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
The amendments to the claims, filed on 01/07/2026, have been entered and made of record.
Claims 1-16 are pending with claims 1, 7-12, 14, and 16 being amended.
Response to Arguments
Arguments presented in the Remarks (“Remarks") filed on 01/07/2026 have been fully considered, but are rendered moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection necessitated by amendment(s) initiated by the applicant(s).
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 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 of this title, 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 1-2, 7, and 9-16 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (“Lee”) [U.S Patent Application Pub. 2014/0241422 A1] in view of Furht et al. (“Furht”) [US 2021/0044818 A1] in further view of Hu et al. (“Hu”) [US 2020/0288126 A1]
Regarding claim 1, Lee meets the claim limitations as follows:
An image decoding method [Fig. 6, 8] performed by an image decoding apparatus [Fig. 5], the image decoding method comprising:
obtaining a flag (i.e. ‘scaling factor’) [Fig. 6: S610; para. 0017, 0022: ‘adjusting the QP difference value based on the scaling factor’; ‘extracting from a received bitstream a scaling factor’] for representing whether adaptive resolution change is applied to a current image (i.e. ‘a current block’) from a bitstream [para. 0017, 0022: ‘generating a bitstream including the scaling factor’];
obtaining resolution information (e.g. ‘QP_pred’, ‘dQP’ or ‘dQP_scale’) [Eq. 5; Eq. 7; para. 0011, 0017, 0022: ‘a QP value of a current block’] for representing an index for a ratio (i.e. ‘a quantization parameter QP’) [para. 0007: ‘Qstep … may be indexed by a quantization parameter (QP)’] related to the adaptive resolution change based on the flag;
the adaptive resolution changed current image (i.e. ‘Acquire QP value of current block’ or QP_curr in Eq. 5, Eq. 7) [Eq. 5; Eq. 7; Fig. 8: ‘S840’. Note: Fig. 3B show ‘mapping of a quantization step size QStep (i.e. candidate resolution) with a QP value (i.e. quantization parameter)], based on a flag for representing whether DMVR (Decoder side Motion Vector Refinement) is applied to the current image; and
decoding the current image [Fig. 5, 8].
Lee does not disclose explicitly the following claim limitations (emphasis added):
obtaining a flag for representing whether adaptive resolution change is applied to a current image from a bitstream;
obtaining resolution information for representing an index for a ratio related to the adaptive resolution change based on the flag;
obtaining a flag for representing whether DMVR is applied to the adaptive resolution changed current image, based on a flag for representing whether DMVR (Decoder side Motion Vector Refinement) is applied to the current image;
However in the same field of endeavor Furht discloses the deficient claim as follows:
obtaining a flag for representing whether adaptive resolution change [Fig. 4; para. 0007, 0039, 0056: ‘Determining using the bit stream, whether an adaptive resolution management mode is enabled’] is applied to a current image from a bitstream;
obtaining resolution information for representing an index [para. 0030, 0033-0034, 0042, 0057, 0059: ‘an index of a stored scaling constants’; ‘The decoder …, an index into a resolution list characterizing allowed resolutions’] for a ratio related to the adaptive resolution change based on the flag;
obtaining a flag for representing whether DMVR is applied to the adaptive resolution changed current image [Fig. 4; para. 0007, 0039, 0056: ‘decoder having circuitry is configured …, determine, … whether an adaptive resolution management mode is enabled’], based on a flag for representing whether DMVR (Decoder side Motion Vector Refinement) is applied to the current image;
Lee and Furht are combinable because they are from the same field of video compression.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Lee and Furht as motivation to signal adaptive resolution information in accordance with the video standards [Furht: Section Background].
Furht does not disclose explicitly the following claim limitations (emphasis added):
obtaining a flag for representing whether DMVR is applied to the adaptive resolution changed current image, based on a flag for representing whether DMVR (Decoder side Motion Vector Refinement) is applied to the current image;
However in the same field of endeavor Hu discloses the deficient claim as follows:
obtaining a flag for representing whether adaptive resolution change [Fig. 4; para. 0007, 0039, 0056: ‘Determining using the bit stream, whether an adaptive resolution management mode is enabled’] is applied to a current image from a bitstream;
obtaining resolution information for representing an index [para. 0030, 0033-0034, 0042, 0057, 0059: ‘an index of a stored scaling constants’; ‘The decoder …, an index into a resolution list characterizing allowed resolutions’] for a ratio related to the adaptive resolution change based on the flag;
obtaining a flag [para. 0060: ‘whether decoder side motion vector refinement (DMVR)’] for representing whether DMVR is applied to the adaptive resolution changed current image, based on a flag for representing whether DMVR (Decoder side Motion Vector Refinement) is applied to the current image;
Lee, Furht and Hu are combinable because they are from the same field of video compression.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Lee, Furht and Hu as motivation to include quantization step sizes in a horizontal, vertical and/or diagonal direction in accordance with various video codec standards [Hu: para. 0003, 0060]
Regarding claim 2, Lee meets the claim limitations as follows:
The image decoding method of claim 1, wherein the resolution information (i.e. ‘a scaling factor and adjusted QP difference value’, e.g. ‘QP_pred’, ‘dQP’ or ‘dQP_scale’) [Fig. 8: S810] specifies one of one or more candidate resolutions (i.e. QP_curr in Eq. 7) [Fig. 3A, 8: S820; para. 0022, 0032, 0070-0078, 0099: ‘estimating a predicted QP value of a current block’ to determine the QP value of the current block based on the predicted QP value, the scaling factor, and the adjusted QP difference value].
Regarding claim 7, Lee meets the claim limitations as follows:
The image decoding method of claim 1, wherein the resolution information comprises a width value of the current image whose resolution has been changed [See rejection of claim 1 limitation “changing a resolution of the current image to the determined resolution” [Eq. 5, Eq. 7: ‘Acquire QP value of current block’ or QP_curr] and a height value of the current image whose resolution has been changed [See rejection of claim 1 limitation “changing a resolution of the current image to the determined resolution” [Eq. 5, Eq. 7: ‘Acquire QP value of current block’ or QP_curr].
Lee does not disclose explicitly the following claim limitations (Emphasis Added):
wherein the resolution information comprises a width value of the current image whose resolution has been changed and a height value of the current image whose resolution has been changed.
However in the same field of endeavor Hu discloses the deficient claim as follows:
wherein the resolution information comprises [para. 0060: ‘the value of a step size in any of a horizontal direction, a vertical direction, and/or a diagonal direction …may depend on … quantization parameters’] a width value (i.e. the value of a step size in ‘a horizontal direction’) of the current image whose resolution has been changed and a height value (i.e. the value of a step size in ‘a vertical direction’) of the current image whose resolution has been changed.
Lee, Furht and Hu are combinable because they are from the same field of video compression.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Lee, Furht and Hu as motivation to include quantization step sizes in a horizontal, vertical and/or diagonal direction in accordance with various video codec standards [Hu: para. 0003, 0060]
Regarding claim 9, Lee meets the claim limitations as follows:
The image decoding method of claim 1, wherein the resolution information (e.g. ‘QP_pred’, ‘dQP’ or ‘dQP_scale’) [Eq. 5; Eq. 7; para. 0011, 0017, 0022: ‘a QP value of a current block’] is obtained from the bitstream based on a first flag (i.e. ‘scaling factor’) [Fig. 6: S610; para. 0017, 0022: ‘adjusting the QP difference value based on the scaling factor’; ‘extracting from a received bitstream a scaling factor’] obtained from the bitstream specifying that resolution change is applied.
Lee does not disclose explicitly the following claim limitations (emphasis added):
wherein the resolution information is obtained from the bitstream based on a first flag obtained from the bitstream specifying that resolution change is applied.
However in the same field of endeavor Furht discloses the deficient claim as follows:
wherein the resolution information is obtained from the bitstream based on a first flag [Fig. 4; para. 0007, 0039, 0056: ‘Determining using the bit stream, whether an adaptive resolution management mode is enabled’] obtained from the bitstream specifying that resolution change is applied.
Lee and Furht are combinable because they are from the same field of video compression.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Lee and Furht as motivation to signal adaptive resolution information in accordance with the video standards [Furht: Section Background].
Regarding claim 10, Lee meets the claim limitations set forth in claim 1.
Lee does not disclose explicitly the following claim limitations:
The image decoding method of 9, wherein the first flag is obtained from a first level of the bitstream and the resolution information is obtained from a second level of the bitstream, and wherein the first level is a higher level than the second level.
However in the same field of endeavor Furht discloses the deficient claim as follows:
wherein the first flag [Fig. 4; para. 0007, 0039, 0056: ‘Determining using the bit stream, whether an adaptive resolution management mode is enabled’; para. 0033:’ARM on/off signal may be provided in an SPS using sps_ref_pic_resampling_enabled_flag’] is obtained from a first level (i.e. ‘an SPS’) of the bitstream and the resolution information (i.e. ‘Scaling factors’) [para. 0034-0035: ‘(PPS) may be used to signal scaling factors’] is obtained from a second level (i.e. ‘PPS’) of the bitstream, and wherein the first level is a higher level than the second level.
Lee and Furht are combinable because they are from the same field of video compression.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Lee and Furht as motivation to signal adaptive resolution information in accordance with the video standards [Furht: Section Background].
Regarding claim 11, Lee meets the claim limitations set forth in claim 1.
Lee does not disclose explicitly the following claim limitations:
The image decoding method of claim 1, further comprising obtaining information on a first coding tool based on a first flag obtained from the bitstream specifying that resolution change is applied.
However in the same field of endeavor Furht discloses the deficient claim as follows:
further comprising obtaining information [Fig. 4; para. 0007, 0039, 0056: ‘Determining using the bit stream, whether an adaptive resolution management mode is enabled’; para. 0033:’ARM on/off signal may be provided in an SPS using sps_ref_pic_resampling_enabled_flag’] on a first coding tool (i.e. ‘an SPS’ in a slice header or tile header) [para. 0040] based on a first flag obtained from the bitstream specifying that resolution change is applied.
Lee and Furht are combinable because they are from the same field of video compression.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Lee and Furht as motivation to signal adaptive resolution information in accordance with the video standards [Furht: Section Background].
Regarding claim 12, Lee meets the claim limitations as follows:
Lee does not disclose explicitly the following claim limitations:
The image decoding method of claim 11, wherein the information on the first coding tool comprises one or more of information specifying whether decoder side motion vector refinement (DMVR) is used, information specifying whether bi-directional optical flow (BDOF) is used, information specifying whether prediction refinement with optical flow (PROF) is used, information specifying whether wraparound motion compensation is used, information specifying whether temporal motion vector prediction (TMVP) is used, or information specifying a resampling filter for resolution change.
However in the same field of endeavor Hu discloses the deficient claim as follows:
wherein the information on the first coding tool comprises one or more of information specifying whether decoder side motion vector refinement (DMVR) is used [para. 0060: ‘whether decoder side motion vector refinement (DMVR) is applied or not’], information specifying whether bi-directional optical flow (BDOF) is used, information specifying whether prediction refinement with optical flow (PROF) is used, information specifying whether wraparound motion compensation is used, information specifying whether temporal motion vector prediction (TMVP) is used, or information specifying a resampling filter for resolution change.
Lee, Furht and Hu are combinable because they are from the same field of video compression.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Lee, Furht and Hu as motivation to include quantization step sizes in a horizontal, vertical and/or diagonal direction in accordance with various video codec standards [Hu: para. 0003, 0060].
Regarding claim 13, Lee meets the claim limitations as follows:
The image decoding method of claim 1, further comprising obtaining a quantization parameter difference value (i.e. ‘an adjusted QP difference value’) from a picture header of the bitstream [para. 0102, 0112, 0117: ‘a picture header … of a bitstream’, ‘an adjusted QP difference value of each block … included in the bitstream’] based on a first flag obtained from the bitstream specifying that resolution change is applied.
Lee does not disclose explicitly the following claim limitations (emphasis added):
further comprising obtaining a quantization parameter difference value from a picture header of the bitstream based on a first flag obtained from the bitstream specifying that resolution change is applied.
However in the same field of endeavor Furht discloses the deficient claim as follows:
further comprising obtaining a quantization parameter difference value from a picture header of the bitstream based on a first flag [Fig. 4; para. 0007, 0039, 0056: ‘Determining using the bit stream, whether an adaptive resolution management mode is enabled’; para. 0033:’ARM on/off signal may be provided in an SPS using sps_ref_pic_resampling_enabled_flag’] obtained from the bitstream specifying that resolution change is applied.
Lee and Furht are combinable because they are from the same field of video compression.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Lee and Furht as motivation to signal adaptive resolution information in accordance with the video standards [Furht: Section Background].
Regarding claim 14, all claim limitations are set forth as claim 14 in the form of “An image encoding method” which is a reverse-engineering process of the image decoding method in claim 1 and rejected as per discussion for claim 1. Lee [Fig. 1, 4, 6, 9], Furht [Fig. 6, 7] and Hu [Fig. 3, 5] disclose “An image encoding method”.
Regarding claim 15, Lee meets the claim limitations as follows:
A computer-readable recording medium storing a bitstream generated by the image encoding method of claim 14 [para. 0037].
Regarding claim 16, all claim limitations are set forth as claim 14 in the form of A method of transmitting a bitstream and rejected as per discussion for claim 14.
Claims 3-4 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee in view of Furht in further view of Hu in further view of Takahashi et al. (“Takahashi”) [US 2009/0067737 A1]
Regarding claim 3, Lee meets the claim limitations set forth in claim 2 as follows:
The image decoding method of claim 2, wherein the candidate resolutions are determined based on number information of the candidate resolutions (i.e. QP_curr in Eq. 5, Eq. 7) [Fig. 3B ‘mapping of a quantization step size QStep (i.e. candidate resolution) with a QP value (i.e. quantization parameter)] and ratio information (e.g. 0.75 or 1.25 in light of Specification; p. 0183-0185: Table 9) [Fig. 3B: shows ratio information of QSteps: 0.625, …, 1.25] of the candidate resolutions, and wherein the number information and the ratio information are obtained from the bitstream [para. 0017, 0060: ‘generating a bitstream including the scaling factor and the adjusted QP difference value’].
Lee does not disclose explicitly the following claim limitations (emphasis added):
wherein the candidate resolutions are determined based on number information of the candidate resolutions and ….
However in the same field of endeavor Takahashi discloses the deficient claim as follows:
wherein the candidate resolutions (i.e. quantization step size) [para. 0008-0012, 0074. Note that each QP corresponds to a certain quantization step size or scale] are determined based on number information of the candidate resolutions (i.e. ‘the number of quantization bits’) [para. 0074: the number of resolutions 2n] and ….
Lee, Furht, Hu and Takahashi are combinable because they are from the same field of video compression.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Lee, Furht, Hu and Takahashi as motivation to adjust the quantization step sizes based on the number of quantization bits to ‘provide highest encoding performance by adjust a balance between the quality of an image and a channel capacity’ [Lee: para. 0068] or ‘provide a decoded result having a quality preferable to humans’ [Takahashi: para. 0003, 0011].
Regarding claim 4, Lee meets the claim limitations set forth in claim 3.
Lee does not disclose explicitly the following claim limitations (emphasis added):
The image decoding method of claim 3, wherein the ratio information specifies one of one or more resolution ratios included in a predetermined table.
However in the same field of endeavor Furht discloses the deficient claim as follows:
wherein the ratio information specifies one of one or more resolution ratios included in a predetermined table (i.e. ‘the list’) [para. 0030, 0033-0034, 0042, 0057, 0059: ‘an index of a stored scaling constants’; ‘an index of a resolution and/or a relative factor of scaling, such a factor from the list’].
Lee and Furht are combinable because they are from the same field of video compression.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Lee and Furht as motivation to signal adaptive resolution information in accordance with the video standards [Furht: Section Background].
Claim 5 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee in view of Furht in further view of Hu in further view of Takahashi in further view of De Lagrange et al. (“DeLagrange”) [US 2022/0360781 A1]
Regarding claim 5, Lee meets the claim limitations set forth in claim 3.
Lee does not disclose explicitly the following claim limitations (emphasis added):
The image decoding method of claim 3, wherein the ratio information comprises ratio information for a width of the candidate resolutions and ratio information for a height of the candidate resolutions.
However in the same field of endeavor DeLagrange discloses the deficient claim as follows:
wherein the ratio information comprises ratio information (i.e. QP or ‘quantization matrix’) [Abstract, 0003-0004] for a width of the candidate resolutions and ratio information for a height of the candidate resolutions [Abstract, 0003-0004; 0057-0062: Table 4-5: size Ids of various blocks].
Lee, Furht, Hu Takahashi and DeLagrange are combinable because they are from the same field of video compression.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Lee, Furht, Hu, Takahashi and DeLagrange as motivation to have quantization step sizes (i.e. the quantization matrix) for each block size to allow adaptation to image content, and thus results in better visual quality [DeLagrange: Abstract].
Claim 6 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee in view of Furht in further view of Hu in further view of Zhu et al. (“Zhu”) [US 2016/0205404 A1]
Regarding claim 6, Lee meets the claim limitations set forth in claim 1.
Lee does not disclose explicitly the following claim limitations:
The image decoding method of 1, wherein the resolution information comprises resolution information in a width direction and resolution information in a height direction, and wherein the resolution information in the width direction specifies one of one or more candidate resolution information included in a predetermined table, and the resolution information in the height direction specifies one of the candidate resolution information included in the predetermined table.
However in the same field of endeavor Hu discloses the deficient claim as follows:
wherein the resolution information comprises resolution information [para. 0060: ‘the value of a step size in any of a horizontal direction, a vertical direction, and/or a diagonal direction …may depend on … quantization parameters’] in a width direction (i.e. ‘a horizontal direction’) and resolution information in a height direction (i.e. ‘a vertical direction’), and wherein the resolution information in the width direction specifies one of one or more candidate resolution information included in a predetermined table, and the resolution information in the height direction specifies one of the candidate resolution information included in the predetermined table.
Lee and Hu are combinable because they are from the same field of video compression.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Lee and Hu as motivation to include quantization step sizes in a horizontal, vertical and/or diagonal direction in accordance with various video codec standards [Hu: para. 0003].
Lee does not disclose explicitly the following claim limitations (emphasis added):
wherein the resolution information in the width direction specifies one of one or more candidate resolution information included in a predetermined table, and the resolution information in the height direction specifies one of the candidate resolution information included in the predetermined table.
However in the same field of endeavor Zhu discloses the deficient claim as follows:
wherein the resolution information in the width direction specifies one of one or more candidate resolution information included in a predetermined table, and the resolution information in the height direction specifies one of the candidate resolution information included in the predetermined table (e.g. itableintra, itableinter) [para. 0095, 0107: ‘The structures itableintra and itableinter are lookup tables. Given inputs I, j, and QP , a selected one of the tables returns a quantization step size’].
Lee, Furht, Hu and Zhu are combinable because they are from the same field of video compression.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Lee, Furht, Hu and Zhu as motivation to include tables of quantization step sizes in accordance with various video codec standards [Zhu: para. 0002, 0004: “rate control”].
Claim 8 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee in view of Furht in further view of Hu in further view of De Lagrange et al. (“DeLagrange”) [US 2022/0360781 A1]
Regarding claim 8, Lee meets the claim limitations set forth in claim 1.
Lee does not disclose explicitly the following claim limitations (emphasis added):
The image decoding method of claim 1, wherein the resolution information comprises resolution information on a luma component of the current image and resolution information on a chroma component of the current image.
However in the same field of endeavor DeLagrange discloses the deficient claim as follows:
wherein the resolution information comprises resolution information (i.e. QP or ‘quantization matrix’) [Abstract, 0003-0004] on a luma component of the current image and resolution information on a chroma component of the current image [Abstract, 0003-0004; 0057-0062: Table 2, 4-5: size Ids of various blocks of luma and chroma].
Lee and DeLagrange are combinable because they are from the same field of video compression.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Lee and DeLagrange as motivation to have quantization step sizes (i.e. the quantization matrix) for each block size to allow adaptation to image content, and thus results in better visual quality [DeLagrange: Abstract].
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/PETER D LE/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2488