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 with respect to claims 1-6 and 14-26 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claims 1-2, 5, 14-15, 18, 21-22 and 25 have been amended and claims 7-13 have been previously cancelled. The amendments overcome the previous claim objections.
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.
Claims 1-6 and 14-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen (US 2021/0266571) in view of Thiemert (US 2011/0222787).
Regarding claim 1, Chen discloses a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by at least one computer processor, cause the at least one computer processor to:
obtain an initial image frame at a first resolution, wherein the initial image frame comprises a first plurality of pixels (receiving unencoded video data stream from scan-out unit wherein the video stream is downscaled; see at least paragraphs 0073 and 0078-0079);
generate a downscaled image frame from the initial image frame at a second resolution (by down-scaler 405; see at least paragraphs 0073 and 0078-0079);
obtain one or more subframes of the initial image frame (receiving the video stream by the ROI I-Frame encoder; see at least paragraphs 0073 and 0077); and
transmit, to a playback device, the downscaled image frame and at least one of the one or more subframes (the Blender receives the video stream from up-scaler and the subsection stream from the I-frame decoder and the content is sent to the device; see at least Fig. 4 and paragraphs 0082-0087),
wherein the downscaled image frame and the at least one of the one or more subframes are combinable to form a target frame comprising subframes of differing resolutions (the video stream from upscaler and the subsection stream from the I-frame decoder; see at least Fig. 4 and paragraphs 0082-0087).
Chen discloses the subframes of the initial image, i.e. original subframes and re-scaled subframes, i.e. from the downscaled image frames; as above, but is not clear about comparator subframes representing a difference between subframes.
Thiemert discloses the above missing limitation; converting MPEG video image and file image to one or more queried RGB digital image representation subframes and file RGB digital image representation subframes, respectively, one or more grey scale digital image representation subframes and file grey scale digital image representation subframes, respectively, and one or more RGB digital image representation difference subframes; see at least paragraphs 0133, 0137 and 0140-0144.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify Chen by the teachings of Thiemert by having the above limitations for the purpose of frame sequence comparison in multimedia streams; see at least the Abstract.
Regarding claim 2, Chen in view of Thiemert disclose the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein, to obtain the one or more comparator subframes, the at least one computer processor is further caused to:
generate an upscaled image frame from the downscaled image frame, wherein the upscaled image frame comprises a second plurality of pixels (Chen; by up-scaler; see at least Fig. 4 and paragraphs 0081-0083);
identify, for each of the one or more comparator subframes, a corresponding subset of pixels in the second plurality of pixels (Chen; determine the location within the video stream to place the subsections; see at last paragraphs 0083-0087); and
perform a difference encoding on each of the one or more comparator subframes based on the corresponding subset of pixels (Chen; by the ROI-I-frame encoder; see at least paragraph 0077),
wherein the at least one of the one or more comparator subframes comprise the difference encoded one or more comparator subframes (see at least paragraph 0077).
Regarding claim 3, Chen in view of Thiemert disclose the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein, to generate the upscaled image frame, the at least one computer processor is further caused to:
encode the downscaled image frame to obtain an encoded downscaled image frame (Chen; by encoder 407; see at least Fig. 4 and paragraph 0079);
apply the encoded downscaled image frame to a decoder to obtain a decoded downscaled image frame (Chen; decoder 410; see at least Fig. 4 and paragraphs 00181-0082); and
apply a scaler to the decoded downscale image to obtain the upscaled image frame (Chen; by up-scaler 411; see at least Fig. 4 and paragraphs 0081-0083).
Regarding claim 4, Chen in view of Thiemert disclose the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the initial image frame comprises a foveated image frame generated from image data captured from a plurality of cameras (Chen; see at least paragraphs 0048-0049 and 0089-0090).
Regarding claim 5, Chen in view of Thiemert disclose the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the at least one of the one or more comparator subframes corresponds to a region of interest in the initial image frame (Chen; see at least paragraphs 0074-0077).
Regarding claim 6, Chen in view of Thiemert disclose the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 5, wherein the region of interest is determined based on head pose information or gaze information obtained by the playback device (Chen; see at least paragraphs 0074-0077).
Claim 14 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 1.
Claim 15 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 2.
Claim 16 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 3.
Claim 17 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 4.
Claim 18 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 5.
Regarding claim 19, Chen in view of Thiemert disclose the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 18, wherein the region of interest is the area having the first quality (Chen; see at least paragraphs 0074-0077).
Claim 20 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 6.
Regarding claim 21, Chen in view of Thiemert disclose most of claim as rejected in claim 1,
wherein the target frame comprises an area having the first quality surrounded by areas having the second quality (Chen; see at least paragraphs 0067, 0070 and 0089).
Claim 22 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 2.
Claim 23 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 3.
Claim 24 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 4.
Claim 25 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 5.
Claim 26 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 6.
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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/YASSIN ALATA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2426