 23001-11 hereinafter, and in view of XU et al. (US 2022/0232224 A1) referred to as Jung hereinafter.
Regarding Claim 1, IS0/IEC 23001-11 teaches a method (Fig. 1, Section 1 Scope, metadata for energy-efficient decoding, encoding (i.e. encoding tools), presentation, and selection of media, complexity metrics metadata to vary operating frequency and thus reduce decoder power consumption) comprising:
signaling, in a data structure, metadata (Page 11, Section 5.2.3 signaling, SEI messages (i.e. data structure) can be used to signal Green Metadata (i.e. signaling metadata) in an AVC or HEVC stream) representative of a set of complexity metrics (Page 11, Section 5.2.4.1 and 5.2.4.2, period_type specifies the type of upcoming period over which the four complexity metrics (i.e. set of complexity metrics) are applicable and is defined in the following table) of encoding tools, features or a combination thereof implemented (Page 8, Section 5.2.2, syntax (i.e. encoding tools) for AVC bitstream using complexity metrics, such as portion six tap filtering, portion_non_zero_8x8_blocks, portion_alpha_point_deblocking_instances, first_mb_in_slice), to obtain video data representative of a sequence of pictures (page 7, Section 4.1, The bitstream (i.e. sequence of pictures see Section 3.1.3)) will be packetized and delivered to the receiver for decoding and presentation (i.e. obtain video data). At the receiver, the metadata extractor processes the packets and sends the Green Metadata to a power optimization module for efficient power control); and,
associating the data structure to the video data (Page 7, Section 4.2 Green Metadata extractor interprets (i.e. associating) the bitstream syntax information and sends it to the power optimization module in the Receiver) for at least one subset of pictures representative of a period of the video data (Page 11, Section 5.2.3 The message containing the CMs is transmitted at the start of an upcoming period (i.e. period of the video). The upcoming period is a specified time interval or a specified number of pictures (i.e. subset of pictures), the associated message will be transmitted with the first picture in the time interval or with the first picture in the specified number of pictures); wherein at least one encoding tool or feature is associated to an information representative (Page 11, Section 5.2.4.1, AVD semantics, Page 16, Section 5.2.4.2, HEVC semantics, The semantics of various terms are defined below. period_type (i.e. information representative of complexity metric) specifies the type of upcoming period over which the four complexity metrics are applicable and is defined in the following table) of a first complexity metric of the set depending on at least one of:
a number of blocks (Page 9, if ( period _type <= 3 ), portion non zero 8x8 blocks, page 10, if ( period _type <= 3 ), portion non zero blocks area 8) comprising a number of samples (Page 3, section 3.1.17 a macroblock is 16x16 block of luma samples (i.e. number of samples) and two corresponding blocks of chroma samples of a picture that has three sample arrays, or a 16x16 block of samples of a monochrome picture or a picture that is coded using three separate colour planes) equal to at least one value in a plurality of values (page 10, portion 8x8 blocks in non-zero area, portion 16x16 blocks in non-zero area, portion 32x32 blocks in non-zero area, where 16x16 =256 is a value from a plurality of values) in a non-zero area (Section 5.2.4.2, page 16 portion_8x8_blocks_in_non_zero_area indicates the portion of 8x8 blocks area in the non-zero area in the specified period and is defined in equation 5-27, When not present, is equal to 0. NumNonZero8x8Blocks is the number of 8x8 blocks with non-zero transform coefficients values in the specified period. It is derived from portion_8x8_blocks_in_non_zero_area and NumNonZeroBlocks in the decoder) in the at least one subset of pictures representative of the period of the video data (Page 11, Section 5.2.3 The message containing the CMs is transmitted at the start of an upcoming period (i.e. period of the video). The upcoming period is a specified time interval or a specified number of pictures (i.e. subset of pictures), the associated message will be transmitted with the first picture in the time interval or with the first picture in the specified number of pictures);
a portion of areas covered by inter bi-predicted blocks in the at least one subset of pictures representative of the period of the video data using 4x4 granularity;
a portion of areas using the geometric partitioning mode in the at least one subset of pictures representative of the period of the video data using 4x4 granularity;
a portion of areas using the bi-directional optical flow mode in the at least one subset of pictures representative of the period of the video data using 4x4 granularity; and
a portion of ALF filtered blocks in the at least one subset of pictures representative of the period of the video data using 4x4 granularity.
IS0/IEC 23001-11 does not specifically teach rectangular blocks. Therefore, IS0/IEC 23001-11 fails to explicitly teach a number of rectangular blocks comprising a number of samples equal to at least one value in a plurality of values.
However, XU teaches encoding tool or feature is associated to information representative of a complexity metric depending on a number of rectangular blocks comprising a number of samples (Par. [0034] To reduce the complexity of large size DST-7 and DCT-8 (i.e. encoding tool), High frequency transform coefficients (i.e. complexity metric) are zeroed out for the DST-7 and DCT-8 blocks with size (width or height, or both width and height) equal to 32 (i.e. number of samples, which means the block is rectangular 4x8 or 8x4)).
References IS0/IEC 23001-11 and XU are considered to be analogous art because they relate to video coding. Therefore, it would have been obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize the advantage of further specifying rectangular blocks instead of square blocks as suggested by XU in the invention of IS0/IEC 23001-11 in order that the transform skip is applicable for a CU when both block width and height are equal to or less than 32 to minimize computational complexity and memory space to store the transform coefficients (See XU, Par. [0035]).
Regarding Claim 2, IS0/IEC 23001-11 in view of XU teaches Claim 1. IS0/IEC 23001-11 further teaches wherein the data structure is a supplemental enhancement information (SEI) message ((Page 11, Section 5.2.3 signaling, SEI messages (i.e. data structure) can be used to signal Green Metadata in an AVC or HEVC stream).
Regarding Claim 5, IS0/IEC 23001-11 in view of XU teaches Claim 1. IS0/IEC 23001-11 further teaches wherein the information representative of the first complexity metric is applicable to a single picture or to all pictures in decoding order up to a next picture containing an intra slice, or over a specified time interval, or over a specified number of pictures counted in decoding order, or to a single picture with a slice (Page 11, Section 5.2.3 The message containing the complexity metrics CMs is transmitted at the start of an upcoming period (i.e. specified time interval). The next message containing CMs will be transmitted at the start of the next upcoming period. Therefore, when the upcoming period is a picture or the interval up to the next I-slice (i.e. single picture with a slice), a message will be transmitted for each picture or interval, respectively. However, when the upcoming period is a specified time interval or a specified number of pictures (i.e. specified number of pictures), the associated message will be transmitted with the first picture in the time interval or with the first picture in the specified number of pictures), or tile granularity (Page 11, section 5.2.4.1, period_type specifies the type of upcoming period over which the four complexity metrics are applicable and is defined in the following table, with scalable slice granularity), or to a single picture with subpicture granularity (Page 11, section 5.2.4.1, period_type specifies the type of upcoming period over which the four complexity metrics are applicable and is defined in the following table, with scalable layer granularity, i.e. subpicture).
Regarding Claim 6, IS0/IEC 23001-11 in view of XU teaches Claim 5. IS0/IEC 23001-11 further teaches wherein: a first method is applied to derive number of blocks comprising the number of samples equal to the at least one value in a plurality of values responsive to the information representative of the first complexity metric is applicable to a single picture with a slice or tile granularity (Page 11, section 5.2.4.1, period_type specifies the type of upcoming period over which the four complexity metrics are applicable and is defined in the following table, with scalable slice granularity); and a second method is applied to derive number of blocks comprising the number of samples equal to the at least one value in a plurality of values responsive to the information representative of the first complexity metric is applicable to a single picture with subpicture granularity (Page 11, section 5.2.4.1, period_type specifies the type of upcoming period over which the four complexity metrics are applicable and is defined in the following table, with scalable layer granularity (i.e. subpicture granularity)).
IS0/IEC 23001-11 does not specifically teach rectangular blocks. Therefore, IS0/IEC 23001-11 fails to explicitly teach a number of rectangular blocks comprising a number of samples equal to at least one value in a plurality of values.
However, XU teaches encoding tool or feature is associated to information representative of a complexity metric depending on a number of rectangular blocks comprising a number of samples (Par. [0034] To reduce the complexity of large size DST-7 and DCT-8 (i.e. encoding tool), High frequency transform coefficients (i.e. complexity metric) are zeroed out for the DST-7 and DCT-8 blocks with size (width or height, or both width and height) equal to 32 (i.e. number of samples, which means the block is rectangular 4x8 or 8x4)).
References IS0/IEC 23001-11 and XU are considered to be analogous art because they relate to video coding. Therefore, it would have been obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize the advantage of further specifying rectangular blocks instead of square blocks as suggested by XU in the invention of IS0/IEC 23001-11 in order that the transform skip is applicable for a CU when both block width and height are equal to or less than 32 to minimize computational complexity and memory space to store the transform coefficients (See XU, Par. [0035]).
Regarding Claims 8, 9, 12 and 13, the limitations are similar to those treated in the above rejection(s) of claims 1, 2, 5 and 6, respectively, and are met by the reference as discussed above. Claims 8, 9, 12 and 13, however recite a decoding method, rather than an encoding method, which is similar in structure expect in reverse operation. Therefore, claims 8, 9, 12 and 13 are rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used above.
Apparatus claims 15, 16, 19 and 20 are drawn to the apparatus corresponding to the method of using same as claimed in claims 1, 2, 5 and 6, respectively. Therefore apparatus claims 15, 16, 19 and 20 correspond to method claims 1, 2, 5 and 6, respectively, and are rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used above.
Regarding Claims 22, 23, 26 and 27, the limitations are similar to those treated in the above rejection(s) of claims 15, 16, 19 and 20, and are met by the reference as discussed above. Claims 22, 23, 26 and 27, however recite a decoding apparatus, rather than an encoding apparatus, which is similar in structure expect in reverse operation. Therefore, claims 22, 23, 26 and 27 are rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used above.
Conclusion
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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to SUSAN E HODGES whose telephone number is (571)270-0498. The Examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8:00 am - 4:00 pm.
If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor, Brian T. Pendleton, can be reached on (571) 272-7527. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Susan E. Hodges/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2425