DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the Amendments and Remarks received 12/22/2025 in which claims 2, 5, 6, 11, and 14 are cancelled, claims 1, 10, 15, and 18 are amended, and claims 21–24 are added as new claims.
Response to Arguments
Previous Responses to Arguments, including the rationale provided in the Advisory Action dated 07/22/2025 is incorporated herein.
On pages 14–20 of the Remarks, Applicant contends Bross’s teaching, “fails to disclose when transform skip and ACT are enabled an input quantization parameter is added to an adaptive color transform offset value equal to –5, and when the input quantization parameter added to –5 is less than a minimal allowed quantization parameter for the transform skip mode, a quantization parameter, which is used in the quantization process or the inverse quantization process, is set equal to the minimal allowed quantization parameter.” First, Applicant’s Specification does not have support for such a narrow reading of the claim language and indeed appears to admit as prior art that a minimum QP is as old as HEVC in Applicant’s published paragraph [0044]. Therefore, it is unreasonable to argue, as Applicant does, that the prior art cited by Examiner, which encompasses prior art VTM as admitted by Applicant does not teach the same feature Applicant relies on to describe the claimed “minimum allowed” QP. Furthermore, Examiner finds Bross’s qp = Max (QpPrimeTsMin, qP) teaches the averred feature. The claim requires that when the input QP is less than the minimal allowed QP, the QP is set equal to the minimal allowed QP. That is exactly what the function, Max (a, b) is doing in Bross’s qp = Max (QpPrimeTsMin, qP) – 5. Realize the claim merely requires the quantization parameter be set equal to the minimal allowed QP. As the prior art demonstrates, it was known in the art to set the minimal allowed QP value when transform skip is enabled, for example, to 0 (Cheong (US 2018/0324427 A1) teaches if transform is skipped, the QP range is 0 to bitdepth-1). Taking the case that the minimal allowed QP is zero, if one were to set Bross’s QpPrimeTsMin to 5, the minimal allowed QP under the claimed scenario would be zero. Thus, the claim is met by the teachings of the prior art. Realize too that, based on the teachings of Bross, the skilled artisan can determine any minimal allowed QP the artisan wants by simply changing the value of the variable, QpPrimeTsMin. Any more specific interpretation averred by Applicant has no support in Applicant’s Specification. For example, it appears Applicant is arguing that the claim requires qP = Max( QpPrimeTsMin, (qP – 5)). Again, first, there is no support for such a narrow interpretation. Second, if QpPrimeTsMin is set to zero, then Applicant would be correct that the results would be different between Bross’s qp = Max (QpPrimeTsMin, qP) – 5 and Applicant’s qP = Max( QpPrimeTsMin, (qP – 5)) because Bross’s equation would yield –5 and Applicant’s would yield zero. However, under an obviousness rationale, if Applicant desires the result of zero (or any other value for that matter) for the minimal allowed QP, then all one skilled in the art would have to do is manipulate the QpPrimeTsMin variable to achieve that result taking into account the – 5 when ACT is enabled. In other words, a difference in parentheses between the prior art and the claimed invention is an obvious difference amounting to a mere design choice in how to effectuate the minimum allowed QP. The skilled artisan would find the difference obvious in view of the teachings of the prior art drawn to the desirability for a minimum QP, in view of Applicant’s admitted prior art that minimum allowed QP for transform skip has been a part of the video compression standard since HEVC, and in view of the level of skill possessed by one of ordinary skill in this art.
Examiner notes Applicant’s argument on the bottom of page 15 and the top of page 16 of Applicant’s Remarks demonstrates and supports Examiner’s finding of obviousness, as explained, supra. Applicant explains the purported invention is to simply ensure the QP never drops below the minimum set QP, defined by QpPrimeTsMin. As explained, supra, the prior art sets a minimum QP using QpPrimeTsMin. Applicant is merely arguing that the same minimum set in the prior art always be observed. This is obvious to one skilled in the art. When one sets a minimum QP, it should actually work to restrict the QP to some minimum value. Despite Applicant’s insistence that the prior art teaches going below the minimum QP by 5, Examiner finds that such a calculation simply means that the minimum is 5 lower than the variable QpPrimeTsMin, which is still a minimum and that whether there is a single QP minimum for both ACT and non-ACT implementations or two separate QP minimums differing by is a design choice wherein the skilled artisan could simply manipulate the parentheses to achieve one or the other. Such a minor distinction regarding design choice does not amount to a nonobvious distinction over the prior art.
Examiner notes that should Applicant supply to Examiner specific support for the averred interpretation that qP = Max( QpPrimeTsMin, (qP – 5)) by reference to the Specification and particularly claim that supported language in the claim, Examiner would revisit the obviousness determination and may likely find allowable subject matter. As best Examiner could determine, the feature is only nominally described in Applicant’s published paragraph [0044] and [0125].
Examiner notes Applicant did not supply for Examiner’s review a citation to any section of Applicant’s Specification that particularly described the averred feature, as requested, supra.
Other claims are not argued separately. Remarks, 16.
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 of this title, 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, 3, 4, 7–10, 12, 13, and 15–24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al., “Algorithm description for Versatile Video Coding and Test Model 7 (VTM 7),” JVET-P2002-v1, 16th Meeting: Geneva, CH, October 2019 (herein “Chen”), Bross et al., “Versatile Video Coding (Draft 7),” JVET-P2001, 16th Meeting: Geneva, CH, October 2019 (herein “Bross”), and Tsukuba (US 2023/0007255 A1).
Regarding claim 1, the combination of Chen, Bross, and Tsukuba teaches or suggests a method of processing video data, comprising: performing a conversion between a video comprising a current video unit and a bitstream of the video according to a rule (Examiner notes Applicant uses “conversion” to describe video coding; Chen, Section 1 (page 8): explains the publication is describing video encoding and decoding), wherein the rule specifies that when the current video unit is a chroma component unit, in response to an adaptive color transform mode being enabled for the current video unit, an indication of usage of a differential coding mode for the current video unit is excluded from the bitstream, and wherein the indication of the differential coding mode for the current video unit is inferred to be false which indicates that the differential coding mode is disabled for the current video unit (Bross, Section 7.3.9.5 (page 68): shows that chroma BDPCM is enabled after checking that ACT is disabled; Bross, Section 8.4.3 describes how the ACT flag is checked before the BDPCM flag for deriving chroma mode; Bross, Table 48 (page 369): illustrates the ACT flag is initialized before the BDPCM flag for the coding unit; Likewise, Bross, page 69 shows that chroma BDPCM is enabled after checking that ACT is disabled; Therefore, the claimed order of syntax elements is obvious in view of the above teachings), wherein in the differential coding mode, residuals of samples of the current video unit are represented in the bitstream using differences between quantized residuals and predictors of the quantized residuals (Examiner notes this limitation is simply describing prior art BDPCM; Chen, Section 3.9.2 (pages 82–83): teaches “the residual is quantized and the difference between each quantized residual and its predictor, i.e. the previously coded residual of the horizontal or vertical (depending on the BDPCM prediction direction) neighbouring position, is coded.”), wherein in the adaptive color transform mode, for an encoding operation, visual signals are converted from a first color domain to a second color domain, or for a decoding operation, the visual signals are converted from the second color domain to the first color domain (Examiner notes this limitation is simply describing prior art ACT; Chen, Section 3.10 et seq. (page 86 et seq.): teaches ACT in forward and reverse directions for encoding and decoding respectively), and wherein the rule further specifies that when the adaptive color transform mode and the transform skip mode are enabled for the current video unit and the current video unit is a luma component unit, an input quantization parameter is added to an adaptive color transform offset value equal to −5, and when the input quantization parameter added to −5 is less than the minimal allowed quantization parameter for the transform skip mode, a quantization parameter, which is used in the quantization process or the inverse quantization process, is set equal to the minimal allowed quantization parameter (Chen, Section 3.10.1: teaches QP adjustments of (-5, -5, -3) applied to transform residuals, wherein the first adjustment is for the luma component; Bross, Section 8.7.1 (page 294): teaches clipping the QP values is a conventional process after obtaining initial QP values; see, supra, regarding the teachings of Bross and Tsukuba teaching a lower QP limit when transform is skipped).
One of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would have been motivated to combine the elements taught by Chen, with those of Bross, because both references are drawn to the same field of endeavor such that one wishing to practice the art of adaptive color transform and differential coding would have been led to their relevant teachings, because both publications were presented at the same standards meeting and describe the same thing, just in different terms (i.e. algorithm description vs. syntax description), and because Bross explains the syntax necessary to achieve the range extension features, particularly screen content coding (SCC) features described in Chen. In addition, Bross itself demonstrates the combination was prior art, but does not describe in detail the particulars of ACT or BDPCM. Finally, Chen references Bross under the references Section. This rationale applies to all combinations of Chen and Bross used in this Office Action unless otherwise noted.
One of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would have been motivated to combine the elements taught by Chen and Bross, with those of Tsukuba, because all three references are drawn to the same field of endeavor such that one wishing to practice the art of adaptive color transform, differential coding, and quantization parameter (QP) determination would have been led to their relevant teachings, because Tsukuba can be considered merely a dictionary-type reference explaining how the skilled artisan would interpret the teachings of Bross with respect to the QpPrimeTsMin parameter and its use with transform skip mode, and because combining Tsukuba’s teachings with respect to different treatment of QP derivation when transform skip is enabled with Chen’s nearly identical explanation that the rationale changes for quantization parameter derivation in transform skip mode because energy compaction around low-frequency components is not desirable represents a mere combination of prior art teachings, according to known methods, to yield a predictable result. This rationale applies to all combinations of Chen, Bross, and Tsukuba used in this Office Action unless otherwise noted.
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Chen, Bross, and Tsukuba teaches or suggests the method of claim 1, wherein the rule further specifies that when the adaptive color transform mode is enabled for the current video unit and the transform skip mode is not applied to the current video unit and the current video unit is a luma component unit, an input quantization parameter is added to an adaptive color transform offset value equal to −5, and when the input quantization parameter added to −5 is less than 0, a quantization parameter, which is used in the quantization process or the inverse quantization process, is set equal to 0 (Examiner notes this limitation is saying normal QP derivation and clipping is implemented when transform is not skipped; Chen, page 2: teaches a publication incorporated into the algorithm description document that implements QP clipping in scaling process for transform skip; Chen, Section 3.9.2 (page 82): describes BDPCM is applied when transform is skipped; Chen, Section 3.6.2.2 (page 65): explaining that the rationale for different quantization parameter derivation in transform skip mode is that energy compaction around low-frequency components is not applicable such that different QPs are warranted; Bross, Section 7.4.10.10 (page 159): teaches that when the transform skip mode flag is not present, it is inferred that it is disabled if BDPCM is not enabled thus linking the teachings of Chen and Bross; see also the rationale of claim 1 regarding the teachings of Bross and Tsukuba teaching a lower QP limit when transform is skipped).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Chen, Bross, and Tsukuba teaches or suggests the method of claim 1, wherein the rule further specifies that the indication of usage of the differential coding mode for the current video unit is signaled after an indication of usage of the adaptive color transform mode for the current video unit in the bitstream (Bross, Section 8.4.3 describes how the ACT flag is checked before the BDPCM flag for deriving chroma mode; Bross, Table 48 (page 369): illustrates the ACT flag is initialized before the BDPCM flag for the coding unit; Likewise, Bross, page 69 shows that chroma BDPCM is enabled after checking that ACT is disabled; Therefore, the claimed order of syntax elements is obvious in view of the above teachings).
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Chen, Bross, and Tsukuba teaches or suggests the method of claim 1, wherein the differences are represented using a block based differential pulse coding modulation representation (Chen, Section 3.9.2 (pages 82–83): teaches “the residual is quantized and the difference between each quantized residual and its predictor, i.e. the previously coded residual of the horizontal or vertical (depending on the BDPCM prediction direction) neighbouring position, is coded.”).
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Chen, Bross, and Tsukuba teaches or suggests the method of claim 1, wherein the conversion comprises decoding the video from the bitstream (Examiner notes Applicant uses “conversion” to describe video coding which includes video encoding and decoding; Chen, Section 1 (page 8): explains the publication is describing video encoding and decoding).
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Chen, Bross, and Tsukuba teaches or suggests the method of claim 1, wherein the conversion comprises encoding the video into the bitstream (Examiner notes Applicant uses “conversion” to describe video coding which includes video encoding and decoding; Chen, Section 1 (page 8): explains the publication is describing video encoding and decoding).
Claim 10 lists the same elements as claim 1, but in apparatus form rather than method form. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 1 applies to the instant claim.
Claim 12 lists the same elements as claim 3, but in apparatus form rather than method form. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 3 applies to the instant claim.
Claim 13 lists the same elements as claim 4, but in apparatus form rather than method form. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 4 applies to the instant claim.
Claim 15 lists the same elements as claim 1, but in CRM form rather than method form. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 1 applies to the instant claim.
Claim 16 lists the same elements as claim 3, but in CRM form rather than method form. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 3 applies to the instant claim.
Claim 17 lists the same elements as claim 4, but in CRM form rather than method form. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 4 applies to the instant claim.
Claim 18 lists essentially the same elements as claim 1, but drawn to a method of storing a bitstream instead of processing a bitstream. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 1 applies to the instant claim.
Claim 19 lists essentially the same elements as claim 3, but drawn to a method of storing a bitstream instead of processing a bitstream. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 3 applies to the instant claim.
Claim 20 lists essentially the same elements as claim 4, but drawn to a method of storing a bitstream instead of processing a bitstream. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 4 applies to the instant claim.
Regarding claim 21, the combination of Chen, Bross, and Tsukuba teaches or suggests the method of claim 1, wherein the rule further specifies that when the adaptive color transform mode is enabled for the current video unit, a clipping operation is applied after an adjustment dependent on the adaptive color transform mode to quantization parameters which are used in a quantization process or an inverse quantization process (Chen, Section 3.10.1: teaches QP adjustments of (-5, -5, -3) applied to transform residuals, wherein the first adjustment is for the luma component; Bross, Section 8.7.1 (page 294): teaches clipping the QP values is a conventional process after obtaining initial QP values; see also Bross, Section 8.7.3 (page 299): teaching the clip3 function for coefficients), wherein the clipping operation is applied according to a clipping function Clip3(l, h, x), wherein l indicates a lowest possible value of an input x, h indicates a highest possible value of the input x, and l, h and x are integers (Bross, Section 8.7.3 (page 299): teaches the clip3 function for BDPCM having as first and second values min and max and the third value being the value evaluated), wherein l is equal to a minimal allowed quantization parameter for a transform skip mode, in response to the current video unit being coded with the transform skip mode (Chen, page 2: teaches a publication incorporated into the algorithm description document that implements QP clipping in scaling process for transform skip; see also Chen, Section 3.6.2.2 (page 65): explaining that the rationale for different quantization parameter derivation in transform skip mode is that energy compaction around low-frequency components is not applicable such that different QPs are warranted; Chen, Section 3.9.2 (page 82): describes BDPCM is applied when transform is skipped; Tsukuba, claims 4 and 5: teaches, when transform skip is applied, “the quantization parameter correction unit clips a lower limit of the quantization parameter...” and when transform skip is not applied, “the quantization parameter correction unit omits the clip of the lower limit of the quantization parameter....”; Tsukuba, ¶ 0065: explains QpPrimeTsMin is the parameter used, “in the case where the transform skip is applied, a lower limit of the quantization parameter is first clipped with [that] minimum value.” Therefore, as evidenced by Tsukuba's teachings, the skilled artisan would find Bross's teaching in equations 1133 and 1136 (page 297) utilizing QpPrimeTsMin when transform is skipped to be subjecting QP to a minimum clipping operation even though Bross itself does not use the prevalent Clip3() function specifically to execute the clipping), and wherein l is equal to 0, in response to the current video unit being not coded with the transform skip mode (Examiner notes this limitation is saying normal QP derivation and clipping is implemented when transform is not skipped; Chen, Section 3.6.2.2 (page 65): explaining that the rationale for different quantization parameter derivation in transform skip mode is that energy compaction around low-frequency components is not applicable such that different QPs are warranted; Bross, Section 7.4.10.10 (page 159): teaches that when the transform skip mode flag is not present, it is inferred that it is disabled if BDPCM is not enabled thus linking the teachings of Chen and Bross).
Claim 22 lists the same elements as claim 21, but in apparatus form rather than method form. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 21 applies to the instant claim.
Claim 23 lists the same elements as claim 21, but in CRM form rather than method form. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 21 applies to the instant claim.
Claim 24 lists essentially the same elements as claim 21, but drawn to a method of storing a bitstream instead of processing a bitstream. Therefore, the rationale for the rejection of claim 21 applies to the instant claim.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Laroche (US 2016/0100175 A1) teaches RDPCM is based on whether a color transform is applied (Laroche, ¶ 0071). Examiner notes Laroche uses RCT to describe ACT. Laroche, ¶ 0077, teaches RCT and RDPCM flags signaled in the bitstream and Laroche, ¶ 0078 teaches RDPCM is applied based on RCT.
Chujoh (US 2020/0236381 A1) teaches color space transform (e.g. ¶ 0411) and clipping a quantization parameter (e.g. ¶ 0348).
Nakagami (US 2019/0208206 A1) teaches clipping QP after adjusting QP (Table 3 and ¶¶ 0072–0073). It also explains the clipping operation is essentially a rounding operation (¶ 0073).
Samuelsson (US 2016/0261864 A1) was provided by Applicant on an IDS and explains clipping is applied after applying an offset to QP (e.g. ¶¶ 0172–0173).
Jung et al., “On QP adjustment in adaptive color transform,” JVET-Q0241-v3, 17th Meeting: Brussels, January 2020.
Cheong (US 2018/0324427 A1) teaches if transform is skipped, the QP range is 0 to bitdepth-1 and otherwise where transform is not skipped, the lower bound can likewise be zero (para. [0048]). Thus, like Bross, Cheong is agnostic in terms of transform skip status as it pertains to the QP lower bound being other than zero.
Tsukuba (US 2023/0007255 A1), claims 4 and 5, when transform skip is applied, "the quantization parameter correction unit clips a lower limit of the quantization parameter..." and when transform skip is not applied, "the quantization parameter correction unit omits the clip of the lower limit of the quantization parameter...." Tsukuba's para [0065] explains QpPrimeTsMin is the parameter used, "in the case where the transform skip is applied, a lower limit of the quantization parameter is first clipped with [that] minimum value." Therefore, as evidenced by Tsukuba's teachings, the skilled artisan would find Bross's teaching in equations 1133 and 1136 (page 297) utilizing QpPrimeTsMin when transform is skipped to be subjecting QP to a minimum clipping operation even though Bross itself does not use the prevalent Clip3() function specifically to execute the clipping.
Seregin (US 2017/0085891 A1) teaches the QP value for transform skip may be clipped to be within a desired QP range, wherein for transform skip the QP can be clipped to a minimum of 4 if it was zero when transform was not skipped (paras. [0197]–[0198]).
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
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/MICHAEL J HESS/Examiner, Art Unit 2481