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 .
Applicant(s) Response to Official Action
The response filed on 9/19/2025 has been entered and made of record.
Response to Arguments/Amendments
Presented arguments have been fully considered, but are rendered moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection necessitated by amendment(s) initiated by the applicant(s).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. Applicant has not pointed out where the new (or amended) claim is supported, nor does there appear to be a written description of the following claim limitations in the application as filed:
“circuitry configured to identify at least one region of interest in the feature signal” (claim 1).
“an MPEG AVC encoder receiving the feature signal and identified bounding box parameters to encode an MPEG AVC bitstream for a machine application (claim 1);
wherein parameters of the feature map are transmitted in an SEI stream (claim 4);
“a MPEG AVC decoder receiving an encoded feature signal with regions of interest defined by bounding box parameters, a feature decoder, the feature decoder receiving the feature bitstream from the MPEG AVC decoder” (claim 14);
“encoding the feature signal using an MPEG AVC video encoder with the regions of interest encoded with lower distortion than regions outside the regions of interest to form an MPEG AVC bitstream for a machine video application” (claim 16).
Applicant presented, ¶0036, ¶0041, ¶0047-¶0079 and ¶0064 as support for the amendment and new claim 16.
The Examiner did not find any of the encoders described in figs. 1 and 2 being an “MPEG AVC video encoder”. It seems the “MPEG AVC video encoder” refers to “encoder 116” of figs 1 and 2.
The Examiner did not find a “circuitry”, different from the “feature extractor” of figs. 1 and 2, “configured to identify at least one region of interest in the feature signal”.
Assuming the “MPEG AVC video encoder” corresponds to “video encoder 116” of the original disclosure, the Examiner did not find “video encoder 116” receiving both “feature signal and identified bounding box parameters” to encode “an MPEG AVC bitstream for a machine application”. ¶0064 discloses “Significance of parts of a picture may be determined by a utility function as well. For example, in a surveillance video it may be most important to preserve details on faces and small objects of interest. Using information obtained by feature extractor 120, it may be possible to designate such parts of a picture. This may be done using regions of interest that may be represented as bounding boxes; bounding boxes may be defined in any suitable manner, including without limitation coordinates x, y of a location within a picture and/or feature map, such as top left corner thereof, and width and height, w, h, as expressed in pixel values. This spatial information may be passed to video encoder 116 which may assign lower distortion and higher rate in an RDO calculation for all coding units within a ROI.” Therefore, only the bounding box parameters are passed to the “encoder 116”.
The Examiner did not find “MPEG AVC encoder” (i.e. encoder 116- figs. 1and 2) encoding a “MPEG AC bitstream for machine application”; ¶0032 clearly states that “Still referring to FIG. 1, video encoder 116, which is encoding the video signal for human consumption”.
Claims 14-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 14 recites the limitation “the feature bitstream” in line 5. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 2, 3, 9, 11 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ISO/IEC [Use cases and draft requirements for Video Coding for Machines- w19365: already of record] in view of Chul Keun Kim et al. [US 20230085554 A1].
Regarding claim 1, ISO/IEC teaches:
1 (Currently Amended) A video encoder for machine applications (i.e. Fig 2 shows an example of potential VCM architecture- page 5) comprising
circuitry configured to receive an input video signal (i.e. video encoding/feature extraction- fig. 2) from a video source (i.e. sensor output- fig. 5);
a feature extractor (i.e. feature extraction- fig. 2), the feature extractor configured to detect at least a feature in the input video signal and form a feature signal (i.e. MPEG-VCM aims to define a bitstream from compressing video or feature extracted from video- page 4, section 1.2)…the VCM feature encoding is consisted of feature extraction, feature conversion and feature coding- fig. 2);
However, ISO/IEC does not teach explicitly:
circuitry configured to identify at least one region of interest in the feature signal, the region of interest defined by bounding box parameters comprising x and y coordinates of a location and a height and width, and
an MPEG AVC encoder receiving the feature signal and identified bounding box parameters to encode an MPEG AVC bitstream for a machine application.
In the same field of endeavor, Chul teaches:
circuitry configured to identify at least one region of interest in the feature signal, the region of interest defined by bounding box parameters comprising x and y coordinates of a location and a height and width (i.e. information (e.g., num_regions) on the number of regions of interest in the image is obtained from the bitstream, and, based on the information (e.g., region_pos_x[ ], region_pos_y[ ], region_pos_width[ ], region_pos_height[ ], etc.) on the number of regions of interest in the image, information on the region of interest of the feature information may be obtained from the bitstream. Here, region_pos_x[ ], region_pos_y[ ], region_pos_width[ ] and region_pos_height[ ], which are information indicating the coordinates of the region of interest of the information on the region of interest of the feature information, may be determined based on the coordinates of the object identified in the image, the resolution of the image, and the resolution of the feature information extracted from the image- ¶0320), and
an MPEG AVC encoder receiving the feature signal and identified bounding box parameters to encode an MPEG AVC bitstream for a machine application (i.e. the encoding apparatus may select a region of interest of the feature information, and may encode feature information corresponding to the region of interest by allocating more bits than feature information not corresponding to the region of interest. In addition, the encoding apparatus may signal information on the region of interest based on an analysis task and the number of regions of interest in the image. To this end, in encoding the information on the region of interest, the encoding apparatus may additionally encode information on an image analysis task, encode information on the number of regions of interest for each analysis task, and encode information on the region of interest and feature information thereof based on the number of regions of interest- ¶0330).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teachings of ISO/IEC with the teachings of Chul for improving encoding/decoding efficiency by improving a feature information signaling method of an image (Chul- ¶0005).
Regarding claim 2, ISO/IEC and Chul teach all the limitations of claim 1 and ISO/IEC further teaches:
wherein the feature extractor further comprises a machine- learning model (i.e. Interface for NN- fig. 2) configured to output at least a feature map (i.e. features may take different forms as described in Evaluation Framework for Video Coding for Machines document…The term “machine” refers to a process or algorithm that gets as input video or feature (eventually after a decoding stage) in order to analyse it or process it. For example, a machine is a neural network with the task to detect people in the input video- 5. Requirements).
Regarding claim 9, ISO/IEC and Chul teach all the limitations of claim 1.
However, ISO/IEC does not teach explicitly:
wherein the machine-learning model further comprises a convolutional neural network.
In the same field of endeavor, Chul teaches:
wherein the machine-learning model further comprises a convolutional neural network.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teachings of ISO/IEC with the teachings of Chul for improving encoding/decoding efficiency by improving a feature information signaling method of an image (Chul- ¶0005).
Regarding claim 9, ISO/IEC and Chul teach all the limitations of claim 1 and ISO/IEC further teaches:
Further comprising a video encoder video encoder receiving the input video signal and generating an encoded video bitstream for human consumption (Video Encoding- fig. 2).
Regarding claim 11, ISO/IEC and Chul teach all the limitations of claim 1 and ISO/IEC further teaches:
further comprising a multiplexor, the multiplexor configured to combine the video bitstream and the feature bitstream (i.e. see fig. 2).
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ISO/IEC [Use cases and draft requirements for Video Coding for Machines- w19365: already of record] in view of Chul Keun Kim et al. [US 20230085554 A1] and further in view of Anton Igorevich Veselov et al. [US 20210203997 A1: already of record].
Regarding claim 5, ISO/IEC and Chul teach all the limitations of claim 2 and ISO/IEC further teaches:
wherein the feature extractor further to classify an output of the machine-learning model to at least a feature (i.e. The term “machine” refers to a process or algorithm that gets as input video or feature (eventually after a decoding stage) in order to analyse it or process it. For example, a machine is a neural network with the task to detect people in the input video- page 10-11).
However, ISO/IEC and Chul do not teach explicitly:
comprises a classifier, the classifier configured to classify.
In the same field of endeavor, Anton teaches:
comprises a classifier, the classifier configured to classify (i.e. The classification of the image patch by the CNN may be performed already at the terminal side, at which the extracted feature may be encoded into the feature bitstream. At the cloud side, after the video-feature bitstream de-multiplexing, the feature is encoded from the feature bitstream and compared with the known features of the database. In other words, a face recognition may be performed entirely already at the terminal side or, optionally, in a distributed manner. This means that parts of the tasks related to face recognition may be performed at the terminal side (e.g. cropping of an image patch and CNN-based feature extraction) and other parts at the cloud side (e.g. feature comparison with databased features)- ¶0197-0198…FIG. 15 is an illustration of face recognition by use of a feature, extracted by a CNN from an image patch of an uncompressed video, and compared with pre-determined database features of known faces- ¶0045).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teachings of ISO/IEC and Chul with the teachings of Anton to improve the compression ratio of features by using image features extracted from the reconstructed video as predictors (Anton- ¶0017).
Claims 6, 14 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ISO/IEC [Use cases and draft requirements for Video Coding for Machines- w19365: already of record] in view of Chul Keun Kim et al. [US 20230085554 A1] and further in view of Jill Boyce et al. [US 20230067541 A1].
Regarding claim 6, ISO/IEC and Chul teach all the limitations of claim 1.
However, ISO/IEC and Chul do not teach explicitly:
wherein the MPEG AVC video encoder encodes the at least one region of interest with lower distortion than regions of the feature signal not within the at least one region of interest.
In the same field of endeavor, Jill teaches:
wherein the MPEG AVC video encoder encodes the at least one region of interest with lower distortion than regions of the feature signal not within the at least one region of interest (i.e. FIG. 10 illustrates an example reconstructed image or frame having regions of interest at an original size or resolution with the full reconstructed image being at a scaled, lower, resolution- ¶0013& ¶0065… Notably, for improved coding efficiency, input frame 310 is downscaled using any suitable technique or techniques such as downsampling as shown at downscaling operation 720 to a downscaled frame 711 having a resolution less than that of regions of interest 301, 302, 303, 304. In some embodiments, regions of interest 301, 302, 303, 304 have the same resolution of input frame 310 and downscaled frame 711 has a lower resolution with respect to the resolution of input frame 310. In some embodiments, regions of interest 301, 302, 303, 304 have a lower resolution than input frame 310 and downscaled frame 711 has a yet lower resolution than regions of interest 301, 302, 303, 304. For example, regions of interest 301, 302, 303, 304 may be provided at a higher resolution (relative to downscaled frame 711) for improved machine learning after decode. As shown, metadata 712 are also generated and encoded for atlas 700 with metadata 712 providing a mapping between sizes and locations of regions of interest 301, 302, 303, 304 in atlas 700 and in input frame 310 as well as an indicator of the presence of downscaled frame 711 and a scaling factor thereof- ¶0057).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teachings of ISO/IEC and Chul with the teachings of Jill for improved coding efficiency (Jill- ¶0057).
Regarding claim 14, ISO/IEC teaches:
14. A decoder (i.e. VCM decoder- fig. 2) configured to receive an encoded bitstream or machine applications (i.e. Fig 2 shows an example of potential VCM architecture- page 5), the decoder comprising:
a MPEG AVC decoder receiving an encoded feature signal (i.e. feature decoding- fig. 2);
a feature decoder, the feature decoder receiving the feature bitstream from the MPEG AVC decoder and providing a decoded set of features for machine processing (i.e. Feature Decoding- fig. 2);
a machine model coupled to the feature decoder (i.e. Machine vision and Interface for NN- fig. 2… features may take different forms as described in Evaluation Framework for Video Coding for Machines document…The term “machine” refers to a process or algorithm that gets as input video or feature (eventually after a decoding stage) in order to analyse it or process it. For example, a machine is a neural network with the task to detect people in the input video- 5. Requirements)); and
However, ISO/IEC does not teach explicitly:
regions of interest defined by bounding box parameter;
the feature decoder reconstructing regions of interest using bounding box parameters in the encoded bitstream, the feature decoder reconstructing regions of interest with lower distortion than regions outside the regions of interest.
In the same field of endeavor, Chul teaches:
regions of interest defined by bounding box parameter (e.g., region_pos_x[ ], region_pos_y[ ], region_pos_width[ ], region_pos_height[ ], etc.) on the number of regions of interest in the image, information on the region of interest of the feature information may be obtained from the bitstream. Here, region_pos_x[ ], region_pos_y[ ], region_pos_width[ ] and region_pos_height[ ], which are information indicating the coordinates of the region of interest of the information on the region of interest of the feature information, may be determined based on the coordinates of the object identified in the image, the resolution of the image, and the resolution of the feature information extracted from the image- ¶0320);
the feature decoder reconstructing regions of interest using bounding box parameters in the encoded bitstream(i.e. The decoding apparatus according to the embodiment may obtain, from a bitstream, encoded data of the feature information generated by applying an artificial neural network-based feature extraction method to an image (S5010). Next, the decoding apparatus may reconstruct the feature information by decoding the encoded data of the feature information (S5020). Next, the decoding apparatus may generate analysis data of the image based on the feature information (S5030). Here, the decoding apparatus may reconstruct the feature information based on any one of abstraction information of the feature information, a region of interest of the feature information, and an encoding format for the feature information- ¶0315… the encoding apparatus may select a region of interest of the feature information, and may encode feature information corresponding to the region of interest by allocating more bits than feature information not corresponding to the region of interest. In addition, the encoding apparatus may signal information on the region of interest based on an analysis task and the number of regions of interest in the image. To this end, in encoding the information on the region of interest, the encoding apparatus may additionally encode information on an image analysis task, encode information on the number of regions of interest for each analysis task, and encode information on the region of interest and feature information thereof based on the number of regions of interest- ¶0330).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teachings of ISO/IEC with the teachings of Chul for improving encoding/decoding efficiency by improving a feature information signaling method of an image (Chul- ¶0005).
However, ISO/IEC and Chul do not teach explicitly:
the feature decoder reconstructing regions of interest with lower distortion than regions outside the regions of interest.
In the same field of endeavor, Jill teaches:
the feature decoder reconstructing regions of interest with lower distortion than regions outside the regions of interest (i.e. FIG. 10 illustrates an example reconstructed image or frame having regions of interest at an original size or resolution with the full reconstructed image being at a scaled, lower, resolution- ¶0013& ¶0065… Notably, for improved coding efficiency, input frame 310 is downscaled using any suitable technique or techniques such as downsampling as shown at downscaling operation 720 to a downscaled frame 711 having a resolution less than that of regions of interest 301, 302, 303, 304. In some embodiments, regions of interest 301, 302, 303, 304 have the same resolution of input frame 310 and downscaled frame 711 has a lower resolution with respect to the resolution of input frame 310. In some embodiments, regions of interest 301, 302, 303, 304 have a lower resolution than input frame 310 and downscaled frame 711 has a yet lower resolution than regions of interest 301, 302, 303, 304. For example, regions of interest 301, 302, 303, 304 may be provided at a higher resolution (relative to downscaled frame 711) for improved machine learning after decode. As shown, metadata 712 are also generated and encoded for atlas 700 with metadata 712 providing a mapping between sizes and locations of regions of interest 301, 302, 303, 304 in atlas 700 and in input frame 310 as well as an indicator of the presence of downscaled frame 711 and a scaling factor thereof.- ¶0057).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teachings of ISO/IEC and Chul with the teachings of Jill for improved coding efficiency (Jill- ¶0057).
Regarding claim 16, method claim 16 corresponds to apparatus claim 6, and therefore is also rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as listed above.
Claims 12-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ISO/IEC [Use cases and draft requirements for Video Coding for Machines- w19365: already of record] in view of Chul Keun Kim et al. [US 20230085554 A1] and further in view of Michiel Nijmegen Kallenberg et al. [US 20170249739 A1: already of record].
Regarding claim 12, ISO/IEC and Chul teach all the limitations of claim 1.
However, ISO/IEC and Chul do not teach explicitly:
wherein the feature extractor is configured to generate a plurality of feature maps and wherein the feature maps are spatially arranged prior to encoding.
In the same field of endeavor, Michiel teaches:
wherein the feature extractor is configured to generate a plurality of feature maps and wherein the feature maps are spatially arranged prior to encoding (i.e. The output of this transformation are called activations or feature representation. Within a convolutional architecture, the activations will be spatially arranged as feature maps. The feature representations are gained by encoding the input through a cascade of transformations, of which some are trainable- ¶0056).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teachings of ISO/IEC and Chul with the teachings of Michiel improves the numerical stability of the algorithm (MIchiel- ¶0072).
Regarding claim 13, ISO/IEC, Chul and Michiel teach all the limitations of claim 12.
However, ISO/IEC and Chul do not teach explicitly:
wherein the feature maps are spatially arranged based at least in part on a texture component of the feature maps.
In the same field of endeavor, Michiel teaches:
wherein the feature maps are spatially arranged based at least in part on a texture component of the feature maps (i.e. serving to determine the risk of there being such a lesion physically present or about to arise within a screening interval, said method comprising applying to the image a statistical classifier trained to score on the basis of texture features in the image that reflect such risk- Abstract).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teachings of ISO/IEC and Chul with the teachings of Michiel improves the numerical stability of the algorithm (MIchiel- ¶0072).
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ISO/IEC [Use cases and draft requirements for Video Coding for Machines- w19365: already of record] in view of Chul Keun Kim et al. [US 20230085554 A1] and further in view of Jill Boyce et al. [US 20230067541 A1] and even further in view of Michiel Nijmegen Kallenberg et al. [US 20170249739 A1: already of record].
Regarding claim 15, ISO/IEC, Chul and Jill teach all the limitations of claim 14.
However, ISO/IEC, Chul and Jill do not teach explicitly:
wherein the feature decoder is configured to receive a bitstream comprising a plurality of spatially arranged feature maps, decode the spatially arranged feature maps, and reconstruct the original sequence of feature maps.
In the same field of endeavor, Michiel teaches:
wherein the feature decoder is configured to receive a bitstream comprising a plurality of spatially arranged feature maps, decode the spatially arranged feature maps, and reconstruct the original sequence of feature maps (i.e. The output of this transformation are called activations or feature representation. Within a convolutional architecture, the activations will be spatially arranged as feature maps. The feature representations are gained by encoding the input through a cascade of transformations, of which some are trainable- ¶0056… The output of this transformation are called activations or feature representation. Within a convolutional architecture, the activations will be spatially arranged as feature maps. The feature representations are gained by encoding the input through a cascade of transformations, of which some are trainable- ¶0056).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teachings of ISO/IEC, Chul and Jill with the teachings of Michiel improves the numerical stability of the algorithm (MIchiel- ¶0072).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CLIFFORD HILAIRE whose telephone number is (571)272-8397. The examiner can normally be reached 5:30-1400.
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CLIFFORD HILAIRE
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2488
/CLIFFORD HILAIRE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2488