DETAILED ACTION
This Office action for U.S. Patent Application No. 18/633,360 is responsive to the Request for Continued Examination filed 7 April 2026, in reply to the Final Rejection of 8 January 2026 and the Advisory Action of 18 March 2026.
Claims 1, 2, 4–12, 14–18, 23, and 24 are pending, of which claims 23 and 24 are new.
In the Final Rejection, claims 1–3, 5–7, 10–13, 15, 16, and 18 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as anticipated by U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0037242 A1 (“Zhao”). Claims 21 and 22 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as anticipated by P. de Rivaz and J. Haughton, “AV1 Bitstream & Decoding Process Specification”, Alliance for Open Media, Version 1.0.0 with Errata 1 (8 January 2019) (“AV1”). Claims 4, 8, 9, 14, and 17 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over Zhao in view of Y.W. Huang, J. An, H. Huang, X. Li, S.T. Hsiang, K. Zhang, H. Gao, J. Ma, & O. Chubach, “Block Partitioning Structure in the VVC Standard”, 31 IEEE Transactions on Circuits & Systems for Video Technology 3818–33 (Oct. 2021) (“Huang”).
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 C.F.R. § 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 C.F.R. § 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 C.F.R. § 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 C.F.R. § 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 C.F.R. § 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 7 April 2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s amendments to the claims have been considered. The rejections of claims 21 and 22 as anticipated by AV1 are moot due to the claims’ cancellation.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim 1 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. It is respectfully submitted that upon further consideration, the examiner finds the teachings of Huang as a whole overcome the alleged deficiencies of Zhao. Specifically, in Huang, while a chroma tree structure may itself differ from the corresponding luma tree structure, the chroma trees available are dependent on the size of a chroma coding tree unit (CTU). The chroma CTU is 1/4 the size of a corresponding luma CTU; a 64 x 64 luma coding tree pairs with a 32 x 32 chroma coding tree. Huang § III.C. Also, certain chroma splitting types may be forbidden dependent on the luma split (Fig. 8), and in a single tree mode, “the same CU partitions are applied” to a luma tree CTU and its corresponding chroma CTU. Huang § III.C. This is sufficient to anticipate the disputed limitation.
Claim Rejections - 35 U.S.C. § 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.
Claims 1, 2, 4–12, 14–18, 23, and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0037242 A1 (“Zhao”) in view of Y.W. Huang, J. An, H. Huang, X. Li, S.T. Hsiang, K. Zhang, H. Gao, J. Ma, & O. Chubach, “Block Partitioning Structure in the VVC Standard”, 31 IEEE Transactions on Circuits & Systems for Video Technology 3818–33 (Oct. 2021) (“Huang”).
Zhao, directed to luma and chroma sample partitioning in a video codec, teaches with respect to claim 1 a method of video decoding performed at a computing system having memory and one or more processors (¶ 0119, implementation as processor in communication with memory), the method comprising:
receiving a video bitstream comprising a plurality of coding blocks (¶ 0054, decoder receives bit stream; ¶ 0054–55, Fig. 1, determining block partitioning 111 and block decoding 113);
identifying, based on a first indicator in the video bitstream, a coding region that comprises two or more coding blocks of the plurality of coding blocks (¶¶ 0086–92, slices comprising coding tree of coding blocks of chroma and luma samples),
wherein each coding block in the coding region is encoded in an intra prediction mode (¶¶ 0086, 0091, I-slices comprising pixel samples coded for intra prediction);
in accordance with identifying the coding region where each coding block in the coding region is encoded in the intra prediction mode (¶¶ 0086–92, applicability to I-slices):
applying a first partitioning for luma blocks in the coding region (¶ 0090, luma coding sub-tree having its own partition); and
applying a second partitioning for chroma blocks in the coding region (id., chroma coding sub-tree having its own partition),
wherein the second partitioning is different from the first partitioning (id., “luma blocks and chroma blocks, as created by the coding tree 547, are subjected to different split modes based on the different luma coding sub-tree and chroma coding sub-tree 550”, . . . and
reconstructing the two or more coding blocks of the coding region using the first partitioning and the second partitioning (¶¶ 0080–0082, reconstructing output video signal in decoder).
The claimed invention differs from Zhao in that in the claimed invention recites the second partitioning for the chroma blocks is dependent on the available luma blocks partitioning based on block size, prediction mode, or partitioning type of the luma block. Zhao, in contrast, only selects partition types based on a rate-distortion optimization criterion. However, Huang, directed to the block partitioning in the Versatile Video Coding (VVC) video codec, teaches with respect to claim 1:
the second partitioning for the chroma blocks in the coding region is elected from a subset of partitioning types available for partitioning the luma blocks identified based on one or more of a block size, a prediction mode, and a partitioning type of a luma block (§ III.C, available chroma CTUs are 1/4 the size of corresponding luma CTUs, e.g., 32 x 32 chroma CTU corresponds to 64 x 64 luma CTU; chroma CTU modes may be restricted based on the luma block splitting to reduce processing latency; in single tree mode, “the same CU partitions are applied” to corresponding luma and chroma CTUs).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective invention to modify Zhao to constrain certain split types for larger transform units, as taught by Huang, in order to reduce the buffer size required for larger transform unit splits. Huang § III.B.
Regarding claim 2, Zhao in view of Huang teaches the method of claim 1, wherein applying the second partitioning for the chroma blocks in the coding region comprises applying the first partitioning for the luma blocks to the chroma blocks to a first depth (Zhao Fig. 6, ¶¶ 0093–95; in the example, four layers of nodes); and
prohibiting further partitioning of the chroma blocks beyond the first depth (id., halting coding tree split due to minimum block size or signal characteristic constraints).
Regarding claim 4, Zhao in view of Huang teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the subset of partitioning types is identified based on one or more of a prediction mode and a partitioning type of a luma block (§ III.A, intra subpartitions mode is applied to inter prediction coding unit and different subblock transform is applied to inter prediction coding unit).
Regarding claim 5, Zhao in view of Huang teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising:
partitioning a frame of the video bitstream to obtain a second coding region (Zhao ¶ 0077, multiple slices per frame); and
when the second coding region has a size that meets one or more criteria, deriving a first element indicating whether all the coding blocks within the second coding region are encoded with a pre-defined prediction mode (¶¶ 0093–95, halting subdivision when minimum block size is reached, regardless of whether homogeneity has been attained).
Regarding claim 6, Zhao in view of Huang teaches the method of claim 5, wherein the second coding region has a size that meets the one or more criteria when a length of the second coding region is less than a threshold length (Zhao ¶¶ 0093–95, dimension of minimum block size).
Regarding claim 7, Zhao in view of Huang teaches the method of claim 5, wherein the second coding region has a size that meets the one or more criteria when an area of the second coding region is greater than a threshold area (Zhao ¶ 0089, minimum threshold size of slice).
Regarding claim 8, the method of claim 1, wherein applying the second partitioning for chroma blocks in the coding region comprises forgoing partitioning the chroma blocks (Huang § III.C, indicating chroma coding tree node as non-split).
Regarding claim 9, Zhao in view of Huang teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising:
partitioning an inter frame of the video bitstream to obtain the coding region (Zhao ¶ 0096, applicability to inter-prediction slices); and
Regarding claim 10, Zhao in view of Huang teaches the method of claim 1, wherein a context for signaling a block partitioning type for a respective coding block in the coding region is based on whether the coding region is encoded in the intra prediction mode (Zhao ¶ 0110, specifically for an intra slice, implicit or explicit signalling of quad tree split).
Regarding claim 11, Zhao in view of Huang teaches a computing system, comprising:
control circuitry (Zhao ¶ 0119, processor 930);
memory (id., memory 932); and
one or more sets of instructions stored in the memory and configured for execution by the control circuitry (id., instructions stored in memory 932 and executed by processor 930), the one or more sets of instructions comprising instructions for:
[the claim 1 method] (claim 1 rejection supra).
Regarding claim 12, Zhao in view of Huang teaches the computing system of claim 11, wherein applying the second partitioning for the chroma blocks in the coding region comprises applying the first partitioning for the luma blocks to the chroma blocks to a first depth (Zhao Fig. 6, ¶¶ 0093–95; in the example, four layers of nodes); and
prohibiting further partitioning of the chroma blocks beyond the first depth (id., halting coding tree split due to minimum block size or signal characteristic constraints).
Regarding claim 14, Zhao in view of Huang teaches the computing system of claim 11, wherein the subset of partitioning types is identified based on one or more of a prediction mode and a partitioning type of a luma block (§ III.A, intra subpartitions mode is applied to inter prediction coding unit and different subblock transform is applied to inter prediction coding unit).
Regarding claim 15, Zhao in view of Huang teaches the computing system of claim 11, wherein the one or more sets of instructions further comprise instructions for:
partitioning a frame of the video bitstream to obtain a second coding region (Zhao ¶ 0077, multiple slices per frame); and
when the second coding region has a size that meets one or more criteria, forgoing signaling a first element indicating whether all the coding blocks within the second coding region are encoded with a pre-defined prediction mode (¶¶ 0093–95, halting subdivision when minimum block size is reached, regardless of whether homogeneity has been attained).
Regarding claim 16, Zhao in view of Huang teaches the computing system of claim 15, wherein the second coding region has a size that meets the one or more criteria when a length of the second coding region is less than a threshold length (Zhao ¶¶ 0093–95, dimension of minimum block size).
Regarding claim 17, Zhao in view of Huang teaches the computing system of claim 11, wherein the one or more sets of instructions further comprise instructions for:
partitioning an inter frame of the video bitstream to obtain the coding region (Zhao ¶ 0096, applicability to inter-prediction slices); and
determining, based on a second indicator in the video bitstream, whether further partitioning of chroma blocks within the coding region is restricted (Huang § III.C, indicating chroma coding tree node as non-split).
Regarding claim 18, Zhao in view of Huang teaches the computing system of claim 11, wherein the one or more sets of instructions further comprise instructions for encoding information relating to a block partitioning type for a respective coding block in the coding region is based on whether the coding region is encoded in the intra prediction mode (¶ 0110, specifically for an intra slice, implicit or explicit signalling of quad tree split).
Regarding claim 22, Zhao in view of Huang teaches a method of video media bitstream generation, the method comprising:
generating a video bitstream (Zhao ¶ 0047, encoder that encodes a video signal), including:
identifying, based on a first indicator in the video bitstream, a coding region that comprises two or more coding blocks of the plurality of coding blocks (¶¶ 0086–92, slices comprising coding tree of coding blocks of chroma and luma samples),
wherein each coding block in the coding region is to be encoded in an intra prediction mode (¶¶ 0086, 0091, I-slices comprising pixel samples coded for intra prediction);
in accordance with identifying the coding region where each coding block in the coding region is to be encoded in the intra prediction mode (¶¶ 0086–92, applicability to I-slices):
encoding the two or more coding blocks of the coding region into a video bitstream (¶ 0047, encoder that encodes a video signal) by
applying a first partitioning for luma blocks in the coding region (¶ 0090, luma coding sub-tree having its own partition); and
applying a second partitioning for chroma blocks in the coding region (id., chroma coding sub-tree having its own partition),
wherein the second partitioning is different from the first partitioning (id., “luma blocks and chroma blocks, as created by the coding tree 547, are subjected to different split modes based on the different luma coding sub-tree and chroma coding sub-tree 550”, . . . and
transmitting the video bitstream including encoded information for the two or more blocks (¶ 0047, transmitting compressed video file).
The claimed invention differs from Zhao in that in the claimed invention recites the second partitioning for the chroma blocks is dependent on the available luma blocks partitioning based on block size, prediction mode, or partitioning type of the luma block. Zhao, in contrast, only selects partition types based on a rate-distortion optimization criterion. However, Huang, directed to the block partitioning in the Versatile Video Coding (VVC) video codec, teaches with respect to claim 1:
the second partitioning for the chroma blocks in the coding region is elected from a subset of partitioning types available for partitioning the luma blocks identified based on one or more of a block size, a prediction mode, and a partitioning type of a luma block (§ III.C, available chroma CTUs are 1/4 the size of corresponding luma CTUs, e.g., 32 x 32 chroma CTU corresponds to 64 x 64 luma CTU; chroma CTU modes may be restricted based on the luma block splitting to reduce processing latency; in single tree mode, “the same CU partitions are applied” to corresponding luma and chroma CTUs).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective invention to modify Zhao to constrain certain split types for larger transform units, as taught by Huang, in order to reduce the buffer size required for larger transform unit splits. Huang § III.B.
Regarding claim 24, Zhao in view of Huang teaches the method of claim 23, wherein the video bitstream further comprises determining, a second indicator indicating that further partitioning of chroma blocks within the coding region is restricted (Huang § III.C, indicating chroma coding tree node as non-split).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. The following prior art was found using an Artificial Intelligence assisted search using an internal AI tool that uses the classification of the application under the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) system, as well as from the specification, including the claims and abstract, of the application as contextual information. The documents are ranked from most to least relevant. Where possible, English-language equivalents are given, and redundant results within the same patent families are eliminated. See “New Artificial Intelligence Functionality in PE2E Search”, 1504 OG 359 (15 November 2022), “Automated Search Pilot Program”, 90 F.R. 48,161 (8 October 2025).
US 2021/0058620 A1
US 2017/0272748 A1
US 2022/0312015 A1
US 2022/0360824 A1
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/David N Werner/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487
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