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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of Species I in the reply filed on 4/26/2026 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that species 6 and 7 are not distinct species because species 6 recites the manner that the first and second image attributes appearing in generic alim 1 are generated, and species 7 relates to the manner in which the N video frame sequences in claim 1 are obtained and thus neither species is mutually exclusive in relation to species 1-5.
This is not found persuasive because the applicant is arguing against a basis for requiring election which was not presented by the examiner. In regard to species 6 and 7 the examiner indicated that the field of search of each of species 6 and 7 was distinct from that required for species 1-5. MPEP 808.01(a) indicates that an applicant may be required to elect species where there is a patentable difference between species and a serious search and/or examination burden would result from requiring an election. Thus the applicants argument in regard to mutual exclusivity, is not persuasive because it is not the proper test for whether species may be restricted.
In the case of species 6 and 7 each presents a patentably distinct aspect of the elements of claim 1. Species 6 describing specific metrics related to texture and scene used to determine the first and second attributes, which makes the species patentably distinct from species 1-5 and 7 as those species are not limited to the particular metrics of species 6. Likewise, species 7 describes generating segments using a scene recognition model to segment a video into N video segments where as species 1-6 are not limited to the use of a scene recognition model. Since the species are related to patentably distinct species and represent a serious search burden on the examiner the inclusion of species 6 and 7 in the requirement for election of species is proper.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Claims 3-5, 8-10, 14-15 and 17 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected species, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Applicant timely traversed the restriction (election) requirement in the reply filed on 4/26/2026.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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.
Claim(s) 1 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hamilton et al (7,746,927).
In regard to claim 1 Hamilton discloses a video processing method, performed by a computer device, comprising:
obtaining N video frame sequences of an input video, each video frame sequence comprising at least one video frame image, and N being an integer greater than 1 (Hamilton Fig. 1 and col. 3 lines 31-34 note plurality of GOPS as N video frame sequences, each GOP including a plurality of frames);
obtaining an ith video frame sequence and an adjacent (i-1)th video frame sequence from the N video frame sequences, I being an integer greater than 1 (Hamilton Fig. 1 note GOPs 1-n, also note Fig. 2 and col. 9 lines 22-46 note current (i-1)th and next ith GOP);
obtaining a first video frame image from the ith video frame sequence, and obtaining a second video frame image from the (i-1)th video frame sequence, the first video frame image corresponding to a first image attribute, and the second video frame image corresponding to a second image attribute (Hamilton col. 7 lines 1-7 note determining over/underused bits for each frame);
obtaining first computing power corresponding to encoding of the (i-1)th video frame sequence Hamilton col. 5 line 66 to col. 8 line 42 note determining a frame complexity of previously encoded frames); and
determining an encoding parameter of the ith video frame sequence according to at least one of the first computing power, the first image attribute, and the second image attribute (Hamilton col. 6 line 6 to col. 7 line 59 note determining the value of the quantization parameter, quant based on the frame complexity and the buffer fullness).
In regard to claim 11 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Hamilton further discloses encoding the ith video frame sequence based on the encoding parameter of the ith video frame sequence to obtain an ith encoded video segment (Hamilton Fig. 2 and col. 9 lines 26-46 note encoding the video frames of a GOP based on GOP encoding parameters).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 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.
Claim(s) 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hamilton in view of Zhang (2018/0332278).
Claims 18 and 20 describe and apparatus and computer readable medium storing instructions which implement steps substantially corresponding to the method of claim 1 above. Refer to the statements made in regard to claim 1 above for the rejection of claims 18 and 20 which will not be repeated here for brevity.
In particular regard to claims 18 and 20, it is noted that Hamilton does not explicitly disclose an apparatus with a processor and a memory that executes stored instructions. However Zhang discloses video processing performed on an apparatus comprising a processor and a memory that executes stored instructions (Zhang Fig. 1 and pars 41-44).
It is therefore considered obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention would recognize the advantage of implementing the process of Hamilton on an apparatus like the one disclosed by Zhang in order to implement the process on a wide variety of devices as suggested by Zhang (Zhang par. 42).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 6-7, 12-13 and 19 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Dependent claims 2. 6-7 and 19 require determining an encoding parameter by comparing a computing power to a threshold and a first image attribute to a second image attribute.
The closest art is Hamilton, in addition to the limitations of claim 1 from which they depend, which discloses determining an encoding parameter based on a computing power and first and second image attributes. Chaung et al (2015022912) par. 26 discloses determining various encoding parameters based on previously used encoding parameters. Sjobert et al (2017/0041621) pars 175-178 discloses determining processing times for current and previous pictures. Sunwoo et al (2018/0152711) pars 10-11 discloses determining a CU division depth based on CU division depths used in past frames. However, none of the arts, alone or in combination discloses the particular combination of comparisons required by claims 2, 6-7 and 19.
Dependent claims 12-13, in addition to the limitations of claim 1 from which they depend, require that the encoder parameter of an ith frame comprises a coding unit division depth, a prediction unit division depth, a first transform unit division depth, a first maximum pixel range, a first sub-pixel estimation complexity and a first search range. The closest art is Hamilton which discloses determining an encoding parameter based on a computing power and first and second image attributes. Chaung et al (2015022912) par. 26 discloses determining various encoding parameters including CU depth, PU size, TU size and motion vectors based on previously used encoding parameters. for current and previous pictures. Sunwoo et al (2018/0152711) pars 10-11 discloses determining a CU division depth based on CU division depths used in past frames. However, none of the arts, alone or in combination discloses the selecting particular combination parameters require by claim 12 based on image attributes or computing power as indicated by claim 1.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20030156643 A1 Song, Byung-Cheol
US 20130010859 A1 SCHWAAB; Manuel et al.
US 20140321535 A1 KIM; Seong-Hee
US 20210127117 A1 Pan; Hao et al.
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/JEREMIAH C HALLENBECK-HUBER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2481
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