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 .
Election/Restrictions
Claims 9-17 remain withdrawn. Claims 1-8 and 18-20 are present for examination.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claims 1-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Nystad (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0193081), referred herein as Nystad.
Regarding claim 1, Nystad teaches an apparatus comprising: at least one processor assembly configured to (paragraphs 214 and 215):
for a macroblock of at least some macroblocks of at least one computer graphics texture: compute plural endpoint colors corresponding to endpoints of the macroblock (paragraphs 158 and 159; paragraph 237; endpoint colors are computed for the block):
compute a mean of the endpoint colors for the macroblock (paragraph 131; paragraph 247; paragraph 284; an endpoint color mean is computed), and
compute a difference between the endpoint colors to determine a projection vector for the macroblock, the projection vector having components comprising the mean of the endpoint colors and the difference between the endpoint colors (paragraph 76; paragraphs 129, 131, and 132; paragraph 262; a difference between endpoint colors is computed to determine a projection vector that has components comprising the mean and difference);
compress the mean and the difference (paragraphs 71 and 72; paragraphs 127 and 129-131; the computed mean and difference are compressed);
compute per-pixel distances along the projection vector for the macroblock (paragraphs 113 and 115; per-pixel distances are computed along the projection vector); and
use the mean, difference, and per-pixel distance to represent the macroblock for texture compression (paragraphs 129-131; paragraph 157; paragraph 262; the mean, difference, and distance are used to encode data that represents the macroblock for texture compression; it is also noted that this is an intended use, but is also simply a result of the macroblock processing).
Regarding claim 2, Nystad teaches the apparatus of Claim 1, wherein the processor assembly is configured to store the respective mean, difference, and per-pixel distances of each macroblock of the at least some macroblocks (paragraphs 216 and 230; the macroblock data is stored such that is can be accessed and decoded).
Regarding claim 3, Nystad teaches the apparatus of Claim 1, wherein the processor assembly is configured to transmit the respective mean, difference, and per-pixel distances of each macroblock of the at least some macroblocks to at least one receiver such that the receiver can decode the respective mean, difference, and per-pixel distances of each macroblock for presentation of the texture on a video display (paragraphs 157 and 158; paragraph 224; paragraph 262; the encoded data can be transmitted and received for decoding the encoded macroblock data).
Regarding claim 4, Nystad teaches the apparatus of Claim 3, comprising the receiver (paragraphs 157 and 158; paragraph 224; paragraph 262; the encoded data can be received by a graphics processing system for decoding).
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 5 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nystad, in view of Li et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0219298), referred herein as Li.
Regarding claim 5, Nystad teaches the apparatus of Claim 1, wherein the processor assembly is configured to: process macroblocks as a 4x4 or 8x8 macroblock, among other sizes (paragraph 86).
Nystad does not explicitly teach pairing first and second 4x8 macroblocks, and processing the first and second as an 8x8 macroblock.
However, in a similar field of endeavor, Li teaches an apparatus for computing endpoint color and color difference and compressing it to represent macroblocks (paragraph 49; paragraph 55, lines 1-13), wherein the apparatus is configured to pair first and second 4x8 macroblocks and process the first and second as an 8x8 macroblock (figs 10a and 11a, first and second macroblocks 1020 and 1030 and the resulting 8x8 macroblock; figs 12a and 12b; paragraph 149; paragraph 152, lines 4-9; paragraph 153, lines 1-2; paragraph 154, the last 14 lines; paragraph 183, lines 1-6).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the sub-macroblocks of Li in the macroblock processing of Nystad because this component of the BC prediction can help improve compression rates while minimizing loss (see, for example, paragraph 23; paragraph 26, lines 1-14).
Regarding claim 8, Nystad teaches the apparatus of Claim 1, but does not explicitly teach that the processor assembly is configured to: split the computer graphics texture into plural tiles; and for each tile, split the tile into the macroblocks of the at least some macroblocks.
However, in a similar field of endeavor, Li teaches an apparatus for computing endpoint color and color difference and compressing it to represent at least some macroblocks (paragraph 49; paragraph 55, lines 1-13), wherein the apparatus is configured to split a computer graphics texture into plural tiles, and for each tile, split the tile into the macroblocks of the at least some macroblocks (paragraph 50, lines 1-7; paragraph 55, lines 1-13; paragraph 105; paragraph 127).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the tiling of Li in the macroblock processing of Nystad because this component of the BC prediction can help improve compression rates while minimizing loss (see, for example, paragraph 23; paragraph 26, lines 1-14).
Claims 6 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nystad, in view of Sekiguchi et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0003717), referred herein as Sekiguchi.
Regarding claim 6, Nystad teaches the apparatus of Claim 1, but does not explicitly teach that the processor assembly is configured to: the first time the macroblock is identified, generate a byte code representing a size of the macroblock.
However, in a similar field of endeavor, Sekiguchi teaches an apparatus for computing endpoint color and color difference and compressing it to represent a macroblock (paragraph 466, lines 1-13; paragraph 467, lines 11-21; paragraph 468, the last 9 lines; paragraph 470; paragraph 474, lines 1-11), wherein the apparatus is configured to: the first time the macroblock is identified, generate a byte code representing a size of the macroblock (figs 91 and 97, entropy block size indication information 506; paragraph 499, lines 1-8).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the macroblock size coding of Sekiguchi with the macroblock processing of Nystad because this helps maximize the use of correlation between color components so as to increase encoding efficiency (see, for example, Sekiguchi, paragraph 468, lines 21-24).
Regarding claim 7, Nystad in view of Sekiguchi teaches the apparatus of Claim 6, wherein the processor assembly is configured to: write the macroblocks of the at least some macroblocks as a compressed byte stream of macroblock sizes (Nystad, figs 3-11; paragraphs 186 and 191; paragraph 571; Sekiguchi, paragraph 499, lines 1-8; paragraph 503, lines 1-10; the motivation is similar to that discussed above in the rejection of claim 6, above).
Claims 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nystad, in view of Morita et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0153744), referred herein as Morita.
Regarding claim 18, Nystad teaches a method comprising: for each macroblock of at least some macroblocks of at least one computer graphics texture, computing plural endpoint colors corresponding to endpoints of the macroblock (paragraphs 158 and 159; paragraph 237; endpoint colors are computed for the block);
executing at least A and/or B on each macroblock of the at least some macroblocks, wherein A comprises: for at least portions of the macroblock, applying a transform corresponding to endpoint colors (paragraph 487); and
wherein B comprises: computing a mean of the endpoint colors for the macroblock (paragraph 131; paragraph 247; paragraph 284; an endpoint color mean is computed), and
a difference between the endpoint colors for the macroblock, the mean and the difference being components of a projection vector in color-space (paragraph 76; paragraphs 129, 131, and 132; paragraph 262; a difference between endpoint colors is computed to determine a projection vector that has components comprising the mean and difference),
compressing the mean and the difference (paragraphs 71 and 72; paragraphs 127 and 129-131; the computed mean and difference are compressed),
computing per-pixel distance along the projection vector for the macroblock (paragraphs 113 and 115; per-pixel distances are computed along the projection vector), and
using the respective mean, difference, and per-pixel distance to represent the macroblock (paragraphs 129-131; paragraph 157; paragraph 262; the mean, difference, and distance are used to encode data that represents the macroblock for texture compression; it is also noted that this is an intended use, but is also simply a result of the macroblock processing).
Nystad does not teach that A comprises: for at least portions of a first macroblock, applying forward Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), and using a respective result of applying forward DCT to the respective portions to represent the respective portions.
However, in a similar field of endeavor, Morita teaches a method comprising, for a plurality of macroblocks of a texture, computing plural endpoint colors, a mean of the endpoint colors, and a difference between the endpoint colors for a macroblock, the mean and the difference establishing a projection vector in color-space, computing per-pixel distance along the projection vector for the macroblock (paragraphs 100-102; paragraphs 108 and 110; paragraphs 112, 114, and 115), and compressing the mean and the difference (paragraph 77; paragraph 78, lines 1-9; paragraph 108), and further comprising, for at least portions of a first macroblock, applying forward Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), and using a respective result of applying forward DCT to the respective portions to represent the respective portions (paragraph 78, lines 1-9; paragraph 111; paragraph 112, lines 1-12).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the DCT processing of Morita with the compression of Nystad because this helps increase the compression effects to reduce bandwidth and storage requirements without sacrificing quality, and is considered among the most effective forms of encoding (see, for example, Morita, paragraph 17, the last 3 lines; paragraph 78, the last 8 lines; paragraph 111).
Regarding claim 19, Nystad in view of Morita teaches the method of Claim 18, comprising executing A (please refer to the rejection of claim 18, above, which addresses step A; this claim is similarly rejected).
Regarding claim 20, Nystad in view of Morita teaches the method of Claim 18, comprising executing B (please refer to the rejection of claim 18, above, which addresses step B; this claim is similarly rejected).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the 102 and 103 rejections have been fully considered, but are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection presented above. However, two arguments are noted in the event that they are relevant to the instant, or future, Office Actions:
First, regarding Applicant’s argument that the mean and difference are computed differently and can have different values, it is noted that if such features are described in Applicant’s specification, and are distinguishable from the applied prior art, the features would need to be recited in the claims to overcome the prior art. As they currently stand, however, the claims do not describe the manner in which these are calculated, or what kind of values they can have, and thus this does not represent a patentable distinction.
Second, regarding Applicant’s argument that claim 18 includes similar features as claim 1, it is noted that claim 18 recites an important distinction from claim 1, where it leaves method A and method B in the alternative. Accordingly, none of the mean, difference, projection vector, or distance limitations are required by claim 18. Thus, even if method B was described in a way that distinguished over the prior art, claim 18 would not be allowable because it does not require method B.
Conclusion
The following prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Dolonius et al. (Compressing Color Data for Voxelized Surface Geometry; IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics; Vol 25, No 2); February 2019.
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DAVID T. WELCH
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2613
/DAVID T WELCH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2613