Prosecution Insights
Last updated: July 17, 2026
Application No. 18/618,849

METHOD, DEVICE, AND MEDIUM FOR VIDEO PROCESSING

Non-Final OA §103
Filed
Mar 27, 2024
Priority
Sep 27, 2021 — provisional 63/248,852 +2 more
Examiner
CHOKSHI, PINKAL R
Art Unit
2425
Tech Center
2400 — Computer Networks
Assignee
Bytedance Inc.
OA Round
3 (Non-Final)
61%
Grant Probability
Moderate
3-4
OA Rounds
1y 2m
Est. Remaining
90%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 61% of resolved cases
61%
Career Allowance Rate
311 granted / 513 resolved
+2.6% vs TC avg
Strong +29% interview lift
Without
With
+29.1%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
3y 5m
Avg Prosecution
19 currently pending
Career history
537
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
0.1%
-39.9% vs TC avg
§103
94.9%
+54.9% vs TC avg
§102
2.3%
-37.7% vs TC avg
§112
0.2%
-39.8% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 513 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
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 . Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114 A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 02/23/2026 has been entered. Response to Arguments Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim 1 have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply in view of a new ground(s) of rejection necessitated by the information disclosure statement (IDS) reference submitted on 08/14/2025 by the Applicant. See the new rejection below. 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. Claims 1-2, 4, 6-14, 16, and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US PG Pub 2019/0068911 to Rutler (“Rutler”) in view of US PG Pub 2018/0109585 to Hirabayashi (“Hirabayashi”) and "Information technology - Dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (DASH) - Part1: Media presentation description and segment formats", FDIS stage, ISO 23009-1:2021(X) (“ISO 23009”) Regarding claim 1, “A method of video processing” reads on the system/method that enables rendering PIP video outputs and re-rendering of the rendered video file (abstract) disclosed by Rutler and represented in Fig. 1. As to “comprising: receiving, at a first device, a metadata file from a second device” Rutler discloses (¶0017) that the presentation device (first device) receives a presentation element with cues/metadata-flags (metadata file) included with input data from a recording device (second device) as represented in Fig. 2. As to “determining a descriptor in a data structure in the metadata file” Rutler discloses (claim 15, ¶0025) that an identifier (descriptor) is included in a presentation element signal in input video data (data structure) of the presentation element (metadata file). As to “a presence of the descriptor indicating that the data structure is for providing a picture-in-picture service” Rutler discloses (¶0019, ¶0021, claim 1) that the presence of the presentation element signal for the presentation element in the input video data to be rendered picture-in-picture. As to “the data structure indicating a selection of a first set of bitstreams of a first video and a second set of bitstreams of a second video for the picture-in-picture service” Rutler discloses (¶0023-¶0024) that the received presentation element detected in the input data for a combined data input stream (a selection) including presentation input 114-B (a first set of bitstreams of a first video) and one or more other data inputs (second set of bitstreams of second video) in the PIP output video. Rutler meets all the limitations of the claim except “wherein the descriptor is defined as a supplemental descriptor based on a SupplementalProperty element in the metadata file, the descriptor is identified by a value of a schemeIdUri attribute equal to “urn:mpeg:dash:pinp:2022”.” However, Hirabayashi discloses (¶0197) that the information indicating the type (meaning) of thumbnail images is described in association with the SRDs of the respective thumbnail images; in this case, for example, <SupplementalProperty schemeIdUri=“urn:mpeg:dash:srd-role:2014” value=“pinp”/> is described as the information indicating that the thumbnail images are displayed in a picture-in-picture mode. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Rutler’s system by defining the descriptor as a supplemental descriptor based on a SupplementalProperty element in the metadata file as taught by Hirabayashi in order to gain the advantage of describing information of image files superimposed using a MPD file with a supplemental property descriptor (¶0196 – Hirabayashi). Combination of Rutler and Hirabayashi meets all the limitations of the claim except “the first set of bitstreams of the first video is included in a main adaptation set of the preselection and the second set of bitstreams of the second video is included in a partial adaptation set of the preselection.” However, ISO 23009 discloses (sections 5.3.11.6.1 and 2 on pg.100-101) that when the value of the attribute of a preselection is equal to “PicInPic”, the purpose of the preselection is for the PIP experience, where the PIP offer the ability to include a video with a small spatial resolution within a video with a bigger spatial resolution; in this case, the different bitstreams/representation of the main video are included in the Main Adaptation Set of the Preselection, and the different bitstreams/Representations of a supplementary video are included in a Partial Adaptation Set of the Preselection. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Rutler and Hirabayashi’s systems by including the video stream in a main adaptation set of the preselection and the second video in a partial adaptation set of the preselection as taught by ISO 23009 in order to avoid separate decoding of the main video and the supplementary video and further for a particular picture in the main video, the corresponding video data units of the supplementary video are all the coded video data units in the decoding -time-synchronized sample in the supplemental video Representation (ISO 23009 – section 5.3.11.6.1, 2nd-3rd paragrpahs). Regarding claim 2, see rejection similar to claim 1. Regarding claim 4, “The method of claim 1, wherein the descriptor is identified by a value of an attribute equal to a uniform resource name (URN) string” Hirabayashi discloses (¶0197) that the information indicating the type (meaning) of thumbnail images may be described in association with the SRDs of the respective thumbnail images. In this case, for example, <SupplementalProperty schemeIdUri=“urn:mpeg:dash:srd-role:2014” value=“pinp”/> is described as the information indicating that the thumbnail images are displayed in a picture-in-picture mode. Regarding claim 6, “The method of claim 1, wherein a main adaptation of the data structure comprises the first set of bitstreams of the first video, and a partial adaptation set of the data structure comprises the second set of bitstreams of the second video” Rutler discloses (¶0016) that the video output includes any display configuration capable of displaying at least two feeds or streams of video data; the video output is a PIP video stream that includes a full-screen portion and an inset window portion; (¶0029) during portions of the video output 120-A in which the presentation element is present, the presentation element captured from the presentation device comprises the full-screen portion 122 and the video captured by recording device 112 comprises the inset window portion as represented in Fig. 1 (elements 122, 124). Regarding claim 7, “The method of claim 1, wherein the descriptor indicates position information and size information of a region in the first video for embedding or overlaying the second video, and the region is smaller in size than the first video” Rutler discloses (¶0020, ¶0022, claim 5) that the location/size of the PIP window is preselected by including flags in the presentation where the PIP size is smaller compared to full screen video presentation as represented in Fig. 1 (elements 122,124). Regarding claim 8, “The method of claim 7, wherein the position information indicates a horizontal position of a top-left corner of the region and a vertical position of the top-left corner of the region” Rutler discloses (¶0020) that the PIP position is preselected as top right, top left, bottom right, and bottom left, and Hirabayashi discloses (¶0092, ¶0105-¶0106) that the horizontal and vertical sizes of the mosaic image indicated by Tile Region Group Entry are identical to the horizontal and vertical sizes of the screen indicated by the SRD. Regarding claim 9, “The method of claim 7, wherein the size information indicates a width of the region and a height of the region” ISO 23009 discloses (section 5.3.11.6.2, Table 27, pg. 101) the width and height of the target picture-in-picture region in the main video Regarding claim 10, “The method of claim 7, wherein a set of attributes of an element in the descriptor indicate the position information and the size information of the region” Rutler discloses (¶0020, ¶0022, claim 5) that the location/size of the PIP window is preselected by including flags in the presentation where the PIP size is smaller compared to full screen video presentation as represented in Fig. 1 (elements 122,124). Regarding claim 11, “The method of claim 7, wherein the region comprises luma samples or luma pixels” ISO 23009 discloses (section 5.3.11.6.2, Table 27, pg. 101) the horizontal/vertical position of the top-left encoded video pixel (sample) of the target picture-in-picture region in the main video. Regarding claim 12, “The method of claim 1, wherein the data structure is a Preselection of the metadata file” Rutler discloses (¶0020-¶0021, ¶0017) that the video feed and the presentation feed are previously recorded with the cues/metadata flags are placed in the presentation element in advance. Regarding claim 13, see rejection similar to claim 1. Regarding claim 14, see rejection similar to claim 1. Regarding claim 16, see rejection similar to claim 4. Regarding claim 18, see rejection similar to claim 6. Regarding claim 19, see rejection similar to claim 7. Regarding claim 20, see rejection similar to claim 8. Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PINKAL R CHOKSHI whose telephone number is (571)270-3317. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8am-5pm. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, BRIAN T PENDLETON can be reached at (571)272-7527. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /PINKAL R CHOKSHI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2425
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Mar 27, 2024
Application Filed
Jul 23, 2025
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §103
Oct 23, 2025
Response Filed
Nov 21, 2025
Final Rejection mailed — §103
Jan 21, 2026
Response after Non-Final Action
Feb 23, 2026
Request for Continued Examination
Mar 08, 2026
Response after Non-Final Action
Jun 16, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §103 (current)

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

3-4
Expected OA Rounds
61%
Grant Probability
90%
With Interview (+29.1%)
3y 5m (~1y 2m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
High
PTA Risk
Based on 513 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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