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 Arguments
The 101 rejection is overcome.
Applicant’s arguments regarding Maharana and Lee have been considered but are not persuasive. Applicant argues that Maharana and Lee fail to disclose or suggest “setting, at an accelerator unit (AU), a motion vector quality parameter for a first region of an image received by the AU based on a first level of interest for the first region of an image identified by the AU.”
The examiner believes that Liu (2012/0020407) teaches the above limitations in pars. 21-22, 34-35 and 41-45.
As such, this rejection is made final.
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) 1-2, 8-10, 12-13, and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maharana (US 2022/0351392) in view of Lee (US 2012/0128261), and further in view of Liu (US 2012/0020407).
Regarding claim 1, Maharana teaches identifying regions of interest in images and determining motion vectors/optical flow for regions of interest. See Maharana, ¶¶[0048]-[0050], Figs. 4A-4B.
Lee teaches determining a motion search range and performing motion search according to the determined motion search range to predict a final motion vector. See Lee, ¶¶[0044]-[0058].
It would have been obvious prior to the effective filing date of the invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to include in Maharana the ability to generate motion vectors within a specific range as taught by Lee to make the system more efficient.
Liu teaches setting a motion vector quality parameter for a first region of an image based on a first level of interest for the first region, because Liu teaches detecting a region of interest and adjusting encoding quality parameters, including motion search range, sub-pixel accuracy, motion search parameters, motion refinement parameters, mode decision parameters, and other motion compensation parameters, in response to the detected region of interest. See Liu, ¶¶[0020]-[0022], [0034]-[0035], [0041]-[0045].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Maharana and Lee to adjust the motion search range, sub-pixel accuracy, motion search parameter, or motion refinement parameter based on a detected region of interest, as taught by Liu, because doing so would allocate greater computational resources and/or higher encoding quality to regions of interest while reducing computation or quality outside the regions of interest, thereby improving perceived image quality and computational efficiency. See Liu, ¶¶[0021]-[0022], [0041]-[0045].
Regarding claim 2, see pars. 49-51 of Maharana.
Regarding claim 8, Liu teaches that the motion vector quality parameter includes one or more of a search radius and a number of process iterations of an optical flow process because Liu teaches adjusting motion search range, sub-pixel motion estimation accuracy, motion search parameters, motion refinement parameters, and other motion compensation parameters that impact quality and computational complexity. See Liu, ¶[0034].
Regarding claim 9, Liu teaches setting the motion vector quality parameter to a higher quality for a second region in response to determining that the second region has a higher level of interest than the first region because Liu teaches producing higher quality encoding within a region of interest compared to portions outside the region of interest. See Liu, ¶¶[0021]-[0022], [0035], [0041]-[0045].
Regarding claim 10, Maharana teaches optical flow processing for regions of interest. See Maharana, ¶¶[0048]-[0050], Figs. 4A-4B. Liu teaches adjusting encoding quality parameters for each region according to whether the region is a region of interest. See Liu, ¶¶[0020]-[0022], [0034]-[0035], [0041]-[0045]. It would have been obvious to apply Liu’s region-of-interest-based quality adjustment to Maharana’s optical-flow processing so that higher quality or more computationally intensive motion-vector/optical-flow processing is applied to regions of interest.
Regarding claims 12-13, see the rejection of claims 1-2.
Regarding claims 19 and 20, see the rejection of claims 8-9.
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) 3-7, 11, and 14-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maharana (20220351392) in view of Lee (20120128261) in view of Lui and in further view of Wang (20080247466).
Regarding claim 3, Wang teaches identifying a set of pixels of a reference image based on the first rasterized motion vector; and identifying the first level of interest comprises comparing a set of pixels of the first region to the identified set of pixels of the reference image (see par. 28, comparing macroblocks. Also, see Wang, ¶¶[0042]-[0047]. Wang further teaches terminating motion estimation when skip mode is selected. See Wang, ¶¶[0044]-[0047].).
It would have been obvious prior to the effective filing date of the invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to include in Maharana, Liu and Lee the ability to compare regions as taught by Wang. The reason is to allow for decision making.
Regarding claim 4, see par. 30 of Wang, threshold.
Regarding claim 5, see par. 30 of Wang, skip mode.
Regarding claims 6-7, see par. 27 of Wang, color.
Regarding claim 11, see the rejection of claims 3-4.
Regarding claim 14-18, see the rejection of claims 3-7.
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 HADI AKHAVANNIK whose telephone number is (571)272-8622. The examiner can normally be reached 9 AM - 5 PM Monday to Friday.
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/HADI AKHAVANNIK/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2676
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