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 Amendment
The 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) rejections to claims 1-19 have been withdrawn in view of current amendments.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pp.18-19, filed May 5, 2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1, 7, and 13 under 35 U.S.C. §102(a)(1) have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of newly considered prior art.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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) 1, 7, and 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Morie et al. (US 2012/0005562) in view of Kim (US 2005/0089104).
Regarding claim 1 Morie discloses a control method for bit stream parsing error detection in a video hardware decoder, performed by a computer device, comprising:
obtaining a video stream (Figure 1 shows decoding device receiving a stream);
performing a bit stream security range detection on the obtained video stream to obtain a first detection result (obtaining the total amount of a consumed stream output from the decoding circuit – [0053]);
performing a bit stream extremum detection on the obtained video stream to obtain a second detection result (a "threshold" which is equal to the total amount of a consumed stream in a normal condition (free from an error) is set to be "16" bits – [0055]); and
performing an anomaly detection on the process of bit stream parsing on the video stream, and performing an exception handling or a frame reset on the video stream according to the results of the anomaly detection based on the first detection result and the second detection result (the decoding circuit reads a leading portion of the stream in the buffer circuit, and outputs "1" which is the length of "0" as a consumed stream amount to the disabling circuit. The disabling circuit compares the total consumed stream amount of "1" with the threshold of "16." Because the total consumed stream amount is lower than or equal to the threshold, the disabling circuit 15 outputs "0" as the decoding disable signal. Because the decoding disable signal is "0," the decoding circuit 12 performs a decoding process, and outputs a decoding result "a" to the control circuit 13. The control circuit 13 confirms that the decoding disable signal is "0" and continues the process – [0056]).
However, fails to explicitly disclose recording error information generated during the process of the bit stream parsing on the video stream based on the first detection result and the second detection result; and determining an error level recorded in the error information and performing an exception handling on the video stream based on the error level.
In his disclosure Kim teaches recording error information generated during the process of the bit stream parsing on the video stream based on the first detection result and the second detection result; and determining an error level recorded in the error information and performing an exception handling on the video stream based on the error level (a demultiplexing and error detection unit that demultiplexes the broadcast stream of a predetermined format extracted by the broadcast signal receiver for extraction of a video stream, detects errors in packets making up the extracted video stream, and records error information at a predetermined location of the video stream, and a video decoding unit that interprets the error information, determines the type of the errors using a predetermined method, and decodes the video stream according to the result of determination. The type and position of an error may be determined during video decoding. The video decoder is able to improve video quality by performing proper error concealment according to the type of error determined – abstract; the demultiplexing and error detection unit may demultiplex the broadcast stream for extraction of a video stream and records error information containing a start position and a length of the error in the video stream using at least one of header information of a transport protocol and the header information of packets transmitted over the Internet. Meanwhile, the demultiplexing and error detection unit preferably records information containing the start position and length of the error in the video stream in the form of a start code; the decoding unit classifies a type of the error into an error within a frame and an error between frames for determination and performs video decoding according to the type of the error determined. When the determined error is an error within a frame, the video decoding unit preferably decodes the frame with the error using blocks in a temporally preceding frame corresponding to a position in the frame where the error has occurred. Also, when the determined error is an error between frames, the video decoding unit preferably decodes a temporally preceding frame instead of a frame with a lost or damaged region placed at the beginning part of the frame – [0020-0021]).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the teachings of Kim into the teachings of Morie because such incorporation would improve video quality by performing proper error concealment according to the type pf error determined (abstract).
Claim 7 corresponds to a control systems that performs the method of claim 1. Therefore, claim 7 is being rejected on the same basis as claim 1.
Claim 13 corresponds to a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer code which, when executed by at least one processor, causes the at least processor to perform the method of claim 1. Therefore, claim 13 is being rejected on the same basis as claim 1.
Claim(s) 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Morie et al. (US 2012/0005562) in view of Kim (US 2005/0089104) further in view of Naito et al. (US 2024/0205434).
In regards to claim 19, Morie discloses the limitations of claim 7. However, is silent on a bit stream preprocessing module configured to preprocess the video stream inputted from a network abstraction layer; an entropy decoding module configured to perform entropy decoding on the video stream preprocessed by the bit stream preprocessing module; a video decoding module configured to decode and filter the video stream processed by the entropy decoding module; a frame reconstruction module configured to perform frame reconstruction of the video stream processed by the video decoding module; and a driving end and a control system.
In his disclosure Naito teaches a bit stream preprocessing module configured to preprocess the video stream inputted from a network abstraction layer (preprocessing an encoded bitstream – [0026]; performing bitstream parsing such as separating a network abstraction layer – [0080]); an entropy decoding module configured to perform entropy decoding on the video stream preprocessed by the bit stream preprocessing module (Entropy Decoding Unit 80 in Figure 7); a video decoding module configured to decode and filter the video stream processed by the entropy decoding module (Decoding Device 112); a frame reconstruction module configured to perform frame reconstruction of the video stream processed by the video decoding module (the decoding device 112 forms a decoded video block by summing the residual blocks from inverse transform processing unit 88 with the corresponding predictive blocks generated by motion compensation unit 82. Summer 90 represents the component or components that perform this summation operation – Fig. 7, [0140]); and a driving end and a control system for bit stream (control processor that can interface with other drivers – [0079]).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the teachings of Naito into the teachings of Morie because the usage of decoding components to parse/decode a bitstream is a well-known technique in the filed of video coding and yields expected results.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4, 6, 8-10, 12, 14-16, and 18 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.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, 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 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 MARIA E VAZQUEZ COLON whose telephone number is (571)270-1103. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30 AM-3:30 PM.
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/MARIA E VAZQUEZ COLON/Examiner, Art Unit 2482
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