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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 3/4/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 2-21 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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) 2-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Meggers (6,968,012) in view of Benes (10,742,992).
In regard to claim 2 Meggers discloses a computer implemented method, performed by at least one processor, for decoding video data (Meggers Figs. 1 and 5 and generally col. 7 lines 3-30), the method comprising:
decompressing, at a client device, a compressed file corresponding to a source video including a plurality of source frames to generate a decompressed file (Meggers Fig. 5 and col. 7 lines 3-30 note receiving, and decompressing, compressed video frames);
extracting, from the decompressed file, at least an image representation, a keyframe representation, and a metadata file, the image representation including blocks comprising two-dimensional images corresponding to changes between different frames, and the metadata file maintaining, for each block (i) coordinate information identifying a placement location on a keyframe, and (ii) information identifying a frame from which the block was derived (Meggers Fig. 5 and col. 7 lines 11-17 note extracting pixel blocks (image representation) and preamble blocks (metadata) note col. 7 lines 26-30 the first frame received is a keyframe further note Fig. 3 and col. 4 line 50 to col. 5 line 42 step. 340 and col. 4 line 50 to col. 5 line 12 note pixel blocks are two dimensional images that represent areas of change, further note step 360 col. 5 lines 19-42 the preamble block includes a location in the frame for each included pixel block and one preamble block is included for each frame);
reconstructing keyframes based on the keyframe representations (Meggers col. 7 lines 26-30 note a keyframe will include all of the pixels of a frame and is reconstructed);
identifying, using frame information, at least one block in the image representation corresponding to the target frame (Meggers Fig. 5 and col. 7 lines 18-25 note preamble block indicating which pixel blocks are present in the image representation of each non-key frame, further note col. 5 lines 19-42 for further details of the preamble block);
determining, from the reconstructed keyframes, a closest keyframe to the target block (Meggers col. 7 lines 3-30 note pixel blocks are copied over the picture in the working memory which will always include image data of the closest keyframe prior to the current frame in temporal order).
reconstructing the target frame by overlaying the at least one block onto a keyframe (Meggers Fig. 5 and col. 7 lines 20-25 note copying the blocks indicated by the preamble into the video frame replacing, or overlaying, the portion of the keyframe, further note col. 4 lines 16-21 the preamble includes information on the location of the block within the image data).
rendering, at the client device, reconstructed frames based on the reconstructed keyframes and the reconstructed target frame (Meggers col. 7 lines 25-26 note displaying the working video frame).
Meggers discloses overlaying pixel blocks on a working memory including the most recent keyframe in temporal order. It is noted that Meggers does not explicitly disclose use of a frame index. However, Benes discloses assigning each frame a frame index in sequential order (Benes Fig. 4 and col. 10 lines 11-20 note frame index (i) denoted for each frame).
It is therefore considered obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize the advantage of including a frame index as taught by Benes in the preamble metadata of Meggers in order to uniquely identify each frame as suggested by Benes (Benes col. 10 lines 11-20 note frame index is used to distinguish between frames).
In regard to claim 3 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 2 above. Meggers further discloses receiving, at the client device, the compressed file from a source device for playback (Meggers Fig. 1 note client device 140 including decoder 150 receiving encoded stream 130 from proxy server 114)).
In regard to claim 4 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 2 above. Zhu further discloses that the metadata file includes a mapping of block coordinates for the image representation and corresponding source video information, (Meggers col. 5 lines 16-42 note preamble includes information mapping each pixel block to a location on the keyframe image). Benes further discloses that the source video information including index values associated with frames of the plurality of source frames (Benes Fig. 4 and col. 10 lines 11-20).
In regard to claim 5 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 2 above. Meggers further discloses:
extracting blocks in the image representation based on block coordinates corresponding to a target frame (Meggers col. 5 lines 13-42 note pixel blocks are copied based on block locations within target and keyframe); and
grouping subsets of the blocks into larger render blocks (Meggers col. 6 lines 23-54 note the video is encoded at various block sizes including 16x16, 8x8 and 4x4 and an optimum block size is selected which may include grouping the blocks into larger 16x16 render blocks instead of the smaller 8x8 and 4x4 blocks).
In regard to claim 6 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 2 above. Meggers further discloses that the image representation is a two-dimensional map comprising a sequence of image blocks comprising the pixel image data extracted from the plurality of source frames, the pixel image data representing visual differences between keyframes identified in the source video and consecutive frames in the plurality of source frames (Meggers col. 5 lines 13-42 note the target image is represented by preamble indicating a two dimensional map of pixel blocks that are copied from an input image further note col. 4 line 51 to col. 5 line 12 the pixel blocks are the blocks of the target frame that represent significant visual differences between the keyframe and the target frame) .
In regard to claim 7 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 2 above. Meggers further discloses:
identifying one or more image representations and one or more keyframes based on based on an image loading queue (Meggers co. 7 line 46 to col. 8 line 10 note a key frame may require associated frames for decoding, and such key frames include a list identifying a preloading queue, that identifies the key frame and its associated frames) ; and
preloading, at the client device, the one or more image representations and the one or more keyframes, wherein the selected frames are reconstructed based on a closest keyframe from the one or more keyframes (Meggers col. 7 line 66 to col. 8 line 10 note the associated frames to a subsequent keyframe must be preloaded with their associated closest keyframe in order to reconstruct the keyframe and subsequent frames).
In regard to claim 8 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 2 above. Meggers discloses coding red-green-blue (RBG) input video (Meggers col. 3 lines 64-66). It is noted that Meggers does not disclose details of alpha channel information. However Benes discloses an RGB-A format which includes alpha channel information (Benes col. 3 lines 29-40 note RGB0A format including alpha-composting information).
It is therefore considered obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention would recognize the advantage of coding video in the RGB-A format as taught by Benes in the invention of Meggers in order to gain the advantage of alpha blending in coded video as suggested by Benes (Benes col. 3 lines 29-40).
In regard to claim 9 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 2 above. Meggers discloses that a client device may include a desktop computer (Meggers col. 3 lines 28-56). It is noted that Meggers does not disclose details of application programming interfaces or graphics processing units. However, Benes discloses that a client device may include a graphics processing unit (GPU) (Benes col. 5 lines 34-42 note client device including a GPU) and may operate in conjunction with data obtained via an application programming interface (API) (Benes col. 13 lines 6-10 note using an API log datastore to obtain data).
It is therefore considered obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention would recognize the advantage of incorporating a GPU and API as taught by Benes in order to free up primary processing (Benes col. 2 lines 1-5) and facilitate data exchange (Benes col. 13 lines 6-10) as suggested by Benes.
In regard to claim 10 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 2 above. Meggers further discloses that each of the blocks corresponds to a frame in the plurality of source frames (Meggers col. 5 lines 13-42 note each pixel block corresponds to the frame which it belongs, further note one preamble block may be generated for each frame to identify the pixel blocks of that frame).
In regard to claim 11 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 2 above. Meggers further discloses:
receiving, at the client device, a user selection for at least one of:
playback of a frame from the source video, wherein the user selection may correspond to any frame from the plurality of source frames, forward playback of the source video based on a sequence of the reconstructed frames, and reverse playback of the source video based on the sequence of the reconstructed frames (Meggers col. 7 lines 33-45 note key frames allow playback of the source video from a location other than the beginning and allow for both forward and backward playback).
Claims 12-21 describe a computer readable medium and a system configured to operate with a processor and a memory to implement process steps corresponding to the method described in claims 2-11 above. refer to the statements made in regard to claims 2-11 for the rejection of claims 12-21 which will not be repeated here for brevity. In particular regard to claims 12 and 21 Meggers further discloses a system including a processor and a memory, and a non-transitory computer readable medium (Meggers col. 3 lines 28-56 note client device may include a Palm Pilot or Handspring visor or a desktop computer each of which includes a processor and memory and operates software form a computer readable medium).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
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/JEREMIAH C HALLENBECK-HUBER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2481