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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, filed 3/17/2026, with respect to the rejection of claims 1-4, 7, 8, 11, 12, and 18-20 under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and of claims 13-15 under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Specifically, the examiner is persuaded that Aubie does not disclose: “the respective location metadata comprising a rendering position for the respective partial frame. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground of rejection is made in view of the newly found prior art, Mate et al., US 2024/0357106 A1, hereafter “Mate”.
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 1-3, 11, 12, and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by anticipated by Mate, US 2024/0357106 A1.
Regarding claim 1, Mate discloses: one or more processors comprising:
one or more circuits to:
capture, from data generated by an application, a plurality of partial frames according to a sampling rate;
generate, based on the plurality of partial frames, a plurality of packet groups (See [0260], which discloses with respect to figure 3 a type of single network abstraction layer packet that contains a subpicture header.), each packet group comprising one or more packets storing a respective partial frame of the plurality of partial frames and respective location metadata for the respective partial frame, the respective location metadata comprising a rendering position for the respective partial frame (See [0227], and [0270], disclosing subpic layout parameters are sent in an SPS packet.);
and
transmit the plurality of packet groups to a receiver system accessing the application (See [0268], disclosing sending subpicture header usage to user devices (UEs) in figure 8).
Regarding claim 2, Mate discloses: the one or more processors of claim 1, wherein the one or more circuits are to capture the plurality of partial frames at respective temporal positions (See [0184] in Mate, which discloses VVC subpicture feature that allows for partitioning of a VVC bitstream in a flexible manner as multiple rectangles representing subpictures.).
Regarding claim 3, Mate discloses the limitations of claim 1, upon which claim 3 depends. Mate does not disclose: the one or more processors of claim 1, wherein the one or more circuits are to transmit each of the plurality of packet groups based at least on the sampling rate (See [0127], disclosing, “For transport over packet-oriented networks or storage into structured files, NAL units may be encapsulated into packets or similar structures.”).
Regarding claim 11, Mate discloses: the one or more processors of claim 1, wherein the one or more
processors are comprised in at least one of:
a control system for an autonomous or semi-autonomous machine;
a perception system for an autonomous or semi-autonomous machine;
a system for performing simulation operations;
a system for performing digital twin operations;
a system for performing light transport simulation;
a system for performing collaborative content creation for 3D assets;
a system for performing deep learning operations (See [0245], disclosing, “Neither RFC 7798 nor any other document provides support to enable parallel decoding such that the output of the individual decoders need not wait for all the constituent subpictures. Such support would allow for low latency content reception and/or decoding, which can be of use in new applications such as machine learning based content analysis.”);
a system implemented using an edge device;
a system implemented using a robot;
a system for performing conversational AI operations;
a system for performing generative AI operations;
a system implemented using a large language model (LLM);
a system implemented using a vision language model (VLM);
a system for generating synthetic data;
a system incorporating one or more virtual machines (VMs);
a system implemented at least partially in a data center; or
a system implemented at least partially using cloud computing resources.
System claims 12 and 17 are rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as provided above with respect to processor claims 1 and 11, respectively.
Method claims 18-20 are drawn to the method of using the corresponding apparatus claimed in claims 1-3, respectively. Therefore, method claims 18-20 correspond to apparatus claims 1-3, respectively, and are rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as used above.
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 4, 7, and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mate. in view of Aubie, US 2021/0058582 A1.
Regarding claim 4, Mate discloses the limitations of claim 1, upon which claim 4 depends. Mate does not disclose: the one or more processors of claim 1, wherein the one or more circuits are to capture the plurality of partial frames according to a sampling pattern (See [0108], disclosing spatial sampling frequency (reduction by two in horizontal direction.).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the applicant’s effective filing date to perform a spatial subsampling of a video in the manner described in Aubie in the context of the subpicture encoding method of Mate. Doing so would have conferred the benefit of reducing encoder resource requirements while preserving compression efficiency and perceived end-user quality. See Aubie [0017].
Regarding claim 7, Mate discloses the limitations of claim 1, upon which claim 7 depends. Mate does not disclose: the one or more processors of claim 1, wherein the plurality of partial frames are captured for a video stream to be presented at a refresh rate, and wherein the one or more circuits are to determine the sampling rate based at least on the refresh rate at which the video stream is to be presented
However, Aubie discloses this limitation in an analogous art. See abstract: “The output sequence has an output temporal resolution equal to the input temporal resolution and an output spatial resolution equal to a predetermined fraction 1/N of the input spatial resolution by an integer number N higher than or equal to 2.” The temporal sampling rate and spatial sampling rate are correlated, such that the spatial sampling rate and the temporal sampling rate have a product equal to a predetermined fraction. See [0023], [0103].
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the applicant’s effective filing date to incorporate the feature, disclosed in Aubie, of determining the sampling rate for the video data disclosed in Mate based on a refresh rate for the video stream, in order to provide a predetermined reduction in the amount data contained in the video. See Aubie
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Mate in view of Aubie discloses the limitations of claim 7, upon which claim 8 depends. This combination, specifically Aubie, further discloses: the one or more processors of claim 7, wherein the sampling rate is at least twice the refresh rate at which the video stream is to be presented (See figure 2, showing temporal up-sampling T=4/f at SSE23 and SSE33).
Claims 13-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mate, in view of Mikami, US 2009/0210756 A1.
Regarding claims 13, Aubie discloses the limitations of claim 12, upon which depends claim. Aubie does not disclose: system of claim 12, wherein the one or more processors are to generate the frame using an accumulator buffer.
However, Mikami discloses in an analogous art a frame restoration method utilizing an accumulation buffer for accumulating frame fragments for reassembly. See figure 2.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the applicant’s effective filing date to incorporate into the temporal and spatial subsampling encoder of Aubie the accumulator buffer disclosed in Mikami, in order to facilitate frame restoration of partial frames/downsampled frames into their full resolution frame units.
Regarding claim 14, the combination of Aubie in view of Mikami discloses the limitations of claim 13, upon which depends claim 14. This combination, specifically Mikami, further discloses: the system of claim 13, wherein the one or more processors are to clear the accumulator buffer responsive to rendering the frame (“The split frame accumulation buffer unit is then cleared when the split frames are not inputted within a fixed monitoring time.”).
Regarding claim 15, Aubie discloses the limitations of claim 12, upon which depends claim 15. Aubie does not disclose: the system of claim 12, wherein the one or more processors are to update the frame responsive to receiving a packet comprising a partial frame.
Mikami discloses this limitation in an analogous art. See figures 5a and 5b, showing accumulation of split frame elements over time. See [0027].
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the applicant’s effective filing date to incorporate the feature of updating a partial frame upon receipt of further partial frame elements, as disclosed in Mikami, in order to facilitate frame restoration.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 6, 9, and 16 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 and any intervening claims.
Regarding claim 5, Aubie does not disclose: the one or more processors of claim 4, wherein the one or more circuits are to:
capture a first partial frame according to the sampling pattern and a first position; and
capture a second partial frame according to the sampling pattern and a second position that is different from the first position.
Regarding claim 6, Aubie discloses: the one or more processors of claim 5, wherein the one or more circuits are to shift the sampling pattern to determine the second position (S).
While Aubie disclosing spatial subsampling of frames, as in [0108], it does so using the same spatial sampling pattern for each frame, not by using a shifted sampling pattern from one frame to the next, as claimed in claims 5 and 6.
Regarding claim 9, Aubie discloses: the one or more processors of claim 1, wherein the one or more circuits are to capture the plurality of partial frames according to at least one of a temporal zig zag pattern or a temporal Halton sequence.
Aubie does not disclose a zigzag pattern or Halton sequence for partial frame capture, instead relying on spatial sub-sampling to reduce the pixel resolution.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KYLE M LOTFI whose telephone number is (571)272-8762. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00-5:00.
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/KYLE M LOTFI/ Examiner, Art Unit 2425
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