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 .
Response to Amendment
This action is in response to the remarks entered on 04/10/2026.
Claims 1, 3-6 & 8-15 are pending in the instant application.
Claims 11-15 are withdrawn from consideration.
Claims 2 & 16-20 are cancelled.
Claims 1, 3, 6 & 8 are amended.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's remarks filed 04/10/2026, pages 4-5, regarding the rejection of claim 1, and similarly claims 5 under 35 USC 103 have been fully considered, and are moot upon further consideration and a new ground(s) of rejection made under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Filippov et al. (US 2020/0404257 A1) (hereinafter Filippov) in view of Filippov et al. (US 2018/0262777 A1) (hereinafter Filippov2), further in view of Lee et al. (US 2014/0133574 A1) (hereinafter Lee) as outlined below.
In response to Applicant’s remark that Examiner’s previously-cited references do not show the Applicant’s newly-recited claim limitations, the Examiner directs Applicant’s attention to the rejection of claims 1 & 5 below, wherein Applicant’s newly-recited limitations are addressed by Lee for the reasons as outlined below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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 & 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Filippov et al. (US 2020/0404257 A1) (hereinafter Filippov) in view of Filippov et al. (US 2018/0262777 A1) (hereinafter Filippov2), further in view of Lee et al. (US 2014/0133574 A1) (hereinafter Lee).
Regarding claim 1, Filippov discloses a video decoding method [Paragraph [0120], decoder], comprising:
obtaining transform coefficient size information on a size of predetermined transform coefficients among transform coefficients of a current block [Paragraph [0137]-[0139] & [0189]-[0199], block size and coefficient groups/positions];
obtaining a sign bit hiding flag indicating whether or not sign bit hiding of the predetermined transform coefficients of the current block is performed; and determining the predetermined transform coefficients according to the size of the predetermined transform coefficients based on the transform coefficient size information and the determined sign of the predetermined transform coefficients [Paragraph [0015] & [0184], Determine whether or not sign data hiding was applied based on conditions and/or information extracted from a bitstream (such as a flag indicating whether or not SBH is allowed)].
However, Filippov does not explicitly disclose determining a sign of the predetermined transform coefficients without obtaining transform coefficient sign information on the sign of the predetermined transform coefficients, when the sign bit hiding flag indicates that the sign bit hiding of the predetermined transform coefficients is performed.
Filippov2 teaches of determining a sign of the predetermined transform coefficients without obtaining transform coefficient sign information on the sign of the predetermined transform coefficients, when the sign bit hiding flag indicates that the sign bit hiding of the predetermined transform coefficients is performed [Paragraph [0097]-[0098], hiding condition can be a comparison of the quantized transform coefficients 112, 308, 313 with a threshold constraint. For example, the hiding condition can comprise the following conditions or other known hiding If this number is above the threshold, the hiding condition is true];
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Filippov to add the teachings of Filippov2 as above, to improve the encoding and decoding in terms of signaling mechanism so as to keep the signaling overhead low. (Filippov2, Paragraph [0029]).
However, Filippov and Filippov2 do not explicitly disclose wherein the determining of the sign of the predetermined transform coefficients comprises:
determining a sign bit cost for each of sign combinations for the predetermined transform coefficients; determining an optimal sign combination according to the sign bit cost; and determining the sign of the predetermined transform coefficients according to the optimal sign combination.
Lee teaches of wherein the determining of the sign of the predetermined transform coefficients comprises: determining a sign bit cost for each of sign combinations for the predetermined transform coefficients; determining an optimal sign combination according to the sign bit cost; and determining the sign of the predetermined transform coefficients according to the optimal sign combination [Paragraph [0007], Moreover, for compensation of SBH, the cost of sign bit hiding compensation in each QTC position and the distortion caused by quantization are computed. Therefore, the storage requirement also increases for buffering transform coefficient arrays and cost arrays of sign bit hiding].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Filippov to add the teachings of Lee as above, to improve the encoding and decoding in terms of signaling mechanism so as to keep the signaling overhead low (Lee, Paragraph [0007]).
Regarding claims 6, video encoding method claim (6) limitations similar and reciprocal to the video decoding method claims 1 of the same. Therefore, video encoding method claim 6 corresponds to video decoding method claims 1, respectively, and are rejected for the similar reasons of obviousness as discussed above.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-5 and 8-10 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The various claimed limitations mentioned in the claims are not taught or suggested by the prior art taken either singly or in combination, with emphasize that it is each claim, taken as a whole, including the interrelationships and interconnections between various claimed elements make them allowable over the prior art of record.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL CHANG whose telephone number is (571)272-5707. The examiner can normally be reached M-Sa, 12PM - 10 PM.
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/DANIEL CHANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487
