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 Amendment
This is in response to applicant’s amendments/remarks filed on March 31st, 2026, which have been entered and made of record. Claims 1-7 remain pending, claims 8-20 have been cancelled and claims 21-33 have been newly added. Claims 1 and 2 have been amended. Applicant’s amendments to the drawings, specifications and claims have overcome each and every objection previously set forth in the Non-Final Office Action mailed January 14th, 2026 and therefore, all have been withdrawn.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks pages 14-16, filed March 31st, 2026, with respect to the rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made under 35 U.S.C. 103 in view of the incorporation of the prior art of Zou being combined with Laroche (see claim 1 below). Additionally, applicant’s arguments in relation to dependent claim 7 has been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection related to claim 7 has been withdrawn and has now been objected to. It would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims (see claim 7 below).
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 1-3, 21-23 and 28-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Laroche et al. (Pub. No.: US 2018/0253867 A1), hereinafter Laroche, in view of Zou et al. (Pub. No.: US 2025/0124606 A1), hereinafter Zou.
Regarding claim 1, Laroche discloses a method for video decoding (Paragraph 15 teaches that the present invention provides a method for encoding a textured three-dimensional mesh model into a bitstream, the textured 3D mesh model being composed of polygons between connected vertices, the method comprising the steps of obtaining texture data and of encoding the texture data in a bitstream), the method performed by at least one processor (Paragraph 51 teaches that at least parts of the methods according to the invention may be computer implemented.) and comprising:
obtaining, from a bitstream, a mesh representing an encoded volumetric data of at least one three-dimensional (3D) visual content (Paragraph 71 teaches that the present invention relates generally to the encoding of textured three-dimensional (3D) objects into a bitstream, usually textured 3D mesh models made of a plurality of points, for instance connected vertices forming triangles. The present invention particularly seeks to provide improvements to the coding of the texture data that define the mapping of texture portions onto the polygons forming the 3D mesh model.);
and decoding the encoded volumetric data based on a base mesh quantization of the mesh (Paragraph 99 teaches that the bitstream 301 is extracted and split into subparts 302 to 307 corresponding to each coded data from the connectivity, geometry and property data. Each of them is entropy decoded and decompressed or inverse predicted (blocks 312 to 317). As mentioned for the encoding process, the prediction can be based on the decoded connectivity data 332 and paragraph 100 teaches that next, the decoded geometry and property data are dequantized at blocks 323 to 327 and inserted in the 3D object file 351 together with the connectivity data 332.),
the base mesh quantization comprises predicting a current vertex by already coded vertex positions by a parallelogram prediction (Paragraph 138 teaches that the parallelogram-based prediction introduces a new vertex P as shown in FIG. 4 to form a triangle from the edge AC, such that the ABCP form a parallelogram. Vertex P is thus used as a predictor for the current vertex to encode.). However, Laroche fails to disclose that the prediction is a multi-parallelogram prediction.
Zou discloses that the prediction is a multi-parallelogram prediction (Paragraph 110 teaches that a compression encoding technology can be used to encode the connectivity of the second mesh, where the compression encoding technology may be the Edgebreaker (EB) algorithm and paragraph 128 teaches that a parallelogram predictive encoding algorithm is used to perform geometric encoding on the second mesh. It should be understood that in other implementations, geometric encoding may alternatively be performed by using a difference predictive encoding algorithm, a multi-parallelogram predictive encoding algorithm, or in other manners, which is not specifically limited here.). Since Laroche teaches a method for video decoding that can use parallelogram predictions and discloses in paragraph 94 that it is known in the art that improved parallelogram-based predictors have been developed including for instance, combining two or more parallelogram predictors together and Zou teaches a method for decoding data that can be related to video input and that multi-parallelogram predictions can be used if necessary, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to have combined the functions together, so that the parallelogram predictions being utilized could either be singular parallelogram predictions or multi-parallelogram predictions.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Laroche to incorporate the teachings of Zou, so that multi-parallelogram predictions could be used which according to paragraph 94 of Laroche, would be considered an improvement by using more than one parallelogram prediction an could include implementing a multi-parallelogram prediction, if necessary.
Furthermore, Laroche in view of Zou disclose quantizing a prediction residue thereof by a quantization step value (Paragraph 121 of Laroche teaches that most of the geometry encoders use a uniform scalar quantization. The number of quantization bits usually ranges from 8 to 16. Of course, higher numbers may be considered for higher precision. The mesh geometry is consequently slightly altered contrary to the mesh connectivity.),
and both compressing the quantized prediction residue and reconstructing a position of the current vertex by adding a de-quantized prediction residue of the quantized prediction residue to the multi-parallelogram prediction as a reference for other vertices (Paragraph 129 of Laroche teaches that next to the quantization, the position of a current vertex to encode is predicted using the geometry data (i.e. position) of the already-encoded neighbors, i.e. the other vertices connected to the current vertex that have already been encoded and paragraph 130 of Laroche teaches that if the prediction is accurate, the prediction error is small, so it can later be efficiently entropy coded. Furthermore, paragraph 100 of Laroche teaches that the decoded geometry and property data are dequantized at blocks 323 to 327 and inserted in the 3D object file 351 together with the connectivity data 332 and paragraph 101 teaches that the obtained 3D object file 351 is the same as original textured 3D mesh model 201 except for the losses due to the quantization/dequantization processes. Additionally, FIG. 5 and paragraphs 129-130 of Zou teach that as shown in FIG. 5, the second mesh includes four vertices a, b, c, and d, and the four vertices form two triangles shown in FIG. 5. Geometry information of vertex a, vertex b, and vertex c has been encoded, and geometry information of vertex d is to be encoded. In this case, predicted geometry coordinates corresponding to vertex d can be calculated by Formula 4 and paragraphs 133-134 of Zou teach that where Δd(x,y,z) is the geometric prediction residual corresponding to vertex d, d′(x,y,z) is the predicted geometry coordinates corresponding to vertex d, and d(x,y,z) is the real geometry coordinates corresponding to vertex d. In this way, after the geometric prediction residual corresponding to each vertex is obtained, the geometric prediction residual corresponding to each vertex is entropy encoded to generate the fourth sub-bitstream. Lastly, paragraphs 136-138 of Zou teach that optionally, the encoding attribute information corresponding to the second mesh to generate the fifth sub-bitstream includes: performing entropy encoding on the attribute prediction residual corresponding to each vertex in the second mesh to generate the first target sub-bitstream, where the attribute prediction residual corresponding to each vertex is determined through attribute prediction encoding on each vertex; and encoding the texture map of the second mesh to generate a second target sub-bitstream.).
Regarding claim 2, Laroche in view of Zou disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), in addition, Laroche in view of Zou disclose wherein the base mesh quantization further comprises, temporally between quantizing the prediction residue and reconstructing the position of the current vertex, de-quantizing the quantized prediction residue (FIG. 3 and paragraph 98 of Laroche teach that FIG. 3 illustrates general steps of the corresponding bitstream decoding process, into a textured 3D mesh model, in the context of SC3DMC. The Figure is self-explicit since it produces the inverse process as the one of FIG. 2 and paragraphs 100-101 teach that the decoded geometry and property data are dequantized at blocks 323 to 327 and inserted in the 3D object file 351 together with the connectivity data 332. Obtained 3D object file 351 is the same as original textured 3D mesh model 201 except for the losses due to the quantization/dequantization processes.).
Regarding claim 3, Laroche in view of Zou disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), in addition, Laroche in view of Zou disclose wherein the base mesh quantization comprise determining to directly code a position of a vertex of the mesh, by quantizing the position by a positive integer and entropy encoding the quantized position, based on the vertex being determined to be a temporally first vertex to be coded of the mesh (Paragraphs 119 and 120 of Laroche teach that the conventional scalar quantization consists in transforming the floating-point number positions into integer positions. A mesh bounding box encompassing the 3D mesh, usually the smallest box (e.g. a rectangular cuboid) including the 3D mesh, is first determined, and then partitioned into a 3D grid. The number of cells per axis depends on the maximum integer that can be coded with the number of quantization bits. The size of each cell can either be uniform or non-uniform. Each vertex of the mesh is approximated with a reference position of the cell to which it belongs, e.g. of the cell center. The integer position is then composed of the three index coordinates of the cell reference position. Additionally, paragraph 156 teaches that the TFAN-based encoding 705 of the connectivity data 701 usually modifies the order in which the vertices are originally defined in the RAW file. The vertex mapping table 706 stores this order modification, making it possible to reorder (707) the geometry data 702 before encoding (708). The vertex mapping table 706 defines, at rank n, the new vertex position of vertex n in the new connectivity order.).
Regarding claim 21, the method for video encoding steps correspond to and are rejected similarly to the method for decoding steps of claim 1 (see claim 1 above). In addition, Laroche in view of Zou disclose a method for video encoding (Paragraph 15 of Laroche teaches that the present invention provides a method for encoding a textured three-dimensional mesh model into a bitstream and paragraph 71 of Laroche teaches that the present invention relates generally to the encoding of textured three-dimensional (3D) objects into a bitstream, usually textured 3D mesh models made of a plurality of points, for instance connected vertices forming triangles),
obtaining a mesh representing volumetric data of at least one three-dimensional (3D) visual content (Paragraph 40 of Laroche teaches that obtaining, from the bitstream, connectivity data describing the connectivity between the vertices in the textured 3D mesh model and FIG. 2 and paragraph 55 of Laroche teach that FIG. 2 illustrates general steps of a 3D mesh encoding process, in particular in the context of Scalable Complexity 3D Mesh Compression (SC3DMC));
and encoding the volumetric data based on a base mesh quantization of the mesh (FIG. 7 and paragraph 60 of Laroche teach that FIG. 7 illustrates, using a flowchart, the SC3DMC encoding of connectivity data, geometry data and texture mapping data. Additionally, paragraph 86 of Laroche teaches that the connectivity data (defining the mesh connectivity), geometry data and property data are coded separately. Each of them 212 to 217 is extracted from the original textured 3D mesh model 201 and paragraph 87 of Laroche teaches that these data, except the connectivity data, can be quantized 223 to 227. The quantization is based on the number of bits needed to represent the data. The quantized geometry and property data are predicted and/or encoded directly, e.g. with respective entropy encoders, which may be arithmetic encoders 233 to 237.).
Regarding claim 22, the method for video encoding steps correspond to and are rejected similarly to the method for video decoding steps of claim 2 (see claim 2 above).
Regarding claim 23, the method for video encoding steps correspond to and are rejected similarly to the method for video decoding steps of claim 3 (see claim 3 above).
Regarding claim 28, the non-transitory computer readable medium steps correspond to and are rejected similarly to the method of vide decoding steps of claim 1 (see claim 1 above) and the method of video encoding steps of claim 21 (see claim 21 above). In addition, Laroche in view of Zou disclose a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a program (Paragraph 49 of Laroche teaches that another aspect of the invention relates to a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a program which, when executed by a microprocessor or computer system in a device, causes the device to perform any method as defined above.).
Regarding claim 29, the method steps related to the non-transitory computer readable medium correspond to and are rejected similarly to the method of video encoding steps of claim 22 (see claim 22 above).
Regarding claim 30, the method steps related to the non-transitory computer readable medium correspond to and are rejected similarly to the method of video encoding steps of claim 23 (see claim 23 above).
Claims 4-6, 24-26 and 30-32 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Laroche in view of Zou (as applied to claim 1) and further in view of Ramasubramonian et al. (U.S Patent: #11,924,428 B2), hereinafter Ramasubramonian.
Regarding claim 4, Laroche in view of Zou disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 1), however, Laroche in view of Zou disclose fail to disclose wherein the quantization step value is a dyadic rational comprising a numerator m and a denominator that is a power of two raised to a value n, and both the numerator m and the value n are both integers.
Ramasubramonian discloses wherein the quantization step value is a dyadic rational comprising a numerator m and a denominator that is a power of two raised to a value n, and both the numerator m and the value n are both integers (Col 12, Lines 3-12 teach that in some examples, an original point cloud may be represented in a floating point format or at a very high bitdepth. The input point cloud is quantized and voxelized at a certain bitdepth, denoted by voxelization unit 206 of G-PCC encoder 200 in FIG. 2. A quantization may be applied at G-PCC encoder 200 in voxelization unit 206 for the purpose of voxelization, and a scaling may be performed at G-PCC decoder 300, mainly for the mapping of the decoded point cloud (i.e., in voxel units), in application specific physical space (i.e., in physical dimension) and Col. 12, Lines 28-31 teach that the Syntax elements that indicate the signaled scale factor numerator (sps_source_scale_factor_numerator_minus1) and denominator (sps_source_scale_factor_denominator_minus1) are shown in the table below. Additionally, Col. 12, Lines 40-45 teach that the Quantization/Scaling of geometry coordinates/positions within the codec, or geometry scaling as it is referred to in G-PCC, is controlled by a flag in the geometry parameter set (GPS) and a quantization parameter (QP) value. The QP value may be specified/modified in multiple levels of a syntax structure and lastly Col. 17, Lines 51-61 teach that for some point cloud data, it may not be necessary to have a large number of QP values for every doubling of step size. In general, the more QP values for every doubling of step size, the more fine control G-PCC encoder 200 and G-PCC decoder 300 have over the quantization and scaling processes. However, for sparse content, it may be sufficient to have fewer QP values for every doubling of step sizes, or in some cases just 1 QP value (this translates to step sizes being a power of 2).). Since Laroche in view of Zou teach the initial method steps for video decoding involving quantizing prediction residue by using quantized step values and Ramasubramonian teaches a quantized step value that comprises of a numerator and denominator, which consist of integers, that make up a dyadic rational and that each step size is a power of 2, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to have combined the functions together, so that the quantized step value being used would consist of a step value that was made up of a proper dyadic rational value consisting of a numerator and a denominator that is a power of 2.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Laroche in view of Zou to incorporate the teachings of Ramasubramonian, so that the combined functionality would allow for more efficient, accurate and optimized functionality when performing any type of computational arithmetic function involving the quantized step value being in a dyadic rational form.
Regarding claim 5, Laroche in view of Zou and Ramasubramonian disclose everything claimed as applied above (see claim 4), in addition, Laroche in view of Zou and Ramasubramonian discloses wherein the numerator m is a first integer greater than zero (Col. 16, Lines 43-54 In some cases, scaled versions of the above values may be used for fixed-point implementation (e.g., values 4, 5, 6, 7); a shift and rounding operations may be accompanied to apply the correct scale factor. The QP value of 0 corresponds to the lossless case (scale value 1) and the QP step sizes doubles for every four QP values. The step sizes may be derived as follows, where floor( ) stands for the floor operation: qS=(¼)*[4+(QP mod 4)]*2.sup.floor(QP/4). The resultant step sizes for most QPs are integers, but some non-integer step sizes are also specified.),
and wherein the value n is a second integer that is greater than or equal to zero (Col. 18 Lines 56-63 of Ramasubramonian teaches that the G-PCC encoder 200 may be configured to determine a parameter value k that is used to derive the actual precision of the scaling step sizes. The value of k may be an integer value that is restricted to be in the range of 0 to K, inclusive. For example, when the parameter value k=0, then the QP values are allowed to take the full precision of QP values (e.g., 8 QP points for each doubling of the step size used at G-PCC decoder 300).).
Regarding claim 6, Laroche in view of Zou and Ramasubramonian discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 5), in addition, Laroche in view of Zou and Ramasubramonian discloses wherein the quantization step value is signaled by at least signaling the numerator m and the value n in the bitstream (Col. 12, Lines 28-31 of Ramasubramonian teach that the syntax elements that indicate the signaled scale factor numerator (sps_source_scale_factor_numerator_minus1) and denominator (sps_source_scale_factor_denominator_minus1) are shown in the table below and Col. 21 Lines 52-60 of Ramasubramonian teach that for example, for spatial scalability, only step size with a power of 2 may be used in some examples. Other step sizes may not provide sufficient benefit when such tools are enabled, and this configurable parameter value k provides an easy way to prevent the selection of such step sizes. Due to these reasons, the parameter value k (also called a QP refinement factor), may be signaled in the GPS along with other syntax elements related to geometry-specific tools.).
Regarding claim 24, the method for video encoding steps correspond to and are rejected similarly to the method for video decoding steps of claim 4 (see claim 4 above).
Regarding claim 25, the method for video encoding steps correspond to and are rejected similarly to the method for video decoding steps of claim 5 (see claim 5 above).
Regarding claim 26, the method for video encoding steps correspond to and are rejected similarly to the method for video decoding steps of claim 6 (see claim 6 above).
Regarding claim 31, the method steps related to the non-transitory computer readable medium correspond to and are rejected similarly to the method of video encoding steps of claim 24 (see claim 24 above).
Regarding claim 32, the method steps related to the non-transitory computer readable medium correspond to and are rejected similarly to the method of video encoding steps of claims 25 and 26 (see claims 25 and 26 above).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7, 27 and 33 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 an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
Claim 7 would be allowable for disclosing wherein the quantization step value is signaled, in the bitstream by a “mesh_position_quantization_step_size_log2_denominator” syntax and a “mesh_position_quantization_step_size_numerator_minus1” syntax.
Claim 27 would be allowable for disclosing wherein the quantization step value is signaled, in the bitstream by a “mesh_position_quantization_step_size_log2_denominator” syntax and a “mesh_position_quantization_step_size_numerator_minus1” syntax.
Claim 33 would be allowable for disclosing wherein the quantization step value is signaled, in the bitstream by a “mesh_position_quantization_step_size_log2_denominator” syntax and a “mesh_position_quantization_step_size_numerator_minus1” syntax.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Vytyaz et al. (U.S. Patent: #11,631,218 B2) teaches techniques for efficient compressing of triangular mesh data and predicting neighboring vertices of a triangle within a triangular mesh.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to George Renze whose telephone number is (703)756-5811. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9:00am - 6:00pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Xiao Wu can be reached at (571) 272-7761. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/G.R./Examiner, Art Unit 2613
/XIAO M WU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2613
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