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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of invention II in the reply filed on 2/27/26 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that the groupings are not independent inventions and that there is no serious search burden.
Regarding the argument that the inventions are not independent, this is not found persuasive because encoding and decoding, while related, can have many different techniques applied to one that are not mirrored in the other. Indeed applicant’s own claims for invention I applies a restructuring technique for generating residual data that is not mirrored in invention II. Therefore encoding and decoding are clearly independent inventions.
Regarding applicant’s argument that there is no serious search burden, examiner finds this argument unpersuasive as legitimate separate classifications were already provided (despite applicant’s argument to the contrary). Furthermore, upon searching the elected invention II, references for invention I were not incidentally found. Therefore a serious search burden exists and the argument is overcome.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Claims 1-8 and 14 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected invention I, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.
Information Disclosure Statement
IDS filed 10/6/23 is acknowledged, the references therein relating to the general background of applicant’s invention.
Claim Objections
Claim 13 is objected to because of the following informalities: “attention regions is present” should be “attention regions are present”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 9-13 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim(s) 9 and 15 recite a mathematical concept of decoding image data with a number of steps for the decoding. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the output corrected “attention region” is not further applied to an application. The claim(s) do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because “decoding”, “determining” and “correcting” amount to routine and conventional activities in the processing of image data, in addition the “apparatus” of claim 15 is a mere implementation of the method on a generic computing device. Claims 10-13 merely further specify details of the decoding and do not provide a practical application for the output of the mathematical concept.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
1) Claim(s) 9-13 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by U.S. patent application publication 2023/0067541 by Boyce et al.
2) Regarding claim 9, Boyce teaches an image decoding method comprising: decoding an encoded image (figure 13, item 1306; encoded image is decoded); determining at least one attention region in the decoded image (paragraphs 82; region of interests are determined in the decoded data); decoding residual data for a first attention region in the decoded image (paragraph 83; full frame at a second, lower, resolution is decoded) and correcting the first attention region based on the residual data (figure 10; paragraph 65; regions of interest are combined with downscaled full frame [i.e. “residual data”]).
3) Regarding claim 10, Boyce teaches the image decoding method according to claim 9, wherein the correcting comprises: scaling the first attention region according to a reference resolution (paragraph 57; ROIs are scaled to a higher resolution on a per region basis as discussed in paragraphs 38-40); and adding the residual data to the scaled first attention region (figure 10; paragraph 57; ROI is combined with lower resolution frame 711 data).
4) Regarding claim 11, Boyce teaches the image decoding method according to claim 10, wherein: the reference resolution is determined based on scaling information; and the scaling information is index information specifying a resolution candidate corresponding to the reference resolution among a plurality of resolution candidates (paragraphs 38-40 and 57; scaling factors are assigned as metadata to each ROI, the factors corresponding to any chosen log2 number).
5) Regarding claim 12, Boyce teaches the image decoding method according to claim 10, wherein the scaling is performed for at least one of a spatial resolution or an image quality resolution (paragraph 82; scaling is performed at least for high image quality).
6) Regarding claim 13, Boyce teaches the image decoding method according to claim 11, when a plurality of attention regions is present in the decoded image, the scaling information is signaled for each of the plurality of attention regions (figure 4; paragraphs 57, 65 and 66; scaling information is stored as metadata for each atlas and each region of interest can be in its own atlas).
7) Claim 15 is taught in the same manner as described in the rejection of claim 9 above.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BENJAMIN O DULANEY whose telephone number is (571)272-2874. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 10-6.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Abderrahim Merouan can be reached at (571)270-5254. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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BENJAMIN O. DULANEY
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2676
/BENJAMIN O DULANEY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2683
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