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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on applications filed in Korea on 10/04/2022 and 3/15/2023. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the Korean applications as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
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.
Claim(s) 1 and 8-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Karczewicz et al (2011/0007802 hereafter referred to as Kar) in view of Gao et al (2020/0374541)
In regard to claim 1 Kar discloses an encoder which receives first to third input frames included in a first intra period and outputs a bitstream corresponding to the third input frame (Kar Figs 1 and 2 for an encoder receiving multiple input frames that are converted into a bitstream, also note par. 82 frames stored in memory 34 representing the ‘intra period’), the encoder comprising:
a motion compensation unit configured to generate a first reference frame corresponding to the first input frame and a second reference frame corresponding to the second input frame (Kar pars. 58-59 note motion estimation and motion compensation units identifying and generating prediction blocks (first and second reference frames) corresponding to the list1 and list0 frames stored in memory);
a union operation unit configured to generate an overlap frame by performing a union operation on the first reference frame and the second reference frame (Kar par. 60 note combining the first and second prediction blocks using weighted prediction); and
an inter prediction unit configured to perform an inter prediction operation on the overlap frame and the third input frame (Kar. Fig. 2 and pars 57-60 note inter prediction is performed by subtracting the prediction block from a current block in an input frame).
It is noted that Kar does not disclose details of an occupancy code. However, Gao discloses a plurality of inter prediction unit which generates an occupancy code as a result of inter prediction (Ga0 generally pars 160-176 for inter prediction modes, particularly note par. 174 skip mode as an ‘occupancy code’ which used for inter prediction in which the transform coefficients are unoccupied). Gao further discloses that the bitstream includes the occupancy code (Gao par. 174 note a skip_flag is used to signal that the transform coefficients are unoccupied).
It is therefore considered obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention would recognize the advantage of incorporating inter coding as taught by Gao in the invention of Kar in order to gain the advantage of improved inter prediction coding efficiency as suggested by Gao (Gao par. 160 note HEVC inter prediction tools provide improved coding efficiency).
In regard to claim 8 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Kar further discloses that the union operation is performed with respect to any combination of a plurality of reference frames including the first and second reference frames (Kar par. 47 note bi-prediction may use two previous frames, to subsequent frames or a combination of previous and subsequent frames).
In regard to claim 9 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 8 above. Gao further discloses that the bitstream includes a bit area indicating reference frames used in the union operation among the plurality of reference frames (Gao pars 115 and 126 note reference picture index included in the bitstream which is used to indicate the reference frames used for prediction).
In regard to claim 10 Kar discloses a method of operating an encoder which encodes first to n-th input frames to generate first to n-th bitstreams (Kar Fig. 2 and par 56-57 note each video frame is encoded and output as a bitstream), the method comprising:
generating a first converted frame and the first bitstream based on the first input frame (Kar par. 4 note encoding an I frame to act as a random access point and reference to subsequent frames); and
sequentially performing an encoding operation on the second to n-th input frames to generate the second to n-th bitstreams (Kar pars. 5-7 note encoding one or more B or P frames), respectively; and
wherein the encoding operation with respect to a k-th input frame among the second to n-th input frames includes:
generating a (k-1)-th motion vector by performing a motion estimation operation on the k-th input frame (Kar. par 58 note motion estimation to determine motion vectors between a current frame and a reference frame);
generating first to (k-1)-th reference frames with respect to the k-th input frame based on first to the (k-1)-th motion vectors (Karp par. 59 note identifying first and second reference frames based on a matching metric, also note par. 47 both reference frames may be previous frames);
generating a (k-1)-th overlap frame by performing a union operation on the first to (k-1)th reference frames with respect to the k-th input frame (Kar par. 60 note combining the first and second prediction blocks using weighted prediction);
generating a k-th converted frame based on the (k-1)-th overlap frame and the (k-1)-th motion vector (Kar Fig. 2 and generally pars 56-81 particularly note par 78 using the prediction block (overlap frame) generated using determined motion vectors, to predict a current block of the current frame and pars 79-80 encoding the prediction residual to convert the current frame into a bitstream representation);
It is noted that Kar does not disclose details of an occupancy code. However, Gao discloses a plurality of inter prediction unit which generates an occupancy code as a result of inter prediction (Gao generally pars 160-176 for inter prediction modes, particularly note par. 174 skip mode as an ‘occupancy code’ which used for inter prediction in which the transform coefficients are unoccupied). Gao further discloses that the bitstream includes the occupancy code (Gao par. 174 note a skip_flag is used to signal that the transform coefficients are unoccupied).
It is therefore considered obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention would recognize the advantage of incorporating inter coding as taught by Gao in the invention of Kar in order to gain the advantage of improved inter prediction coding efficiency as suggested by Gao (Gao par. 160 note HEVC inter prediction tools provide improved coding efficiency).
In regard to claim 11 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 10 above. Kar further discloses that the first to n-th input frames are included in the same intra period (Kar par. 82 note the span of time represented by the previous and subsequent frames stored in memory 34 as the ‘intra period’).
In regard to claim 12 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 10 above. Kar further discloses that the first to n-th input frames include detection points in different detection areas, respectively (Kar pars 58-60 note determining prediction blocks (detection points) in reference frames (detection areas) that match a current block in a current frame).
In regard to claim 13 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 10 above. Kar further discloses that the first to (k-1)-th reference frames with respect to the k-th input frame are:
a result of performing a motion compensation operation the first to (k-1)-th converted frames on the basis of the k-th input frame, based on the first to (k-1)-th motion vectors, respectively (Kar pars 58-60 note determining motion compensated prediction blocks (converted frames) using motion vectors determined between the current frame and one or more reference frames). .
In regard to claim 14 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 10 above. Kar further discloses that the (k-1)-th overlap frame includes:
motion compensated detection points included in each of the first to (k-1)-th reference frame with respect to the k-th input frame (Kar pars 58-60 note prediction blocks (detection points) from reference frames undergo motion compensation and are then combing using a weighted average to generate a final prediction block (overlap frame)).
In regard to claim 15 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 10 above. Gao further discloses that the k-th bitstream includes a first bit area indicating an encoding scheme (Gao pars 103-106 note bitstream syntax including information on the encoding mode (encoding scheme)) , a second bit area indicating the (k-1)-th motion vector (Gao pars 60 and 97 note motion vector information encoded in the bitstream), and a third bit area indicating the occupancy code (Gao note par. 174 skip mode as an ‘occupancy code’ a skip_flag is used to signal that the transform coefficients are unoccupied).
Claims 16-20 relate to a decoding method which is substantially corresponds to the encoding methods described in claims 1 and 8-15 above. Refer to the statements made in regard to claims 1 and 8-15 above for the rejection of claims 16-20 which will not be repeated here for brevity. In particular regard to claim 16 Kar further discloses a decoding method (Kar Fig. 4 and pars 88-91 for a decoding process that is the inverse of the encoding process).
Claim(s) 2-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kar in view of Gao as applied to claim above, and further in view of Xu et al (2024/0242393).
In regard in regard to claim 2 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Kar in view of Gao discloses inter predictive encoding as noted in the rejection of claim 1 above. It is noted that neither Kar nor Gao disclose details of encoding point cloud data. However Xu discloses inter predictive encoding of point cloud data wherein first to third input frames correspond to first to third time information of point cloud data collected by a LiDAR device outside the encoder respectively (Xu Fig. 1 and par 29 note receiving a series of ‘frames’ of point cloud data from a LiDAR device, further note pars 93-93 note performing bi-prediction using first and second reference frames, hence requiring at least three input frames).
It is therefore considered obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention would recognize the further advantage of including point cloud encoding as taught by Xu in the invention of Kar in view of Gao in order to accurately and efficiently encode point clouds as suggested by Xu (Xu par. 5).
In regard to claim 3 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 2 above. Xu further the first input frame includes first detection points with respect to objects, the second input frame includes second detection points with respect to objects and the third input frame includes third detection points with respect to objects (Xu par. 74 note point cloud frame points represent 3D Objects).
In regard to claim 4 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 3 above. Kar further disclose that the first reference frame includes first motion compensation detection points corresponding to the first detection points and wherein the second reference frame includes second motion compensation detection points corresponding to the second detection points (Kar pars 58-59 note detecting motion vectors used for motion compensation with prediction blocks (detection points) in the first and second reference frames identified by a matching metric).
In regard to claim 5 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 4 above. Kar further discloses the overlap frame includes the first motion compensation detection points and the second motion compensation detection points (Kar pars 58-60 note the identified prediction blocks (detection points) are combine to generate a final prediction block (overlap frame)).
In regard to claim 6 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 4 above. Xu further discloses that the first detection points are included in a first detection area of the LiDAR device at the first time, the second detection points are included in a second detection area of the LiDAR device at the second time and the third detection points are included in a third detection area of the LiDAR device at the third time (Xu Fig. 4 note detection points in plural frames, further note Fig. 6 showing a plurality of frames each representing a set of detection points within a detection area, finally note par. 29 frames obtained by a LiDAR device), and
wherein the overlap frame includes:
motion compensation detection points included in the third detection area among the first motion compensation detection points and the second motion compensation detection points (Xu Fig. 4 and par. 78 note determining points in a current frame (third detection area) which correspond to points in a reference frame (first and second motion compensation detection points), further note Fig. 6 and pars 93-96 the current frame (third detection area) may reference points in two reference frames).
In regard to claim 7 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 6 above. Kar and Xu further disclose that the overlap frame does not include a motion compensation detection point which is not included in the third detection area among the first motion compensation detection points and the second motion compensation detection points (Kar par. 59 note only portions of the reference frame that match the block in the current frame are used for motion compensation, Xu Fig. 4 and par. 78 note determining points in reference frames that match points in the current frame thus points in the reference frame that do not match points in the current frame (third detection area) are not used for motion compensation).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20220343551 A1 IGUCHI; Noritaka et al.
US 20210239863 A1 TAVITIAN; Bertrand et al.
US 20210217203 A1 Kim; Jungsun et al.
US 20210142521 A1 IGUCHI; Noritaka et al.
US 20200404306 A1 AUYEUNG; Cheung et al.
US 20200043182 A1 Janus; Scott et al.
US 20150208080 A1 Kim; Jungsun et al.
US 20140247888 A1 Tourapis; Alexandros et al.
US 20130272404 A1 Park; Seungwook et al.
"Inter-Frame Smart-Accumulation Technique for Long-Range and High-Pixel Resolution LiDAR," K. Tanabe, H. Kubota, A. Sai and N. Matsumoto,
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/JEREMIAH C HALLENBECK-HUBER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2481