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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group 1 in the reply filed on 7/18/2025 is acknowledged.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 1212/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In regard to claims 1 and 10, the applicant argues that Xiu fails to disclose performing OBMC on an ‘entire coding block’ but instead performs OBMC on 8x8 sub-blocks of the ‘entire coding block’. The examiner disagrees. Paragraphs 120-123 provide details of various terminology. The only definition of the term ‘coding block’ appears in par. 123 which indicates that the term CU and coding block may be used interchangeably. Par. 120 further indicates that a picture may be divided into a CTU, which may be divided into plural CUs, which may be divided into plural sub-CUs. The specification does not place any limitations on the size of a CU. The defining characteristic of what constitutes a ‘CU’, or ‘coding block’ is a block which includes a plurality of sub-blocks, as the CU itself is a sub-block of a CTU and seems to only differ from a sub-CU in that a sub-CU is not further subdivided into smaller blocks. Xiu discloses an 8x8 block which may be divided into 4, 4x4 sub-blocks and is hence a ‘coding block’ according to the applicant’s specification. Xiu discloses that OBMC may be performed for the entire 8x8 coding block when the 4x4 sub-blocks of the coding block have the same motion (Xiu pars 66-67). Thus the applicants argument that the 8x8 block of Xiu is not a ‘coding block’ is unpersuasive.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-2, 5, 10-11, 14 and 30-32 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Xiu et al (2021/0185353) for the same reasons as stated in the previous Office Action dated (8/12/2025).
In regard to claim 1 Xiu discloses a device (Xiu Fig. 14B note wireless transmit receive unit (WTRU) 102) comprising:
a processor (Xiu Fig. 14B note processor 118) configured to:
obtain a coding block comprising a plurality of sub-blocks (Xiu Fig. 10-12 and generally pars 56-67 note obtaining a CU divided into four 8x8 motion blocks and sixteen 4x4 sub-blocks);
determine that the plurality of sub-blocks are associated with the same or similar motion information (Xiu Fig. 12A-B and pars 65-67 note determining that 4 4x4 sub-blocks belong to the same 8x8 motion block and therefore have the same motion information); and
based on the determination that the plurality of sub-blocks are associated the same or similar motion information, perform overlapped block motion compensation (OBMC) on the entire coding block (Xiu pars 66-67 note performing OBMC for the entire 8x8 motion block instead of individually for each 4x4 sub-block).
In regard to claim 2 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Xiu further discloses performing OBMC on the entire coding block comprises performing OBMC on the coding block using a block-based OBMC approach (Xiu pars 66-67 note performing size aligned OBMC on 8x8 coding blocks and thus reducing the number of motion compensation operations from sixteen to eight).
In regard to claim 5 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Xiu further discloses the coding block is associated with a top band and a left band, and the OBMC is performed on the entire coding block as a whole based on the top band and the left band (Xiu Fig. 12B and pars 65-67 note external subblocks to the left and top of the CU are used to perform OBMC in on the 8x8 motion blocks).
In regard to claims 30-31 Xiu further discloses that the device comprises a decoder and encoder and further includes a memory (Xiu Fig. 1-2 and pars 25-30 for details of encoder and decoder, further note Fig. 14B 130-132 for memory).
Claims 10-11, 14 and 32 describe a method corresponding to the steps performed by the device described in claims 1-2, 5 and 30-31 above. Refer to the statements made in regard to claims 1-2, 5 and 30-31 above for the rejection of claims 10-11, 14 and 32 which will not be repeated here for brevity.
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 (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 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) 3 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xiu et al (2021/0185353) in view of Kim et al (2004/0218675) for the same reasons as stated in the previous Office Action dated (8/12/2025).
In regard to claims 3 and 12 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claims 1 and 10 above. Xiu discloses determining that a plurality of subblocks have the same or similar motion (Xiu pars 64-67 note determining the sub-blocks have the same motion). It is noted that Xiu does not disclose details of a sum of absolute differences based condition to determine motion similarity. However, Kim discloses a method of grouping sub-blocks with similar motion into a larger block including a condition based on a sum of absolute difference associated with the motion information of the plurality of sub-blocks is below a value (Kim Fig. 6B and pars 77-91 note step 222 determining whether groups of sub-blocks have similar motion , step 224 grouping the sub-blocks into larger blocks, step 236 determining an amount of data generated when using larger blocks and steps 238-240 if the amount of data is less when using larger blocks than sub-blocks, using the larger blocks, further note par. 91 the amount of data is determined using a sum of absolute differences).
It is therefore considered obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention would recognize the advantage of incorporating sub-block grouping as taught by Kim in the invention of Xiu in order to gain the advantage of improving encoding efficiency as suggested by Kim (Kim Fig. 6B step 240 and par. 91 note block size providing the best compression efficiency is selected) and to apply OBMC with reduced complexity as suggested by Xiu (Xiu pars. 66-67) to a greater number of blocks.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4 and 13 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: Claims 4 and 13, in addition to the requirements of claims 1 and 10 from which they depend, require determining sub-blocks as having similar motion and applying OBMC to the entire coding based on the sub-blocks being affine coded and the affine model of the coding block representing translational motion.
The closest arts are Xiu and Kim. Xiu teaches performing OBMC on 8x8 blocks with similar motion instead of individual 4x4 sub-blocks. Kim teaches grouping blocks of similar motion based on differences in motion vector values and the coding cost of using larger grouped blocks as opposed to smaller motion blocks. Xiu additionally discloses affine coding and performing OBMC on affine coded blocks (XIU pars 37-40). However neither Xiu nor Kim teach determining that sub-blocks have similar motion based on using an affine model that is purely translational. Further Xiu indicates that OBMC performed on affine coded blocks is performed for all sub-block sample boundaries and thus teaches away from the limitations of claims 4 and 13.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JEREMIAH CHARLES HALLENBECK-HUBER whose telephone number is (571)272-5248. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Friday from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M.
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/JEREMIAH C HALLENBECK-HUBER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2481