DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is a response to an amendment filed on 05/26/2026, in which claims 1-20 are pending and ready for examination.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 09/23/2026 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in this application and a copy has been placed of record in the file.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 05/26/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to claims 1-20 have been considered but are not persuasive.
In regards to claims 1, 11, and 20 applicant argues that the combination of Wu and Takehara fail to disclose the limitation of “in response to determining that a number of vectors within the prediction vector candidate list is less than a threshold, selecting additional vectors to be added to fill the prediction vector candidate list based on an indication of at least one of a global reference image or a local reference range”.
However, examiner respectfully disagrees. As best understood from the specification of the current application, the global reference range [image] and the local reference region are disclosed by paragraph 68-70 and fig. 8 of the specification of the current application. Similarly, paragraphs 198 and 277 of Takehara discloses that the when the number of merge candidates in the list is smaller than the maximum number of merge candidates, additional merge candidates are added to the list until the maximum number is reached. Furthermore, as disclosed in paragraph 303 and Fig. 48 and 49, a referenceable region of reconstructed blocks relative to the position of the target coding block is determined and corrected in order to derive the additional merge candidate vector. As shown in Fig. 49 and 50A-D the referenceable region is the local reference range as shown in Fig. 50D or a global refence range as shown in Fig. 50. Thus, all the argued limitations of claims 1, 11, and 20 have been fully disclosed by the currently on file references.
Claims 1-20 remain rejected since the system disclosed by the applicant is taught by the prior arts.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wu (US 2022/0360814 A1) in view of Takehara (US 2022/0109829 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Wu discloses: A video encoding method, comprising:
generating a prediction vector candidate list according to displacement vectors of an encoded block whose reference frame is a current frame (see Wu, paragraph 113, motion vector associated with the at least one other block that is intra coded, such as a position of the at least one other block in a frame);
selecting a prediction vector of a to-be-encoded current block from the prediction vector candidate list (see Wu, paragraph 115, a motion vector predictor is selected); and
encoding a current block based on the prediction vector of the current block (see Wu, Fig. 14 and paragraph 112, image or video data received by the encoder to be encoded).
Wu does not explicitly disclose: in response to determining that a number of vectors within the prediction vector candidate list is less than a threshold, selecting additional vectors to be added to fill the prediction vector candidate list based on an indication of at least one of a global reference image or a local reference range.
However, Takehara from the same or similar endeavor discloses: in response to determining that a number of vectors within the prediction vector candidate list is less than a threshold, selecting additional vectors to be added to fill the prediction vector candidate list (see Takehara, paragraph 198, when the number of merge candidates in the list is smaller than the maximum number of merge candidates, additional merge candidates are added to the list until the maximum number is reached) based on an indication of at least one of a global reference image or a local reference range (see Takehara, Fig. 46 and Fig. 50A-D and paragraph 277 and 303);
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to “in response to determining that a number of vectors within the prediction vector candidate list is less than a threshold, selecting additional vectors to be added to fill the prediction vector candidate list” as taught by Takehara in the video coding method and apparatus taught by Wu to achieve highly efficient and low load picture coding/decoding process (see Takehara, paragraph 7).
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Wu and Takehara discloses: The video encoding method according to claim 1, wherein the selecting comprises:
decoding a code stream to obtain prediction vector index information (see Wu, paragraph 112 and 70, The index of the selected motion vector prediction candidates can then be signaled to the decoder); and
selecting, according to the prediction vector index information, a prediction vector from a corresponding location in the prediction vector candidate list as the prediction vector of the to-be-encoded current block (see Wu, paragraph 70).
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Wu and Takehara discloses: The video encoding method according to claim 2, wherein the prediction vector index information is encoded by using a context-based multi-symbol arithmetic (see Wu, paragraph 104), wherein the code stream comprises a maximum value of the prediction vector index information (see Wu, paragraph 100), wherein the maximum value is located in a sequence header, an image header, or a tile header (see Wu, paragraph 63 and 106), and wherein the decoding the code stream comprises:
based on determination according to a length of the prediction vector candidate list that the prediction vector index information needs to be decoded, decoding the code stream to obtain the prediction vector index information (see Wu, paragraph 100).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Wu and Takehara discloses: The video encoding method according to claim 1, wherein the selecting the prediction vector comprises:
selecting, according to a specified selection policy, a prediction vector from the prediction vector candidate list as the prediction vector of the to-be-encoded current block (see Wu, paragraph 70).
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Wu and Takehara discloses: The video encoding method according to claim 1, wherein the generating the prediction vector candidate list comprises:
obtaining, from the displacement vectors of the encoded block whose reference frame is the current frame, displacement vectors of an encoded block adjacent to the current block (see Wu, paragraph 70 and Fig. 10);
sorting the displacement vectors of the encoded block adjacent to the current block in a specified sequence to obtain a first displacement vector list (see Wu, paragraph 114); and
generating the prediction vector candidate list according to the first displacement vector list (see Wu, paragraph 100).
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Wu and Takehara discloses: The video encoding method according to claim 5, wherein the adjacent encoded block comprises at least one of the following: one or more encoded blocks in n1 rows above the current block and one or more encoded blocks in n2 columns on the left of the current block, and wherein n1 and n2 are positive integers (see Fig 10).
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Wu and Takehara discloses: The video encoding method according to claim 1, wherein the generating the prediction vector candidate list comprises:
obtaining, from the displacement vectors of the encoded block whose reference frame is the current frame, displacement vectors of a historical encoded block (see Wu, paragraph 100);
adding the displacement vectors of the historical encoded block to a queue of a specified length in a first-in first-out manner according to a specified sequence, to obtain a second displacement vector list (see Wu, paragraph 100); and
generating the prediction vector candidate list according to the second displacement vector list (see Wu, paragraph 100).
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Wu and Takehara discloses: The video encoding method according to claim 7, further comprising:
when the displacement vectors of the historical coded block are added to the queue and when a same displacement vector already exists in the queue, deleting the same displacement vector existing in the queue (see Wu, paragraph 100), and
wherein the second displacement vector list corresponds to at least one to-be-encoded area, and the at least one to-be-encoded area comprises one of the following: a superblock (SB) in which the current block is located, a row in the SB in which the current block is located, and a tile in which the current block is located (see Wu, paragraph 101-102).
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Wu and Takehara discloses: The video encoding method according to claim 8, further comprising:
when a displacement vector in the second displacement vector list corresponding to a target to-be-encoded area exceeds a specified value, stopping adding a displacement vector to the second displacement vector list corresponding to the target to-be-encoded area (see Wu, paragraph 62 and 100); and
when a quantity of times of adding the displacement vector to the second displacement vector list corresponding to the target to-be-encoded area exceeds a specified quantity of times, stopping adding a displacement vector to the second displacement vector list corresponding to the target to-be-encoded area (see Wu, paragraph 62 and 100).
Regarding claim 10, the combination of Wu and Takehara discloses: The video encoding method according to claim 1, wherein the generating the prediction vector candidate list comprises:
obtaining, from the displacement vectors of the encoded block whose reference frame is the current frame, displacement vectors of an encoded block adjacent to the current block (see Wu, paragraph 70 and Fig. 10);
sorting the displacement vectors of the encoded block adjacent to the current block in a specified sequence to obtain a first displacement vector list (see Wu, paragraph 114);
obtaining, from the displacement vectors of the encoded block whose reference frame is the current frame, displacement vectors of a historical encoded block (see Wu, paragraph 100);
adding the displacement vectors of the historical encoded block to a queue of a specified length in a first-in first-out manner according to a specified sequence, to obtain a second displacement vector list (see Wu, paragraph 100); and
generating the prediction vector candidate list according to the first displacement vector list and the second displacement vector list (see Wu, paragraph 100).
Regarding claims 11-19, claims 11-19 are drawn to a device having limitations similar to the method claimed in claims 1-1 treated in the above rejections. Therefore, device claims 11-19 correspond to method claims 1-10 and are rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as used above.
Regarding claim 20, claim 20 is drawn to a computer readable storage medium having limitations similar to the method claimed in claim 1 treated in the above rejections. Therefore, computer readable storage medium claim 20 corresponds to method claim 1 and is rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as used above.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARYAM A NASRI whose telephone number is (571)270-7158. The examiner can normally be reached 10:00-8:00 M-T.
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/MARYAM A NASRI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2483
