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 filed have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues “On the other hand, "color grading actions," as recited by independent claims 21 and 26, refer to modeling of the color grading process, as explained in the specification, such as:
[0040] In 410, multiple color grading actions are defined. A set of possible actions that may be applied to an SDR image to generate an HDR image may be generated based on an explicit action-wise modeling of the color grading process. For example, the color grading actions may include, but are not limited to, adjusting the brightness, adjusting the contrast, adjusting the color saturation, adjusting the exposure, etc. The adjustments may be applied to bright regions or shadows and on different color channels.”, (see Remarks page 7).
Examiner respectfully like to note that the argued recitation is not claimed. However, the reference Kim discloses a CNN which is trained by using images and the color grading actions, see paragraph 0046, wherein …where θ is the set of model parameters, n is the number of training samples, ILDR is the input LDR image “training images”, F is the non-linear mapping function of the ITM-CNN giving the prediction of the network as F(ILDR; θ), and IHDR is the ground truth HDR image “color grading action”, as claimed.
Therefore, all the limitations of the claim are met, and claims stand rejected.
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.
(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.
Claims 21, 23-26 and 28-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Kim et al (US Pub. 2021/0166360).
With respect to claim 21, Kim discloses A method comprising:
obtaining multiple framing images wherein the training images include a training standard dynamic range (SDR) image and a training high dynamic range (HDR) image, (see paragraph 0042, wherein …LDR-HDR data pairs containing diverse scenes. The specifications are given in Table 1. The HDR video is professionally filmed and mastered, and both the LDR and HDR data are normalized to be in the range [0, 1]. For the synthesis of training data, we randomly cropped 20 subimages of size 40×40 per frame with the frame stride of 30…);
training a neural network, using the training images and a set of color grading actions, for converting SDR images into HDR images, (see paragraph 0037-0341, for training the CNN, and Table 1 for the color transformation “a set of color grading actions”; for further explanation see paragraph 0046, wherein … …where θ is the set of model parameters, n is the number of training samples, ILDR is the input LDR image “training images”, F is the non-linear mapping function of the ITM-CNN giving the prediction of the network as F(ILDR; θ), and IHDR is the ground truth HDR image “color grading action”);
receiving an input SDR image: and converting the input SDR image into the HDR image using the training images and one or more color grading actions from the set of color grading actions, (see figure 4 for the LDR “SDR” image conversion to HDR image using the CNN), as claimed.
With respect to claim 23, Kim further discloses wherein training the neural network comprises: applying a first color grading action from the set of color grading actions to the training SDR image; wherein the first color grading action is selected based on the training HDR image, (see paragraph 0045-0046, the parameters are subject to the HDR images), as claimed.
With respect to claim 24, Kim further discloses wherein the neural network is configured to extract contextual features or color features from the training SDR image, (see paragraph 0042, videos are converted to YUV color space “color features”), as claimed.
With respect to claim 25, Kim further discloses wherein the set of color grading actions includes at least are of adjusting brightness, adjusting contrast, adjusting color Saturation or adjusting exposure, (see paragraph 0035, match desired brightness), as claimed.
Claims 26 and 28-30 are rejected for the same reasons as set forth in the rejections of claims 21 and 23-25, because claims 26 and 28-30 are claiming subject matter of similar scope as claimed in claims 21 and 23-25.
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.
Claims 22, 27, 37 and 38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al (US Pub. 2021/0166360) in view of Zink et al (2022/0078386).
With respect to claim 22, Kim discloses all the elements as claimed and as rejected in claim 21 above. However, Kim fails to disclose receiving a user input to modify the one or more color grading actions; and modifying the HDR image based on the user input, as claimed.
Zink teaches a user input to modify the one or more color grading actions; and modifying the HDR image based on the user input, (see figure 4A, numerical 460 and paragraph 0043, creative profile manually created), as claimed.
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skilled in the art at the effective date of invention to combine the two references as they are analogous because they are solving similar problem of converting SDR to HDR images using image analysis. The teaching of Zink to manually creating creative profile for the HDR conversion can be incorporated in to Kim’s system as suggested (see paragraph 0006, images to be viewed on TV, and TV has a manual input for color changes), for suggestion, and modifying the system yields high dynamic images from standard dynamic images (see Zink paragraph 0002), for motivation.
Claim 27 is rejected for the same reasons as set forth in the rejections of claims 22, because claim 27 is claiming subject matter of similar scope as claimed in claim 22.
With respect claim 37, combination of Kim and Zink further discloses wherein obtaining the multiple training images includes obtaining a plurality of pairs of training SDR images and training HDR images, (see Zink paragraph 0046, wherein …In this aspect, the processor generates a generic model for the ML algorithm using only, for example, SDR-HDR pair data…), as claimed.
Claim 38 is rejected for the same reasons as set forth in the rejections of claim 37, because claim 38 is claiming subject matter of similar scope as claimed in claim 37.
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.
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/VIKKRAM BALI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2663
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