Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
1. A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on September 1st 2026 has been entered.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
2. 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.
3. The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
4. Claims 1, 8-10, 13, 17-21 and 26 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Joch et al. (US Patent Application Publication no. 2005/0117646) in view of Seo et al. (US Patent no. 8208545), and further in view of Yang et al. (US Patent Application Publication no. 2004/0008778).
As per claim 1, Joch discloses a method comprising compressing first reference frame data to generate compressed reference frame data (See Joch [0018], [0036]); storing the compressed reference frame data to off-chip storage (See Joch [0055]); retrieving the compressed reference frame data from the off-chip storage (See Joch [0053]-[0054]); decompressing the compressed reference frame data by at least: selecting an entropy code for decoding (See Joch [0053]-[0054]); computing a pixel predictor (See Joch [0058]).
It is noted that Joch is silent about decoding a pixel residual based on the pixel predictor using the entropy code or using run mode decoding.
However, Seo teaches decoding a pixel residual based on the pixel predictor using the entropy code or using run mode decoding (See Seo col. 2, lines 60-67, col. 3, lines 1-15).
Therefore, it is considered obvious that one skilled in the art at the time of the invention, would recognize the advantage of modifying Joch to incorporate Seo’s teachings to decode a pixel residual based on the pixel predictor using the entropy code or using run mode decoding. The motivation for performing such a modification in Joch is to maximize compression efficiency while improving the compression rate.
It is also noted that although combination of Joch and Seo teaches selecting an entropy code (See Joch [0054] and [0058]), it is silent about “from among multiple entropy codes by reading an indicator of the entropy code from the reference frame data”.
However, Yang teaches “from among multiple entropy codes by reading an indicator of the entropy code from the reference frame data” (See Yang [0046] “a segmented reference frame and a new frame that is to be approximated using the segments from the reference frame and their respective motion vectors”, [0049] “the data introduced to the decoder, including the segmentation of the reference frame, previous motion vectors, the prediction indicator, the entropy-coded top-level motion vectors, and entropy-coded lower-level residual vectors.”).
Therefore, it is considered obvious that one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize the advantage of modifying the combination of Joch and Seo to incorporate Yang’s teachings to select an entropy code for decoding from among multiple entropy codes by reading an indicator of the entropy code from the reference frame data. The motivation for performing such a modification in the combination of Joch and Seo is to provide a novel way of encoding and decoding motion vectors that saves bits by exploiting the correlations between the motions of adjacent segments as taught by Yang (See Yang [0019]).
As per claim 10, Joch discloses a system comprising: an off-chip memory (See Joch [0055]), one or more processors (See Joch [0046], Fig. 1, processor 16) operable to compress first reference frame data to generate compressed reference frame data (See Joch [0018], [0036]), store the compressed reference frame data to off-chip storage (See Joch [0055]), retrieve the compressed reference frame data from the off-chip memory (See Joch [0053]-[0054]), decompress the compressed reference frame data by at least: selecting an entropy code for decoding (See Joch [0053]-[0054]), compute a pixel predictor (See Joch [0058]).
It is noted that Joch is silent about decoding a pixel residual based on the pixel predictor using the entropy code or using run mode decoding.
However, Seo teaches decoding a pixel residual based on the pixel predictor using the entropy code or using run mode decoding (See Seo col. 2, lines 60-67, col. 3, lines 1-15).
Therefore, it is considered obvious that one skilled in the art at the time of the invention, would recognize the advantage of modifying Joch to incorporate Seo’s teachings to decode a pixel residual based on the pixel predictor using the entropy code or using run mode decoding. The motivation for performing such a modification in Joch is to maximize compression efficiency while improving the compression rate.
It is also noted that although combination of Joch and Seo teaches selecting an entropy code (See Joch [0054] and [0058]), it is silent about “from among multiple entropy codes by reading an indicator of the entropy code from the reference frame data”.
However, Yang teaches “from among multiple entropy codes by reading an indicator of the entropy code from the reference frame data” (See Yang [0046] “a segmented reference frame and a new frame that is to be approximated using the segments from the reference frame and their respective motion vectors”, [0049] “the data introduced to the decoder, including the segmentation of the reference frame, previous motion vectors, the prediction indicator, the entropy-coded top-level motion vectors, and entropy-coded lower-level residual vectors.”).
Therefore, it is considered obvious that one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize the advantage of modifying the combination of Joch and Seo to incorporate Yang’s teachings to select an entropy code for decoding from among multiple entropy codes by reading an indicator of the entropy code from the reference frame data. The motivation for performing such a modification in the combination of Joch and Seo is to provide a novel way of encoding and decoding motion vectors that saves bits by exploiting the correlations between the motions of adjacent segments as taught by Yang (See Yang [0019]).
As per claims 19-20, Joch discloses a non-transitory computer-readable medium having executable instructions stored thereon, configured to be executable by one or more processors for causing the one or more processors (See Joch [0053] and [0059]) to: compress first reference frame data to generate compressed reference frame data (See Joch [0018], [0036]); store the compressed reference frame data to off-chip storage (See Joch [0055]); retrieve the compressed reference frame data from the off-chip storage (See Joch [0053]-[0054]); decompress the compressed reference frame data by at least: selecting an entropy code for decoding (See Joch [0053]-[0054]); computing a pixel predictor (See Joch [0058]).
It is noted that Joch is silent about decoding a pixel residual based on the pixel predictor using the entropy code or using run mode decoding.
However, Seo teaches decoding a pixel residual based on the pixel predictor using the entropy code or using run mode decoding (See Seo col. 2, lines 60-67, col. 3, lines 1-15).
Therefore, it is considered obvious that one skilled in the art at the time of the invention, would recognize the advantage of modifying Joch to incorporate Seo’s teachings to decode a pixel residual based on the pixel predictor using the entropy code or using run mode decoding. The motivation for performing such a modification in Joch is to maximize compression efficiency while improving the compression rate.
It is also noted that although combination of Joch and Seo teaches selecting an entropy code (See Joch [0054] and [0058]), it is silent about “from among multiple entropy codes by reading an indicator of the entropy code from the reference frame data”.
However, Yang teaches “from among multiple entropy codes by reading an indicator of the entropy code from the reference frame data” (See Yang [0046] “a segmented reference frame and a new frame that is to be approximated using the segments from the reference frame and their respective motion vectors”, [0049] “the data introduced to the decoder, including the segmentation of the reference frame, previous motion vectors, the prediction indicator, the entropy-coded top-level motion vectors, and entropy-coded lower-level residual vectors.”).
Therefore, it is considered obvious that one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize the advantage of modifying the combination of Joch and Seo to incorporate Yang’s teachings to select an entropy code for decoding from among multiple entropy codes by reading an indicator of the entropy code from the reference frame data. The motivation for performing such a modification in the combination of Joch and Seo is to provide a novel way of encoding and decoding motion vectors that saves bits by exploiting the correlations between the motions of adjacent segments as taught by Yang (See Yang [0019]).
As per claim 13, the combination of Joch, Seo and Yang further teaches wherein the off-chip memory is external to the one or more processors (See Joch [0053]-[0055]).
As per claims 8, 17 and 26, the combination of Joch, Seo and Yang further teaches constructing a current pixel based on the pixel predictor and pixel residual after decoding the pixel residual using entropy code (See Seo col. 2, lines 60-67, col. 3, lines 1-15).
As per claims 9 and 18, the combination of Joch, Seo and Yang further teaches generating a picture based on the decompressed reference frame data and displaying the picture (See Joch [0017] and [0046]).
As per claim 21, the combination of Joch, Seo and Yang further teaches wherein the decompressing the reference frame data is performed by an encoder (See Joch [0017], [0046] and [0067]).
5. Claims 6, 15 and 24 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Joch et al. (US Patent Application Publication no. 2005/0117646) in view of Seo et al. (US Patent no. 8208545) and Yang et al. (US Patent Application Publication no. 2004/0008778) as applied to claims 1 and 10 above, and further in view of Uramoto et al. (US Patent no. 5400087).
Regarding claims 6, 15 and 24, most of the limitations of these claims have been noted in the above rejection of claims 1 and 10.
It is noted that the combination of Joch, Seo and Yang is silent about computing minimum absolute difference for the current pixel and computing the pixel predictor for the current pixel based on the minimum absolute difference.
However, Uramoto teaches computing minimum absolute difference for the current pixel, and computing the pixel predictor for the current pixel based on the minimum absolute difference (See Uramoto col. 34, lines 46-68, col. 35, lines 1-5).
Therefore, it is considered obvious that one skilled in the art, at the time of the invention, would recognize the advantage of modifying the combination of Joch, Seo and Yang to incorporate Uramoto’s teachings to compute minimum absolute difference for the current pixel, and computing the pixel predictor for the current pixel based on the minimum absolute difference. The motivation for performing such a modification in the proposed combination of Joch, Seo and Yang is to determine a displacement vector which corresponds to the minimum absolute value sum is determined as the motion vector.
6. Claims 22-23 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Joch et al. (US Patent Application Publication no. 2005/0117646) in view of Seo et al. (US Patent no. 8208545), and further in view of Yang et al. (US Patent Application Publication no. 2004/0008778) as applied to claims 1 and 10 above, and further in view of Nilsson et al. (US Patent Application Publication no. 2010/0150241).
Regarding claims 22-23, most of the limitations of these claims have been noted in the above rejection of claims 1 and 10.
It is noted that the combination of Joch, Seo and Yang is silent about decoding the pixel residual in response to determining that a value of a previous pixel residual is either zero or not.
However, Nilsson teaches decoding the pixel residual in response to determining that a value of a previous pixel residual is either zero or not (See Nilsson [0038]).
Therefore, it is considered obvious that one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize the advantage of modifying the combination of Joch, Seo and Yang to incorporate the teachings of Nilsson to decode the pixel residual in response to determining that a value of a previous pixel residual is either zero or not. The motivation for performing such a modification in the above combination of Joch, Seo and Yang is to provide predictive power pictures from the decoding process.
7. Claims 7, 16 and 25 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.
The claims are allowable over the prior art of record since the cited references taken individually or in combination fail to teach or suggest decompressing a reference frame data wherein receiving the reference frame data comprises retrieving the reference frame data from off-chip memory, wherein the reference frame data is first reference frame data, wherein receiving the first reference frame data comprises retrieving compressed reference frame data from the off-chip memory, and wherein the method further comprises, before retrieving the first reference frame data: compressing second reference frame data to generate the compressed reference frame data; and storing the compressed reference frame data to the off-chip memory.
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/GIMS S PHILIPPE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2424
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