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 .
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, 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Song et al. (US2023/0140006).
To claim 1, Song teach a method for generating an interpolated frame output that is temporally between a first frame and a second frame (paragraph 0071, interpolation frame may refer to a frame to be added between the first frame and the second frame), comprising:
generating a first interpolated frame temporally between the first frame and the second frame using a first set of motion vectors that are output from a first motion estimator (510 of Fig. 5), wherein the first frame and the second frame are rendered by a game engine renderer (paragraph 0061, game console application, which makes game engine renderer obvious);
generating a second interpolated frame temporally between the first frame and the second frame using a second set of motion vectors that are output from a second motion estimator (520 of Fig. 5);
generating a weighting map of weight values based on indications generated by the first motion estimator, wherein a first subset of pixel locations in the weighting map are assigned a weight value of 1 and a second subset of pixel locations in the weighting map are assigned a weight value of 0 (paragraphs 0080, 0087-0088, 0120-0126, weights are assigned to each of pixel areas based on confidence, e.g., weight may mean the ratio of a confidence to overall confidence, which means weight may be assigned from 0 to 1, which makes it obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed that a subset of pixel locations may be assigned a weight of 1 and another subset of pixel locations may be assigned a weight of 0); and
calculating a weighted combination of the first interpolated frame and the second interpolated frame using the weight values to produce the interpolated frame output (S550 of Fig. 5),
wherein the interpolated frame output includes the first subset of pixel locations from the first interpolated frame and the second subset of pixel locations from the second interpolated frame (paragraphs 0225-0226), and
wherein the first motion estimator is one of an optical flow estimator and the game engine renderer, and the second motion estimator is the other one of the optical flow estimator and the game engine renderer (paragraph 0061, game console application, which makes game engine renderer obvious).
To claim 11, Song teach a device operative to generate an interpolated frame output that is temporally between a first frame and a second frame (as explained in response to claim 1 above).
Claim(s) 2-3, 12-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Song et al. (US2023/0140006) in view of Tanaka (US2017/0295355).
To claims 2 and 12, Song teach claims 1 and 11,
Song teach wherein generating the weighting map further comprises: identifying a boundary area of pixels around pixels of the weight value of 0; and assigning one or more weight values between 0 and 1, exclusive, to the boundary area of pixels (obvious in paragraphs 0028-0210, 0297).
Tanaka teach weighting map further comprises: identifying a boundary area of pixels around pixels of the weight value of 0; and assigning one or more weight values between 0 and 1, exclusive, to the boundary area of pixels (Fig. 5C; paragraphs 0055-0063, 0070), which would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate into the method and apparatus of Song, in order to implement weighting map by design preference.
To claims 3 and 13, Song and Tanaka teach claims 2 and 12.
Song and Tanaka teach wherein the boundary area includes multiple pixels that are between the pixels of the weight value of 0 and pixels of the weight value of 1, and the weight values of the multiple pixels are monotonically increasing from 0 to 1 (obvious in paragraph 0297 of Song and paragraph 0048, 0053 of Tanaka, and also well-known in the art, which would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate for weighting implementation by design preference, hence Official Notice is taken).
Claim(s) 4-6, 14-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Song et al. (US2023/0140006) in view of Wu et al. (US2019/0098281).
To claims 4 and 14, Song teach claims 1 and 11.
Song teach wherein the first motion estimator is the optical flow estimator and the first set of motion vectors are optical motion vectors (Fig. 5), but do not expressly disclose each optical motion vector indicating a change in color values from the first frame to the second frame for a corresponding pair of pixels.
Wu teach optical motion vector indicating a change in color values from the first frame to the second frame for a corresponding pair of pixels (abstract, paragraphs 0020, 0029, 0053, 0061, 0069, 0077), which would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate into the method and apparatus of Song, in order to implement motion vector by design preference.
To claims 5 and 15, Song and Wu teach claims 4 and 14.
Song and Wu teach further comprising: receiving from the optical flow estimator a confidence map indicating a confidence value for each optical motion vector (as explained in response to claims 4 and 14 above), wherein a lower confidence value corresponds to a greater mismatch in the color values of a pixel pair that defines an optical motion vector; and assigning the weight value of 0 to pixels in the first interpolated frame that are generated using the optical motion vectors with confidence values lower than a threshold (despite lack of disclosure, claimed feature is well-known in determining confidence value practice in the art, which would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate for weighting by design preference, hence Official Notice is taken).
To claims 6 and 16, Song and Wu teach claims 4 and 14.
Song and Wu teach wherein each of the first frame and the second frame is down-sampled to generate the optical motion vectors (Song, paragraphs 0014-0017).
Claim(s) 7-10, 17-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Song et al. (US2023/0140006) in view of Gao et al. (CN115546019).
To claims 7 and 17, Song teach claims 1 and 11.
But, Song do not expressly disclose wherein the first motion estimator is the game engine renderer and the first set of motion vectors are in-game motion vectors, wherein the in-game motion vectors describe camera motion for static objects and combined camera and object motion for dynamic objects in the first frame and the second frame.
However, claimed in-game motion vector information would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art in view of Song’s gaming console application.
Gao teach first motion estimator is the game engine renderer (paragraphs 0071, 0101-0102, 0119-0121, 0132) and the first set of motion vectors are in-game motion vectors, wherein the in-game motion vectors describe camera motion for static objects and combined camera and object motion for dynamic objects in the first frame and the second frame (paragraphs 0018-0022, 0122, 0127, 0135, 0140, 0148), which would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate into the method and apparatus of Song, in order to implement in-game motion vector.
To claims 8 and 18, Song and Gao teach claims 7 and 17.
Song and Gao teach further comprising: receiving from the game engine renderer an object label map indicating pixel locations of special objects in each of the first frame and the second frame, wherein the special objects are graphical object having one or more visual effects in a set of effects; and interpolating each special object between the first frame and the second frame to identify pixels affected by a movement of the special object (Gao, obvious in paragraphs 0099, 0114, 0131, despite lack of disclosure, claimed features are well-known in the art, which would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate for game rendering implementation, hence Official Notice is taken).
To claims 9 and 19, Song and Gao teach claims 8 and 18.
Song and Gao teach wherein the special objects include one or more of: a semi-transparent object, a shadow of a dynamic object, an object with a screen space effect, and an object with a texture animation effect (Gao, paragraph 0102).
To claims 10 and 20, Song and Gao teach claims 7 and 17.
Song and Gao teach further comprising: receiving from the game engine renderer an object label map indicating initial pixel locations of special objects in the first frame, wherein the special objects are graphical objects having one or more visual effects in a set of effects; identifying pixel locations along a movement path of each special object from the first frame to the second frame according to the in-game motion vectors; identifying affected pixels as a union of the initial pixel locations and the pixel locations along the movement path as an affected area of pixels; and assigning the affected pixels in the first interpolated frame the weight value of 0 (Gao, obvious in paragraphs 0099, 0114, 0131, despite lack of disclosure, claimed features are well-known in the art, which would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate for game rendering implementation, hence Official Notice is taken).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZHIYU LU whose telephone number is (571)272-2837. The examiner can normally be reached Weekdays: 8:30AM - 5:00PM.
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ZHIYU . LU
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2669
/ZHIYU LU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2665 March 18, 2026
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