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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election of group I (claims 1-8) with traverse in the reply filed on 08/11/2025 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that “at least because, as shown below, the claims in Group I and Group II overlap in scope and because there would be no serious search or examination burden if restriction were not required. As the Restriction recognizes, alleged subcombinations are "usually restrictable when the subcombinations do not overlap in scope and are not obvious variants." MPEP § 806.05(d). But even if subcombinations do not overlap in scope and are not obvious variants, "restriction is only proper when there would be a serious search and/or examination burden if restriction were not required." Id. Here, the Restriction does not establish that the above criteria is satisfied at least because each group recites similar, overlapping features as shown in the table below. Furthermore, there would be no serious search or examination burden absent a restriction. The requirements for restriction under MPEP § 806.05(d), therefore, are not satisfied as to the pending claims … Furthermore, regardless of which group is elected, the searched subject matter would be the same. As seen in the table above, a comprehensive search of the elements recited in the claims of Group I would necessarily include a search of the elements recited in the claims of Group II and vice versa. As such, none of the reasons that would establish a serious search burden or examination burden are present here. See Restriction at p. 3. For example, due to the overlapping subject matter across the two groups, searching either group would require searching the same fields and using the same (or substantially similar) search queries. In addition, any alleged prior art applicable to the claims of one group would likely be applicable to the claims of the other group due to their overlapping subject matter. Lastly, given the significant overlap between the elements of the claims in the two groups, as seen in the table above, the claims of the respective groups cannot be said to have acquired a separate status in the art due to a recognized divergence in their subject matter. Applicant, therefore, respectfully submits that there would be no "serious search and/or examination burden if restriction were not required" as is required to support a proper restriction for alleged subcombinations under MPEP § 806.05(d).”
This is not found persuasive for the following reasons:
The instant application requires a restriction because there would be a serious search and examination burden.
For example, one or more of the following reasons apply:
the inventions have acquired a separate status in the art in view of their different classification;
the inventions have acquired a separate status in the art due to their recognized divergent subject matter;
the inventions require a different field of search (for example, searching different classes/subclasses or electronic resources, or employing different search queries);
the prior art applicable to one invention would not likely be applicable to another invention;
(e) the inventions are likely to raise different non-prior art issues under 35 U.S.C. 101 and/or 35 U.S.C. 112, first paragraph.
Furthermore, one or more of the following reasons apply:
According to MPEP § 806.05(d):
“Two or more claimed subcombinations, disclosed as usable together in a single combination, and which can be shown to be separately usable, are usually restrictable when the subcombinations do not overlap in scope and are not obvious variants.
To support a restriction requirement where applicant separately claims plural subcombinations usable together in a single combination and claims a combination that requires the particulars of at least one of said subcombinations, both two-way distinctness and reasons for insisting on restriction are necessary. Each subcombination is distinct from the combination as claimed if:
(A) the combination does not require the particulars of the subcombination as claimed for patentability (e.g., to show novelty and unobviousness), and
(B) the subcombination can be shown to have utility either by itself or in another materially different combination.
See MPEP § 806.05(c). Furthermore, restriction is only proper when there would be a serious search and/or examination burden if restriction were not required. A serious search burden can be evidenced by separate classification, status, or field of search and a serious examination burden can be evidenced by, for example, non-prior art issues relevant to one invention that are not relevant to the other invention.”.
In regards to the two-way distinction and the subcombination shown to have utility by itself, as shown in elected claims 1-8, such as “a method determining vertex edge information of a cuboid, classified in CPC class G06T7/13”. These features are not found in claims 9-16. Further, claims 9-16 are related to a method determining an indication of a position of a centroid vertex inside a second cuboid, classified in CPC class H04N19/167 having separate utility not found in elected claims 1-8.
As emphasized above (bolding/underlining), two-way distinctness, different classes/subclasses and search queries would occur, resulting in, “a serious search and/or examination burden on the examiner if restriction is not required (MPEP § 808.02).”
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Claims 9-16 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 5, 8, 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Lasserre et al., hereinafter referred to as Lasserre (US 2021/0218969 A1).
As per claim 1, Lasserre discloses a method (Lasserre: Abstract) comprising:
determining, by a computing device (Lasserre: [0148]), vertex information (geometric point information) of a colocated first edge, of a first cuboid, associated with a second edge of a second cuboid, wherein the first cuboid is located in a first point cloud associated with content and the second cuboid is located in a second point cloud (Lasserre: Paras. [0036], [0047], [0090], [0145] disclose using predictive coding for a dynamic point cloud, which is a time-ordered sequence of point clouds [claimed first and second point clouds] and a prediction mode that uses a motion vector V=0, based on the prediction on a co-located sub-volume [claimed cuboid] of a temporally-related point cloud. A co-located sub-volume (the first cuboid in the first point cloud) is associated with the current sub-volume (the second cuboid in the second point cloud) which includes their respective edges also being co-located. Using previously coded points from a second point cloud temporally-related to the point cloud to form predictions and thus, the geometric information of the points within this co-located sub-volume defines the vertex information determined for prediction.); and
coding, using a coder and based on the vertex information of the colocated first edge, vertex information of the second edge (Lasserre: Paras. [0129], [0132], [0134] disclose a predicted occupancy pattern is generated from the prediction, and this predicted pattern is used as the basis, at least in part, for selecting a context for coding the occupancy pattern of the current sub-volume ([0132]). The occupancy pattern represents the geometric (vertex) information of the current sub-volume. Therefore, when using the prediction from the co-located sub-volume ([0145]), the geometric information of the co-located sub-volume (the claimed vertex information of the colocated first edge) is used to select a context for entropy coding the geometric information of the current sub-volume (the claimed vertex information of the second edge) and thus, coding the current vertex information based on the colocated vertex information.).
As per claim 5, Lasserre discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the vertex information of the colocated first edge comprises triangular soup (TriSoup) vertex information comprising one or more of:
a presence flag indicating a presence of a vertex on the colocated first edge, or a position of a vertex on the colocated first edge (Lasserre: Para. [0050] discloses coding occupancy flags that indicate whether a sub-volume contains a point.).
As per claim 7, Lasserre discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
selecting, based on the vertex information of the colocated first edge, a probability model (Lasserre: Paras. [0132], [0134] disclose the context-based entropy coder 300 uses the predicted occupancy pattern as the basis, at least in part, for selecting a context for coding the occupancy pattern (i.e., selecting a context [probability model] for entropy coding based on the result of a prediction). The predicted pattern is derived from the prediction, analogous to the vertex information from the colocated edge.), wherein the coding the vertex information of the second edge comprises coding the vertex information of the second edge using the probability model (Lasserre: Para. [0134] discloses once the context is selected, the bit is “coded using an arithmetic coder,” which is an implementation of coding using the selected probability model.).
As per claim 8, Lasserre discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the coding the vertex information of the second edge is further based on a predicting quality of one or more colocated edges located in the first point cloud and associated with one or more neighboring edges of the second edge (Lasserre: Paras. [0139], [0140], [0142] disclose evaluating the likely prediction quality locally by looking at the quality that was realized for parent nodes and disabling prediction-based context selection if the parent node [neighboring region edge] was poorly predicted (i.e., using prediction quality from a neighboring region to adapt the coding of the current region).).
As per claim 21, Lasserre discloses a computing device (Lasserre: [0148]) comprising:
one or more processors (Lasserre: [0148]); and
memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, configure the computing device to (Lasserre: [0148]):
determine vertex information (geometric point information) of a colocated first edge, of a first cuboid, associated with a second edge of a second cuboid, wherein the first cuboid is located in a first point cloud associated with content and the second cuboid is located in a second point cloud (Lasserre: Paras. [0036], [0047], [0090], [0145] disclose using predictive coding for a dynamic point cloud, which is a time-ordered sequence of point clouds [claimed first and second point clouds] and a prediction mode that uses a motion vector V=0, based on the prediction on a co-located sub-volume [claimed cuboid] of a temporally-related point cloud. A co-located sub-volume (the first cuboid in the first point cloud) is associated with the current sub-volume (the second cuboid in the second point cloud) which includes their respective edges also being co-located. Using previously coded points from a second point cloud temporally-related to the point cloud to form predictions and thus, the geometric information of the points within this co-located sub-volume defines the vertex information determined for prediction.); and
code, using a coder and based on the vertex information of the colocated first edge, vertex information of the second edge (Lasserre: Paras. [0129], [0132], [0134] disclose a predicted occupancy pattern is generated from the prediction, and this predicted pattern is used as the basis, at least in part, for selecting a context for coding the occupancy pattern of the current sub-volume ([0132]). The occupancy pattern represents the geometric (vertex) information of the current sub-volume. Therefore, when using the prediction from the co-located sub-volume ([0145]), the geometric information of the co-located sub-volume (the claimed vertex information of the colocated first edge) is used to select a context for entropy coding the geometric information of the current sub-volume (the claimed vertex information of the second edge) and thus, coding the current vertex information based on the colocated vertex information.).
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 2, 4, 6, 22, 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lasserre in view of Kim et al., hereinafter referred to as Kim (US 2021/0217203 A1).
As per claim 2, Lasserre discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the coding the vertex information of the second edge comprises coding the vertex information of the second edge (Lasserre: Paras. [0129], [0132], [0134], [0145] disclose the coding the vertex information of the second edge comprises coding the vertex information of the second edge.).
However, Lasserre does not explicitly disclose “… coding the vertex information of the second edge based on activation information indicating that a copy code mode is enabled for a region, of the first point cloud, corresponding to the colocated first edge.”.
Further, Kim is in the same field of endeavor and teaches coding the vertex information of the second edge based on activation information indicating that a copy code mode is enabled for a region, of the first point cloud, corresponding to the colocated first edge (Kim: Paras. [0010], [0547]-[0548], [0558] disclose using predicted or copied patches. Further, table 11 shows a patch_prediction_mode flag that is signaled for each patch to indicate if it is a new (intra) patch or a predicted patch. This flag serves as the claimed “activation information” to enable the copy code mode.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, and having the teachings of Lasserre and Kim before him or her, to modify the point cloud encoding system of Lasserre to include the activation information indicating copy code mode feature as described in Kim. The motivation for doing so would have been to improve compression and prediction efficiency by providing a configuration that permits reducing the number of redundancies that may exist in the cubic projection techniques.
As per claim 4, Lasserre discloses the method of claim 1 (Lasserre: Abstract),
However, Lasserre does not explicitly disclose “… wherein the colocated first edge comprises a same start point as the second edge located in three-dimensional (3D) space and a same end point as the second edge in 3D space.”.
Further, Kim is in the same field of endeavor and teaches wherein the colocated first edge comprises a same start point as the second edge located in three-dimensional (3D) space and a same end point as the second edge in 3D space (Kim: Paras. [0010], [0522] disclose predicting patches having the same projected shape in different 3D frames. When predicting, delta offsets for placement are signaled. A zero-offset prediction implies the patch is in the same 3D location. The same location is equivalent to having the same start and end points.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, and having the teachings of Lasserre and Kim before him or her, to modify the point cloud encoding system of Lasserre to include the same start and end point feature as described in Kim. The motivation for doing so would have been to improve coding efficiency by providing a configuration that uses prediction techniques that enable an encoder to take advantage of correlations between three-dimensional layers of a point cloud.
As per claim 6, Lasserre discloses the method of claim 1 (Lasserre: Abstract),
However, Lasserre does not explicitly disclose “… further comprising: rendering, based on the coded vertex information, a point cloud frame associated with the content.”.
Further, Kim is in the same field of endeavor and teaches further comprising:
rendering, based on the coded vertex information, a point cloud frame associated with the content (Kim: Para. [0764] discloses after decompression, virtual reality or augmented reality content (which includes the point cloud) may be rendered in real time, for example in a head mounted display.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, and having the teachings of Lasserre and Kim before him or her, to modify the point cloud encoding system of Lasserre to include the rendering, based on the coded vertex information, a point cloud frame associated with the content feature as described in Kim. The motivation for doing so would have been to improve user experience, by providing a configuration that enables the required coded geometric compressed/decompressed content to be received by VR/AR consumer devices.
As per claim 22, the claim(s) recites analogous limitations to claim(s) 2 above, and is/are therefore rejected on the same premise.
As per claim 24, the claim(s) recites analogous limitations to claim(s) 4 above, and is/are therefore rejected on the same premise.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 23 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure and can be viewed in the list of references.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PEET DHILLON whose telephone number is (571)270-5647. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 5am-1:30pm.
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/PEET DHILLON/Primary Examiner
Art Unit: 2488
Date: 10-25-2025