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
Examiner used reference 2023/0412800 and related citations but used the name Mahajan instead of Wu, name has been corrected to Wu.
Applicant's arguments filed 12/22/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues the prior art does not describe 7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the second filter includes at least one of a Sample Adaptive Offset (SAO) filter or an Adaptive Loop Filter (ALF).
Examiner disagrees as the art discloses 7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the second filter includes at least one of a Sample Adaptive Offset (SAO) filter or an Adaptive Loop Filter (ALF) (Fig. 1: SOA filter 120).
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5-6, 8-9, 11-14, 16-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wu et al. US 2023/0412800 from IDS
Wu discloses:
1. and under similar rationale 20. An apparatus for video decoding, the apparatus comprising: at least one memory configured; and at least one processor coupled to the at least one memory, the at least one processor configured to (Fig. 18): apply a first filter to a plurality of sub-blocks of a block of video data to generate a filtered plurality of sub-blocks, the plurality of sub-blocks being less than an entirety of sub-blocks within the block (Fig. 1: deblocking filter 110; Fig. 2: sub-blocks 281-4; 0040-2); apply the first filter to at least one line of pixels in an additional sub-block of the block to generate a filtered portion of the additional sub-block, wherein the at least one line of pixels in the additional sub-block is filtered using the first filter without filtering an entirety of the additional sub-block using the first filter, and wherein the additional sub-block is adjacent to at least one of the plurality of sub-blocks (Fig. 6; 0050: Likewise, after the deblocking filter 110 finishes processing the block 168, a filtered block is generated, which consists of two completely filtered sub-blocks 281 and 283, as well as two partially filtered sub-blocks 282 and 284. It is to be noted that, when the deblocking filter 110 finishes processing the block 168, the sub-blocks 272 and 274 are completely filtered); and apply a second filter to the filtered plurality of sub-blocks and the filtered portion of the additional sub-block to generate a second filtered plurality of sub-blocks (Fig. 6: 0050), wherein the second filter is one of a sample adaptive offset (SAO) filter or an adaptive loop filter (ALF) (Fig. 1: SAO filter 120).
2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one line of pixels in the additional sub-block includes a plurality lines of pixels in the block that are adjacent to one another (Fig. 12: 1211).
3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the second filter is an M-tap filter, wherein the at least one line of pixels in the additional sub-block includes an amount of lines of pixels that is based on M (0055; 0064).
5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first filter is an N-tap filter, wherein the at least one line of pixels in the additional sub-block includes an amount of lines of pixels that is based on N and a sub-block size (0009; 0062).
6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first filter includes a deblocking (DB) filter (Fig. 1: deblocking filter 110).
7. (Currently Amended) The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first filter includes the SAO filter, and wherein the second filter includes the ALF (Fig. 1: SAO Filter 120, ALF filter 130).
8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the second filter includes at least one of a Constrained Directional Enhancement Filter (CDEF) or a Loop Restoration (LR) Filter (Fig. 1: 120; 0090).
9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the additional sub-block is horizontally adjacent to the at least one of the plurality of sub-blocks, wherein the at least one line of pixels in the additional sub-block is adjacent to a vertical boundary between the additional sub-block and at least the one of the plurality of sub-blocks (Fig. 9).
11. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: store a partially-filtered portion of the block in a neighboring block buffer, wherein the partially-filtered portion of the block is partially filtered using the first filter (0050; Fig. 15; 0111-3); and apply at least one filter to the partially-filtered portion of the block from the neighboring block buffer and to a second block that neighbors the block to filter the second block (0050; Fig. 15; 0111-3).
12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the partially-filtered portion of the block is part of the additional sub-block (0050; Fig. 15; 0111-3).
13. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: apply a third filter to the filtered plurality of sub-blocks and the filtered portion of the additional sub-block to generate a third-filtered plurality of sub-blocks (Fig. 1: ALF 130).
14. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: apply the second filter to a second set of at least one line of pixels in the additional sub-block of the block to generate a second filtered portion of the additional sub-block, wherein the second set of at least one line of pixels in the additional sub-block is filtered using the second filter without filtering an entirety of the additional sub-block using the second filter (0050-5; Fig. 1: 110, 120, 130); and apply a third filter to the second filtered plurality of sub-blocks and the second filtered portion of the additional sub-block to generate a third filtered plurality of sub-blocks (0050-5; Fig. 1: 110, 120, 130).
16. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising: a video encoder configured to encode the video data, wherein the at least one processor is configured to receive the video data from the video encoder before applying the first filter to the plurality of sub-blocks of the block (Fig. 13; 0092; Fig 1;).
17. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: output block data for storage in the at least one memory, wherein the output block data is based on the second filtered plurality of sub-blocks (Fig. 1: data bus 125; memory 180; 0061).
18. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to: display output block data using a display, wherein the output block data is based on the second filtered plurality of sub-blocks (Fig. 1; 0050; 0034; Fig. 14: display 1455).
19. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus includes at least one of a head-mounted display (HMD), a mobile handset, or a wireless communication device (0144).
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 4, 10, 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wu et al. US 2023/0412800 from IDS in view of Young US 2019/0124339
Wu discloses:
4. The apparatus of claim 3,
Wu does not explicitly disclose the following however, Young teaches wherein the amount of lines of pixels is (M−1)/2 (0093).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill before the effective filing date to modify the reference(s) as above in order to filter a pixel can use other adjacent pixels such that the pixel to be filtered is centered in the adjacent pixels (Young 0093)
10. The apparatus of claim 1,
Wu does not explicitly disclose the following however, Young teaches wherein the additional sub-block and each of the plurality of sub-blocks have a size of 4 pixels by 4 pixels (Fig 10A&B; 0044; Fig. 7; 0058; 0076).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill before the effective filing date to modify the reference(s) as above in order to use of upsampling for certain edges as described herein can improve the gain for the image data over that achievable using the other filtering described herein depending on the transform kernel used (Young 0076)
15. The apparatus of claim 1,
Wu does not explicitly disclose the following however, Young teaches wherein the at least one processor is configured to: rescale pixel data of at least one of the video data, the filtered plurality of sub-blocks, the filtered portion of the additional sub-block, or the second filtered plurality of sub-blocks (Fig. 8; 0096).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill before the effective filing date to modify the reference(s) as above in order to use of upsampling for certain edges as described herein can improve the gain for the image data over that achievable using the other filtering described herein depending on the transform kernel used (Young 0076)
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 JOSEPH W BECKER whose telephone number is (571)270-7301. The examiner can normally be reached flexible usually 10-6.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Joseph G Ustaris can be reached at 5712727383. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JOSEPH W BECKER/Examiner, Art Unit 2483
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