DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant' s amendment filed on June 2, 2026 is acknowledged. Currently Claims 1-3 are pending. Claims 1-3 has been amended.
Applicant's arguments with respect independent claims 1-3 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection. Amended claims 1-3 results in a different scope than that of the originally presented Claims 1-3 respectively.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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 1-3 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.
The independent claims contain the limitation, “resolution resampling process is performed by using a parameter for super- resolution processing and a neural network” It is unclear to the examiner if resolution resampling process is performed by using a parameter for super- resolution processing and a neural network or if resolution resampling process is performed by using a parameter for both super- resolution processing and a neural network. For purposes of examination, the examiner is interpreting that resolution resampling process is performed by using a parameter for super- resolution processing and a neural network such that a parameter is only relevant to super-resolution processing.
Appropriate corrections are required.
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.
Claims 1-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Da Silva Pratas Gabriel et al. US2021/0211643 hereinafter referred to as Da Silva in view of Yin et al. US2016/0104053 hereinafter referred to as Yin.
As per Claim 1, Da Silva teaches a method of signaling a bitstream, the method video converting apparatus comprising: signaling the bitstream; (Da Silva, Paragraph [0020])
wherein the bitstream includes supplemental enhancement information including a parameter, which is a parameter for switching between a resolution resampling process and an up-sampling process;
wherein the resolution resampling process and the up-sampling process are switched based on a value of parameter; and (Da Silva, Paragraph [0033], “Hence, the super-resolution prediction mode may use a downsampling scheme for downsampling and upsampling at block level, e.g. a single video block or a subset of all video blocks of a video frame (i.e. super resolution modes 1 and 2 of table 1), wherein a first parameter, e.g. a binary flag, may be used to signal whether a downsampling scheme is used. A second parameter may be used for signalling the type of downsampling scheme that is used (e.g. polyphase downsampling). The second parameter may only be present if a downsampling scheme is used. It is noted many other alternatives can be used, for instance only one flag, longer or shorter bit depth, etc” and Paragraph [0024], “The downsampling lattices of the downsampling scheme can be used to upsample the predicted samples of the first low-resolution prediction block and the one or more second low-resolution blocks and to combine the upsampled predicted samples into predicted samples of a prediction block of the current block”)
the resolution resampling process is performed by using a parameter for super- resolution processing (Da Silva, Paragraph [0033], [0024])
Da Silva does not explicitly teach the resolution resampling process is performed by using a neural network.
Yin teaches the resolution resampling process is performed by using a neural network. (Yin, Paragraph [0044], “Each neural network performs down-sampling, convolution, and nonlinear transformation (e.g., tanh). Different CNN levels typically have different depth and input size. In one implementation, level n−1 has a resolution R(n−1) that is the same as the resolution of the face image 215, and every other level n has a resolution R(n) that is down-sampled by a constant factor of 2 or less relative to the preceding level n−1 with resolution R(n−1). The level generator 410 generates more image patches for levels n with lower resolutions R(n). The image patches for different levels n have different resolutions R(n) and the image patches for a level n are generated by performing convolution and nonlinear transformation on the image resampled to resolution R(n)”)
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the teachings of Yin into Da Silva because by resampling the resolution by utilizing a neural network will result in the resampling of the image to resample different image sizes and depth in a desirable manner.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to combine the two references to obtain the invention in Claim 1.
As per Claim 2, Claim 2 claims an image decoding apparatus utilizes the method as claimed in Claim 1 and further discloses, a supplemental enhancement information decoder circuit that decodes supplemental enhancement information including a parameter, (Da Silva, Paragraph [0020]) Therefore the rejection and rationale are analogous to that made in Claim 1.
As per Claim 3, Claim 3 claims an image coding apparatus utilizes the method as claimed in Claim 1 and further discloses, a supplemental enhancement information coder circuit that codes supplemental enhancement information including a parameter, (Da Silva, Paragraph [0020]) Therefore the rejection and rationale are analogous to that made in Claim 1.
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 MING HON whose telephone number is (571)270-5245. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9am - 5pm.
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/MING Y HON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2666
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