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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I (claims 1-7) in the reply filed on October 28, 2025 is acknowledged.
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.
Claim(s) 1-7, 17, and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Puntambekar et al. (US 2017/0078574) in view of Su et al. (US 2016/0073106).
Regarding claim 1 Puntambekar discloses a method for video encoding with smart chunking, comprising:
receiving, by a distributed video encoding system, a video input and a target bitrate, the video input comprising a plurality of segments, each segment having a segment duration (in a distributed video encoding system, a video is encoded by splitting into video segments and encoding the segments using multiple encoders – abstract; target bitrate – [0139]; Figure 18 shows segments and their corresponding duration; the video segmenter creates segments or chunks at the end of frame P4 and creates segments as I1B2B3P4 and I5B6B7P8 and so on – Fig. 16, [0159]);
determining an internal chunk length, the internal chunk length being a multiple of the segment duration (In Figure 18 the shown GOP structure 1700 is being interpreted as a chunk having an internal chunk length from I1 to P8; structure 1700 is divided in segments 1 and 2; internal chunk length is a multiple of the segments 1 and 2 duration);
encoding, by the distributed video encoding system, a chunk having the internal chunk length, the distributed video encoding system comprising a plurality of video encoders configured to encode a plurality of chunks in parallel (distribute segments to multiple encoding nodes – Fig. 19; parallel encoder/node9s modules – Figs. 1-3, 5-7, 21);
segmenting an encoded chunk into two or more encoded segments, each of the two or more encoded segments having the segment duration; and outputting the two or more encoded segments, wherein the two or more encoded segments have the same quality as each other (after the video segments have been encoded, a segment selector 2120 analyzes each segment and picks the smallest sized segment 2112 that meets a pre-determined quality requirement – [0190]; the video segments are joined together into a single output video; each segment of the output video has been encoded with different settings that are relatively optimal for that segment, which means that as a whole, the output video meets the predetermined quality and has the relatively smallest file size – [0190-0192]).
However, fails to explicitly disclose an average bitrate for encoding the chunk being equal to the target bitrate.
In his disclosure Su teaches an average bitrate for encoding the chunk being equal to the target bitrate (A target bit-rate estimator 240 may generate average bit-rate estimates for chunks of video based on the data rates to be supported by the distribution server 250 – [0033]).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the teachings of Su into the teachings of Puntambekar because such incorporation improves the quality of the video (paragraph 80).
Regarding claim 2 Puntambekar discloses the method of claim 1. However, fails to explicitly disclose wherein the target bitrate corresponds to a user selected bitrate.
In his disclosure Su teaches the target bitrate corresponds to a user selected bitrate (each instance may be coded according to a set coding parameters derived from a target bit rate of a respective tier of service. Each tier may be coded according to a constraint that limits a maximum coding rate of the tier to be less than a target bit rate of another predetermined tier of service. Having been coded according to the constraint facilitates dynamic switching among tiers by a requesting client device processing resources or communication bandwidth changes – [0012]).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the teachings of Su into the teachings of Puntambekar because such incorporation improves the quality of the video (paragraph 80).
Regarding claim 3 Puntambekar discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the chunk comprises two or more segments of the plurality of segments (Figure 18 shows Segments 1 and 2), one of the two or more segments having a lower complexity and another of the two or more segments having a higher complexity (once the complexity analyzer modules determine the complexity of each segment, a bit-rate for each video segment is computed and is passed to the encoder module to achieve a desired quality of video – [0099, 0104]; for each segment the encoder will achieve an average bit rate for the segment, and can allocate bits to the high and low complexity sections of the video. For example, a high complexity region in a segment is allocated with additional bits in order to deliver good video quality. Similarly, a low complexity region in a segment is allocated with uniform bits so as to deliver the good video quality – [0105]).
Regarding claim 4 Puntambekar the method of claim 1, wherein the internal chunk length is determined dynamically based on a length of the video input (the splitter module can be configured to receive information from the controller module to split the received input video into pieces of length (i.e., segment length) having 600 frames and also placement of I-Frames for every 250 frames (Output Group of Pictures (GOP) length) of the input video – [0070, 0082-0083]).
Regarding claim 5 Puntambekar discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the internal chunk length is determined dynamically based on a quality requirement (if the video segment contains the scene change, the frames before the scene change could be drastically different than the frames after the scene change. The encoding of the segment may involve significant challenges. In this case, it would be desirable to alter the length of the segment such that it may not include the scene change for the effectively performing the encoding – [0071]; it is noted the consideration of a scene change is being interpreted as the quality requirement).
Regarding claim 6 Puntambekar the method of claim 1, wherein the multiple of the segment duration is at least two times the segment duration (in Figure 18 the shown GOP structure 1700 is being interpreted as a chunk having an internal chunk length from I1 to P8; structure 1700 is divided in segments 1 and 2; internal chunk length is at least two times the segments 1 and 2 duration).
Regarding claim 7 Puntambekar the method of claim 1, wherein the segment duration comprises a user selected output segment duration (the time duration may be specified in seconds, frame numbers, and so on. For example, in some embodiments, the time duration may be 10 seconds to 20 seconds and may correspond to an intended streaming protocol used when allowing other users to access the video bitstream – [0169]).
Regarding claim 17 Puntambekar discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the internal chunk length is decoupled from the segment duration (Fig. 18 shows GOP 1700 having its corresponding length (being interpreted as the internal chunk length) and Segments 1 and 2 with their corresponding durations; said segment durations are decoupled from the duration of GOP 1700).
Regarding claim 18 Puntambekar discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the average bitrate comprises an average of two or more bitrates associated with encoding two or more segments comprising the chunk, the average bitrate corresponding to an average complexity across the two or more segments in the chunk being encoded (for each segment the encoder will achieve an average bit rate for the segment, and can allocate bits to the high and low complexity sections of the video – [0105, 0111]).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARIA E VAZQUEZ COLON whose telephone number is (571)270-1103. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30 AM-3:30 PM.
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/MARIA E VAZQUEZ COLON/ Examiner, Art Unit 2482