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 .
Detailed Action
Response to Amendment
This Office Action is in response to the correspondence on 01/27/2026. Applicant’s argument, filed on 01/27/2026 has been entered and carefully considered. Claims 37-57 are pending.
Double Patenting rejection against US 11,838,539 B2, US 11,800,090 B2, US 11,722,660 B2 and US 11,095,917 B2 is retained based on the arguments submitted on 08/20/2025.
The 371 application filed on 11/16/2023 claiming priority to PCT/CN2022/093335 filed on 05/17/2022. Claimed foreign priority date for application PCTCN2021094205 filed on 05/17/2021. The certified copy has been filed with parent Application on 11/16/2023.
Information Disclosure Statement
This information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 01/27/2026. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97 and 37 CFR 1.98. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 01/27/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1, 7 and 13 have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to the combination of references being used in the current rejection.
Examiner’s Note
Claims 37-54 refer to "A method of video processing”, Claim 55 refer to "An apparatus for processing video data”, Claim 56 refers to "A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium”, and Claim 57 refers to "A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium”. Claims 55-57 are similarly rejected in light of rejection of claims 37-54, any obvious combination of the rejection of claims 37-54, or the differences are obvious to the ordinary skill in the art. It is well known in the art that encoding and decoding are reverse processes of video coding method/system.
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 37-50 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chaing et al. (US 20200029073 B1), hereinafter Chiang, in view of Bordes et al. (US 20220021869 A1), hereinafter Bordes, further in view of Chen et al. (US 20190320197 A1), hereinafter Chen, further in view of Zhang et al. (US 20220295090 A1), hereinafter Zhang.
Regarding claim 37, Chaing discloses a method of video processing, comprising (Abstract): constructing, during a conversion between a target video block of a video and a bitstream of the video (Fig. 11), at least one template in the target video block based on at least one neighbor sample of the target video block that satisfies a predetermined criterion ([0007]); applying template matching to motion information for the target video block based on the at least one determined template ([0043]), to obtain motion information (Fig. 6a-b); and performing the conversion based on the motion information ([0045]).
Chiang discloses all the elements of claim 1 but Chiang does not appear to explicitly disclose in the cited section refine motion; refined motion.
However, Bordes from the same or similar endeavor teaches refine motion; refined motion ([0060]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Chiang to incorporate the teachings of Bordes to improve video coding (Bordes, [0074]). Similar reasoning/motivation of modification can be applied/extended to the other related/dependent claims.
Chiang in view of Bordes discloses all the elements of claim 1 but they do not appear to explicitly disclose in the cited section by searching for at least one template that matches the at least one template to refine motion information; the at least one template being comprised in a reference picture indicated by the motion information.
However, Chen from the same or similar endeavor teaches by searching for at least one template that matches the at least one template to refine motion information; the at least one template being comprised in a reference picture indicated by the motion information (Fig. 6A-B, Fig. 14, [0108]-[0114]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Chiang in view of Bordes to incorporate the teachings of Chen for efficient coding (Chen, [0006]). Similar reasoning/motivation of modification can be applied/extended to the other related/dependent claims.
Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen discloses all the elements of claim 1 but they do not appear to explicitly disclose in the cited section reference template.
However, Zhang from the same or similar endeavor teaches reference template ([0398]-[0400]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen to incorporate the teachings of Zhang to improve compression efficiency (Zhang,[0004]). Similar reasoning/motivation of modification can be applied/extended to the other related/dependent claims.
Regarding claim 38, Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 37, wherein constructing the at least one template comprises: constructing the at least one template based on at least one neighbor sample in at least one non-nearest neighbor block of the target video block; or constructing the at least one template based on at least one neighbor sample located outside a target virtual pipeline data unit (VPDU) for the target video block; or constructing the at least one template based on at least one neighbor sample that fails to satisfy a VPDU constraint, wherein the at least one neighbor sample is from a data unit with a weight and/or a height exceeding a VPDU size (Chiang, Fig. 6a-b, Bordes, [0085]).
Regarding claim 39, Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 37, wherein the target video block is not located at a top boundary of a coding tree unit (CTU); and/or wherein a weight of the target video block is not smaller than a first predefined weight, and/or wherein a height of the target video block is not smaller than a first predefined height; or wherein a weight of the target video block is not greater than a second predefined weight, and/or wherein a height of the target video block is not smaller than a second predefined height (Chiang, [0051]-[0055]).
Regarding claim 40, Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 37, wherein the motion information comprises uni-directional motion information (Bordes, [0069]).
Regarding claim 41, Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 37, wherein constructing the at least one template comprises: constructing the at least one template based on at least one neighbor sample coded by an inter mode; or constructing the at least one template based on at least one neighbor sample coded by a non-intra mode (Chiang, Fig. 13b).
Regarding claim 42, Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 41, wherein the inter mode comprises one of the following: a non-intra mode, a non-combined inter and intra prediction (CIIP) mode, a non-intra block copy (IBC) mode, or a non-palette mode flag (PLT) mode.
Regarding claim 43, Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 41, wherein the non-intra mode comprises one of the following: an inter mode, a combined inter and intra prediction (CIIP) mode, an intra block copy (IBC) mode, or a palette mode flag (PLT) mode (Bordes, [0069]).
Regarding claim 44, Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 37, wherein constructing the at least one template comprises: in accordance with a determination that the predetermined criterion fails to be satisfied, disabling the template matching for the target video block (Chiang, Fig. 13b).
Regarding claim 45, Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 37, wherein constructing the at least one template comprises: constructing at least one template to be in an irregular shape, and wherein the irregular shape is determined based on coding mode information of the at least one neighbor sample (Bordes, [0071]).
Regarding claim 46, Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 37, further comprising: excluding at least one syntax element related to the template matching from temporal motion vector prediction, or excluding at least one syntax element related to the template matching from being used in pruning at least one duplicate motion vector predictor in a motion vector list, wherein the at least one syntax element comprises a template matching flag associated with the target video block (Bordes, [0068]-[0070]).
Regarding claim 47, Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 37, wherein applying the template matching comprises: applying intra template matching for the target video block (Chiang, Fig. 6a-b).
Regarding claim 48, Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 47, wherein applying the intra template matching comprises: for next video block decoding of the target video block, performing the intra template matching by searching an aera in at least one available decoded area that is in-loop-filter- processed by one or more in-loop-filtering processes, or for next video block decoding of the target video block, performing the intra template matching by searching an aera in at least one available decoded area that is before in-loop filtering. or deriving a block vector (BV) by the intra template matching (Chiang, [0078], Bordes, [0064], [0140]).
Regarding claim 49, Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 48, wherein the at least one available decoded area comprises: at least one picture of the video, a first number of decoded coding tree units (CTUs) with a first distance from the target video block lower than a first predetermined distance, a second number of decoded virtual pipeline data unit (VPDUs) with a second distance from the target video block lower than a second predetermined distance, or a third number of decoded rows of samples with a third distance from the target video block lower than a third predetermined distance (Chiang, Fig. 6a-b, Bordes, [0085]).
Regarding claim 50, Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 49, wherein the first distance or the second distance is measured as a distance in a decoding order or a distance in a spatial domain (Chiang, [0052]).
Claims 51-52 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang further in view of Sethuraman et al. (US 20210329257 A1), hereinafter Sethuraman.
Regarding claim 51, Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang discloses all the elements of claim 49 but they do not appear to explicitly disclose in the cited section, wherein the at least one available decoded area comprises: the first number of nearest decoded CTUs from the target video block, or the second number of nearest decoded VPDUs from the target video block.
However, Sethurman from the same or similar endeavor teaches wherein the at least one available decoded area comprises: the first number of nearest decoded CTUs from the target video block, or the second number of nearest decoded VPDUs from the target video block ([0115]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang to incorporate the teachings of Sethuraman to improve video coding (Sethuraman, [0099]). Similar reasoning/motivation of modification can be applied/extended to the other related/dependent claims.
Regarding claim 52, Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang further in view of Sethuraman discloses the method of claim 48, wherein the BV is represented as (BVx, BVy), BVx = nx*P, BVy = nv* Q, and wherein nx, ny are integers and P and Q are positive integers (It is obvious to the ordinary skill in the art regarding a vector operation).
Claims 53-54 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang further in view of Sethuraman further in view of Wu et al. (US 20160227238 A1), hereinafter Wu.
Regarding claim 53, Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang further in view of Sethuraman discloses all the elements of claim 48 but they do not appear to explicitly disclose in the cited section, wherein deriving the BV comprises: searching a plurality of candidate BVs in the intra template matching using a multi-stage strategy, to derive the BV, wherein searching the plurality of candidate BVs comprises: searching a first plurality of candidate BVs in a first stage of the multi-stage strategy; and searching a second plurality of candidate BVs in a second stage of the multi-stage strategy based on a searching result of the first stage, wherein the first plurality of candidate BVs are larger than the second plurality of candidate BVs.
However, Wu from the same or similar endeavor teaches wherein deriving the BV comprises: searching a plurality of candidate BVs in the intra template matching using a multi-stage strategy, to derive the BV, wherein searching the plurality of candidate BVs comprises: searching a first plurality of candidate BVs in a first stage of the multi-stage strategy; and searching a second plurality of candidate BVs in a second stage of the multi-stage strategy based on a searching result of the first stage, wherein the first plurality of candidate BVs are larger than the second plurality of candidate BVs ([0007]-[0009]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang further in view of Sethuraman to incorporate the teachings of Wu to have efficient coding (Wu, [0008]). Similar reasoning/motivation of modification can be applied/extended to the other related/dependent claims.
Regarding claim 54, Chiang in view of Bordes further in view of Chen further in view of Zhang further in view of Sethuraman further in view of Wu discloses the method of claim 37, wherein the conversion comprises encoding the target video block into the bitstream, or wherein the conversion comprises decoding the target video block from the bitstream (Chiang, Fig. 11, Fig. 14).
Regarding claim 55-57, See Examiner’s Note. Prior arts US 20190222848 A1, US 20200021833 A1, and US 20190014342 A1 are not relied for rejection but teach the similar subject matter.
Conclusion
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/Mohammad J Rahman/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487