DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Applicant elect species B (claims 13-21) without traverse.
Following is a list of prior arts are considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure, including prior arts not relied upon in the rejection
Kuan Tian, Yonghang Guan, Jinxi Xiang, Jun Zhang, Xiao Han, and Wei Yang. 2023. Towards Real-Time Neural Video Codec for Cross-Platform Application Using Calibration Information. In Proceedings of the 31st ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM ’23), October 29–November 3, 2023, Ottawa, ON, Canada. ACM, New York, NY, USA, (hereinafter Tian)
US 20240214600 A1 (hereinafter Lasserre)
US 20200162736 A1 (learning model to adjust quantized coefficient, para 878, Fig.18)
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 13-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tian in view of Lasserre.
Regarding Claim 13. Tian teaches a method comprising: determining a first number by running a learning-based process, wherein the first number is associated with a current sample: [(Fig.2 the Encoder’s output, yt , or the sigma associated with it. Fig.2 the encoder is generating Hyper prior therefore learning is being used. Also see section 2.2. )] obtaining a quantization parameter and a threshold parameter [(equation 3-4; L, sigma_max and sigma_min, clamp/truncation function with lower bound and upper bound; section 3.3 , “To ensure seamless quantization across the encoding and decoding phases of Ie, we employ a calibration precision ϵ and identify the distribution parameters (i.e., elements in Ie) that may encounter
transboundary quantization” )] determining a quantized value based on at least the quantization parameter for the first number: [(Equation 6, 8; “Q” )] determining a boundary value based on the quantization parameter and the first number: [(equation 7 )] responsive to determining that the first number is not within the threshold parameter from the boundary value, outputting the quantized value: [(Equation 9; also see section 3.4 )] and responsive to determining that the first number is within the threshold parameter from the boundary value [(Equation 9 )], performing several steps comprising: determining a second number based on the boundary value: and outputting the second number. [(Equation 9 QD )]
Tian does not explicitly show setting a flag for the current sample: encoding the flag into a safeguard bitstream
However, in the same/related field of endeavor, Lasserre teaches that setting encoding flag into safeguard bitstream to indicate information about quantized and entropy coded residual [(para 104 )]
Therefore, in light of above discussion it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the teaching of the prior arts because such combination would enhance signalling between encoder and decoder and decoder can selectively decode utilizing information of the flag.
Additional limitations of following claims are taught by Tian
14. The method of claim 13, wherein the sample is one of a group consisting of: a point in point cloud, a pixel in an image, and a pixel in a video. [(sections 2 & 3 )]
15. The method of claim 13, wherein performing the several steps further comprises adding the current sample to a sample set. [(Fig.3 and section 3.3 )]
16. The method of claim 13, wherein determining the first number comprises: passing at least one data point through an artificial intelligence (AI) model, wherein the learning-based process is the AI model. [(Fig.2 )]
17. The method of claim 13, wherein determining the first number comprises passing a bitstream through a synthesis block to generate the first number. [(Fig.2 encoder and yper prior )]
18. The method of claim 17, wherein determining the first number further comprises passing an output of the synthesis block through a bitstream matching process to generate the first number. [(section 3.4 and Fig.2 )]
19. The method of claim 18, wherein passing the output of the synthesis block through the bitstream matching process comprises using a probability bitstream (PBS) generated by an encoder. [(section 3.4 and Fig.2 )]
20. The method of claim 13, wherein the method is performed within a decoding process. [(Fig.2 )]
Regarding Claim 21: This claim is obvious based on analysis of claim 13 and Fig.18 of Lasserre
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Shahan Rahaman whose telephone number is (571)270-1438. The examiner can normally be reached on 7am - 3:30pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nasser Goodarzi can be reached at telephone number (571) 272-4195. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/SHAHAN UR RAHAMAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2426
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