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 .
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant’s cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 30 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim does not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the claim is directed to a “computer-readable medium” which is not deemed to be a process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter. A computer readable storage medium “can encompass non-statutory transitory forms of signal transmission, such as a propagating electrical or electromagnetic signal per se. … Thus, a claim to a computer readable medium that can be a compact disc or a carrier wave covers a non-statutory embodiment and therefore should be rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.” (MPEP 2106.03 (II)) Applicant’s specification does not expressly state the exclusion of non-statutory transitional forms of signal transmission. In fact, Applicant states, at paragraph [0112], that “computer-readable media generally may correspond to: (1) tangible computer-readable storage media, which is non-transitory; or (2) a communication medium such as a signal or carrier wave.” (Emphasis added)
Allowable Subject Matter
5. Claims 1-29 are allowed.
6. Claim 30 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 101, set forth in this Office action.
7. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claim 1, no prior art has been found to disclose or suggest Applicant’s apparatus for display processing including a memory and a processor, the processor configured to execute each of the recited steps in combination, including:
- determine a target granularity based on at least one of a first image buffer or a second image buffer;
- determine a partial image pyramid based on the target granularity and at least one of the first image buffer or the second image buffer;
- sample the partial image pyramid based on the target granularity;
- determine a midpoint normalization value based on the sampled partial image pyramid; and
- normalize at least one of the first image buffer or the second image buffer based on the midpoint normalization value.
Claims 2-16 depend from claim 1.
Claim 17, directed to a method of display processing, and claim 30, directed to a computer-readable medium storing computer executable code, similarly recite the allowable subject matter of claim 1.
Claims 18-29 depend from claim 17.
8. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
U.S. Patent US 9,552,633 B2 (Sahu et al.) discloses depth aware enhancement for stereo video, comprising a memory unit configured to store a left image and a right image, each depicting a same scene from a different viewpoint, and further comprises a coder configured to retrieve the left image and the right image from the memory unit. The coder is configured to determine a depth map based on a difference in spatial orientation between the left and right image.
U.S. Patent Application Publication US 2014/0177927 A1 (Shieh et al.) discloses a system of image stereo matching including at least one stereo matching unit each receiving a first view and a second view of a view pair, according to which the stereo matching unit generates a first depth map for the first view, and includes a backward tracer operable to receive the first depth map, according to which q second depth map for the second view is derived.
U.S. Patent Application Publication US 2018/0130221 A1 (Kim et al.) discloses a stereo matching method including acquiring a left image and a right image identifying image data by applying a window to each of the acquired left image and right image, storing the image data in a line buffer, extracting a disparity from the image data stored in the line buffer, and generating a depth map based on the extracted disparity.
U.S. Patent Application Publication US 2021/0065393 A1 (Jeon et al.) discloses a method for stereo matching using an end-to-end convolutional neural network, that applies a first convolutional neural network and a second convolutional neutral network to a left image and a right image, respectively, wherein a cost volume is determined based on feature maps extracted from the left image and the right image, respectively, performing normalization on the cost volume by applying a third convolutional neural network, up-sampling the normalized cost volume, and obtaining a disparity map by applying regression analysis to the up-sampled cost volume.
U.S. Patent Application Publication US 2024/0273739 A1 (Park et al.) discloses an apparatus and method with image registration, that generates disparity information between a first partial image and a third partial image, based on depth information of the first partial image generated using a first optical flow, and estimating a second optical flow between the first partial image and the third partial image based on the generated disparity information for generating a registration image.
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/THOMAS D LEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2683