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 .
Detailed Action
Response to Amendment
This Office Action is in response to the correspondence on 04/27/2026. Applicant’s argument, filed on 10/22/2025 has been entered and carefully considered. Claims 1-10, 12-19 and 21-22 are pending.
The 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, second paragraph, rejection is withdrawn based on the arguments/claim amendments submitted on 10/22/2025.
The application filed on 04/11/2024 is a CON of PCT/CN2022/124209 filed on 10/09/2022. Claimed foreign priority to PCTCN2021123141 filed on 10/11/2021. The certified copy of priority has been filed on 04/11/2024.
Information Disclosure Statement
This information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 04/27/2026. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97 and 37 CFR 1.98. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 04/27/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments in the 04/27/2026 Remarks have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to the combination of reference being used in the current rejection.
Examiner’s Note
Claims 1-10, 12-17 and 22 refer to "A method for video processing”, Claim 18 refers to "An apparatus for processing video data”, Claim 19 refers to "A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium”, Claim 21 refers to "A method for storing a bitstream of a video”. Claims 18-19 and 21 are similarly rejected in light of rejection of claims 1-10, 12-17, and 22 any obvious combination of the rejection of claims 1-10, 12-17, and 22 or the differences are obvious to the ordinary skill in the art. It is well known in the art that encoding and decoding are reverse processes of video coding method/system. Examiner requests to keep the scope of the independent claims similar for advancing the prosecution.
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 1-10, and, 14-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al. (US 20210250580 A1), hereinafter Chen, in view of Jung et al. (US 20210014522 A1), hereinafter Jung, further in view of Zhang et al. (“EE2-Rrelated: On MVD sign prediction”, JVET, October 6-15, 2021), hereinafter Zhang. Zhang is cited by the applicant in IDS.
Regarding claim 1, Chen discloses a method for video processing, comprising (Abstract): reordering, during a conversion between a current video block of a video and a bitstream of the video ([0130]), candidate signs of a motion vector difference (MVD) for a motion candidate of the current video block; and performing the conversion based on the reordered plurality of candidate (Fig. 14, [0058]-[0183]).
Chen discloses all the elements of claim 1 but Chen does not appear to explicitly disclose in the cited section a plurality of candidate signs;
However, Jung from the same or similar endeavor teaches a plurality of candidate signs ([0202]); (Fig. 14, [0020], [0031], [0165]-[0166], [0058]-[0183])
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Chen to incorporate the teachings of Jung to have efficient video signal processing (Jung, [0003]). Similar reasoning/motivation of modification can be applied/extended to the other related/dependent claims.
Chen in view of Jung discloses all the elements of claim 1 but they do not appear to explicitly disclose in the cited section and an MMVD reordering process.
However, Zhang from the same or similar endeavor teaches and an MMVD reordering process (Section 2, sorting for cost, similar for MMVD template matching cost).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Chen in view of Jung to incorporate the teachings of Zhang to improve BD Rate (Zhang, Abstract). Similar reasoning/motivation of modification can be applied/extended to the other related/dependent claims.
Regarding claim 2, Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the MVD is determined based on one of: advanced motion vector prediction (AMVP), affine AMVP, merge mode with motion vector differences (MMVD), affine MMVD, geometry partition mode with MMVD (GMVD), MMVD for intra block copy (IBC) mode, or MMVD for affine IBC mode (Chen, Fig. 14, [0073], [0058]-[0183], Jung, [0202]).
Regarding claim 3, Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of candidate signs comprise candidate signs of a horizontal component of the MVD, or wherein the plurality of candidate signs comprise candidate signs of a vertical component of the MVD, or wherein the plurality of candidate signs comprise a plurality of sign combinations, each of the plurality of sign combinations comprises a candidate sign of a horizontal component of the MVD and a candidate sign of a vertical component of the MVD (Chen, Fig. 14, [0102], [0058]-[0183], Jung, [0202]).
Regarding claim 4, Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 3, wherein the plurality of sign combinations are dependent on at least one of: information on whether the horizontal component of the MVD is equal to zero, or information on whether the vertical component of the MVD is equal to zero, or wherein an indication is coded, the indication indicates whether a sign combination at the first position or the second position in the reordered plurality of candidate signs is to be used, or wherein a set of sign combinations at the top N positions in the reordered plurality of candidate signs are indicated in the bitstream with a set of indexes, the set of indexes are coded with a non-fixed length code, where N is an integer, or wherein at least one of the following is coded with a context coding: a candidate sign of the horizontal component of the MVD, or a candidate sign of the vertical component of the MVD, or wherein whether first information is indicated in the bitstream is dependent on a condition, the first information indicates whether a candidate sign at the first position in the reordered plurality of candidate signs is to be used, or wherein a candidate sign at the first position in the reordered plurality of candidate signs is used for performing the conversion (Chen, Fig. 14, [0166], [0058]-[0183], Jung, [0202]).
Regarding claim 5, Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 1, wherein reordering the plurality of candidate signs comprises: reordering the plurality of candidate signs based on a template matching approach, or reordering the plurality of candidate signs based on a bilateral matching approach (Chen, Fig. 14, [0165]-[0166], [0058]-[0183], Jung, [0195], [0202]).
Regarding claim 6, Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 5, wherein reordering the plurality of candidate signs based on a template matching approach comprises: reordering the plurality of candidate signs based on a template matching cost between a current template associated with the current video block and a reference template for the current template (Chen, Fig. 14, [0165]-[0166], [0058]-[0183], Jung, [0195], [0202]).
Regarding claim 7, Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 6, wherein the template matching cost is determined as a sum of absolute difference (SAD) between the current template and the reference template, or wherein the template matching cost is determined as a sum of absolute transformed difference (SATD) between the current template and the reference template, or wherein the template matching cost is determined as a mean removal based sum of absolute difference (MR-SAD) between the current template and the reference template, or wherein the template matching cost is determined as one of: a weighted average of SAD between the current template and the reference template, a weighted average of MR-SAD between the current template and the reference template, or a weighted average of SATD between the current template and the reference template, or wherein a cost function for determining the template matching cost comprises one of: SAD, MR-SAD, SATD, mean-removal SATD (MR-SATD), sum of squared differences (SSD), mean-removal SSD (MR-SSD), sum of squared error (SSE), mean removal sum of squared error (MR-SSE) weighted SAD, weighted MR-SAD, weighted SATD, weighted MR-SATD, weighted SSD, weighted MR-SSD, weighted SSE, weighted MR-SSE, or gradient information (Chen, Fig. 14, [0165]-[0166], [0058]-[0183], Jung, [0195], [0202], [0212]).
Regarding claim 8, Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 1, wherein reordering the plurality of candidate signs comprises: determining prediction costs for the plurality of candidate signs based on a template matching cost or a bilateral matching cost; and reordering the plurality of candidate signs ascendingly based on the prediction costs (Chen, Fig. 14, [0165]-[0166], [0058]-[0183], Jung, [0195], [0202], [0212], Fig. 13).
Regarding claim 9, Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 8, wherein performing the conversion comprises: obtaining a candidate MVD by combining a candidate sign in the reordered plurality of candidate signs with an absolute MVD value; obtaining a candidate MV by adding the candidate MVD to a predicted MV; and performing the conversion based on the candidate MV, or wherein a target sign used for performing the conversion is a candidate sign with the smallest prediction cost in the reordered plurality of candidate signs, or wherein a target sign used for performing the conversion is selected from a set of candidate signs at the top N positions in the reordered plurality of candidate signs, where N is an integer (Chen, Fig. 14, [0020], [0031], [0165]-[0166], [0058]-[0183], Jung, [0195], [0202], [0212], Fig. 13).
Regarding claim 10, Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the MVD is determined based on AMVP, affine AMVP and MMVD, and performing the conversion comprises: performing the conversion based on the reordered plurality of candidate signs and an MMVD reordering process for affine MMVD, or wherein the MVD is determined based on a first coding tool, and performing the conversion comprises: performing the conversion based on the reordered plurality of candidate signs and an MMVD reordering process for the first coding tool, or wherein the MVD is determined based on an MVD coding tool other than MMVD, and performing the conversion comprises: performing the conversion based on the reordered plurality of candidate signs and an MMVD reordering process for MMVD (Chen, Fig. 14, [0020], [0031], [0165]-[0166], [0058]-[0183], Jung, [0195], [0202], [0212], Fig. 13).
Regarding claim 11, (Canceled).
Regarding claim 14, Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 13, wherein the cost of the first MV is a template matching cost of the first MV, or wherein the cost of the first MV is a bilateral matching cost of the first MV (Chen, Fig. 14, [0148], [0058]-[0183], Jung, [0195], [0202], [0212], Fig. 13, 14, 23).
Regarding claim 17, Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the conversion includes encoding the current video block into the bitstream, or wherein the conversion includes decoding the current video block from the bitstream (Chen, Fig. 13-14, [0132], [0058]-[0183], Jung, [0195], [0202], [0212], Fig. 13, 14, 23).
Claims 12, 13, 15, 16, and, 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang further in view of Jhu et al (US 20200077106 A1), hereinafter Jhu.
Regarding claim 22, Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang discloses all the elements of claim 1 but they do not appear to explicitly disclose in the cited section method of claim 1, further comprising: determining a first list of MVD candidates and a second list of MVD candidates for bi- prediction of the current video block, the first list being independent from the second list.
However, Jhu from the same or similar endeavor teaches determining a first list of MVD candidates and a second list of MVD candidates for bi- prediction of the current video block, the first list being independent from the second list (Fig. 8).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang to incorporate the teachings of Jhu to have efficient compression (Jhu, [0004]). Similar reasoning/motivation of modification can be applied/extended to the other related/dependent claims.
Regarding claim 12, Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang further in view of Jhu discloses the method of claim 22, wherein the first list or the second list is indicated in the bitstream, or wherein the number of MVD candidates in the first list is different from the number of MVD candidates in the second list, or wherein the number of MVD candidates in the first list and the number of MVD candidates in the second list are predefined, or wherein the number of MVD candidates in the first list and the number of MVD candidates in the second list are determined on-the-fly, or wherein the number of MVD candidates in the first list and the number of MVD candidates in the second list are indicated in the bitstream, or wherein MVD candidates in the first list being independent from MVD candidates in the second list, or wherein the number of MVD candidates in the first list is non-zero and the number of MVD candidates in the second list is zero, or wherein the number of MVD candidates in the first list is zero and the number of MVD candidates in the second list is non-zero, or wherein the first list is associated with a first reference block for the current video block, the second list is associated with a second reference block for the current video block, a distance between the first reference block and the current video block is smaller than a distance between the second reference block and the current video block, the number of MVD candidates in the first list is non-zero and the number of MVD candidates in the second list is zero, or wherein the first list is associated with a first reference block for the current video block, the second list is associated with a second reference block for the current video block, a distance between the first reference block and the current video block is larger than a distance between the second reference block and the current video block, the number of MVD candidates in the first list is non-zero and the number of MVD candidates in the second list is zero (Chen, Fig. 14, [0020], [0031], [0164]-[0166], [0058]-[0183], Jung, [0195], [0202], [0212], Fig. 13, 14, 23, Jhu, Fig. 8).
Regarding claim 13, Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang further in view of Jhu discloses the method of claim 22, wherein the first list is associated with a first reference direction for the current video block, the second list is associated with a second reference direction for the current video block, a cost of a first MV of the first reference direction is larger than a cost of a second MV of the second reference direction, the number of MVD candidates in the first list is non-zero and the number of MVD candidates in the second list is zero, or wherein the first list is associated with a first reference direction for the current video block, the second list is associated with a second reference direction for the current video block, a cost of a first MV of the first reference direction is smaller than a cost of a second MV of the second reference direction, the number of MVD candidates in the first list is non-zero and the number of MVD candidates in the second list is zero (Chen, Fig. 14, [0148], [0058]-[0183], Jung, [0195], [0202], [0212], Fig. 13, 14, 23, Jhu, Fig. 8).
Regarding claim 15, Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang further in view of Jhu discloses the method of claim 22, wherein the first list is associated with a first reference block for the current video block, the second list is associated with a second reference block for the current video block, the first reference block is ahead of the current video block, the second reference block is after the current video block, the number of MVD candidates in the first list is non-zero and the number of MVD candidates in the second list is zero, or wherein the first list is associated with a first reference block for the current video block, the second list is associated with a second reference block for the current video block, the first reference block is after the current video block, the second reference block is ahead of the current video block, the number of MVD candidates in the first list is non-zero and the number of MVD candidates in the second list is zero, or wherein the first list is associated with a first reference block for the current video block, the second list is associated with a second reference block for the current video block, whether the first list or the second list is empty is dependent on a size or an angle of a MV for the first reference block and a size or an angle of a MV for the second reference block, or wherein at least one of the first list or the second list is converted to MVD candidates for uni-prediction of the current video block, or wherein information on whether the first list or the second list is empty is determined based on a rate-distortion (RD) and the information is indicated in the bitstream, or wherein a target MVD pair for performing the conversion comprises a first MVD candidate from the first list and a second MVD candidate from the second list, a position of the first MVD candidate in the first list is different from a position of the second MVD candidate in the second list, or wherein performing the conversion comprises: determining template costs for a plurality of MVD pairs based on the first list and the second list; and performing the conversion based on a target MVD pair with the smallest template cost, or wherein each MVD in a target MVD pair for performing the conversion is determined separately, or wherein a zero MVD is added in to the first list or the second list for MMVD (Chen, Fig. 14, [0148], [0058]-[0183], Jung, [0195], [0202], [0212], Fig. 13, 14, 23, Jhu, Fig. 8).
Regarding claim 16, Chen in view of Jung further in view of Zhang further in view of Jhu discloses the method of claim 15, wherein template costs are determined for part of the plurality of MVD pairs, or wherein a template cost is determined for each of MVD candidates in the first list and the second list (Chen, Fig. 14, [0132], [0058]-[0183], Jung, [0195], [0202], [0212], Fig. 13, 14, 23, Jhu, Fig. 8).
Regarding claim 18-19 and 21, See Examiner’s Note. Seregin et al. (EE2: Summary Report on Enhanced Compression beyond VVC capability”, January 12-21, 2022), hereinafter Seregin, teaches, Section Test 3.9, MMVD candidate are reordered based on cost. Seregin is cited in the IDS by the applicant. Karabutov et al. (US 20210337208 A1), hereinafter Karabutov, [0161]-[0163].
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MOHAMMAD J RAHMAN whose telephone number is (571)270-7190. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM.
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/Mohammad J Rahman/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487
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