DETAILED ACTION
[1] Remarks
I. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
II. Claims 1-14 are pending and have been examined, where claims 1-7 and 11-14 is/are rejected, and claim 8-10 is/are allowable. Explanations will be provided below.
III. Inventor and/or assignee search were performed and determined no double patenting rejection(s) is/are necessary.
IV. Patent eligibility (updated in 2019) shown by the following: Claims 1-14 pass patent eligibility test because there is/are no limitation or a combination of limitations amounting to an abstract idea. Also, the following limitation or the combinations of the limitations:
- “responsive to detecting an object of a group of classes of a predefined group of classes in the at least one of the image, the video frame, or the point cloud frame, setting (1003) a target bit rate of an encoder to a specific value based on the object; responsive to not detecting any object that belongs to any of the predefined group of classes in the at least one of the image, the video frame, or the point cloud frame”
- “filling (1503) a buffer with one of uncompressed sensor output or with encoding at a highest bit rate of the different bit rates; sending (1505) at least one frame to a control system for analysis; receiving (1507) an instruction from the control system to encode at a specified bit rate”
effect a transformation or a reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing / adds a specific limitation(s) other than what is well-understood, routine and conventional in the field, or adding unconventional steps that confine the claim to a particular useful application and providing improvements to the technical field of bitrate adjustment algorithm, which recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application and amounting significant more.
V. The PCT application, PCT/SE2022/050809, is considered and the examiner determined no reference prior art are relevant to the claims of the current application.
[2] Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
Use of the word “means” (or “step for”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim element is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) (pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph). The presumption that 35 U.S.C. 112(f) (pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph) is invoked is rebutted when the function is recited with sufficient structure, material, or acts within the claim itself to entirely perform the recited function. Absence of the word “means” (or “step for”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim element is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) (pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph). The presumption that 35 U.S.C. 112(f) (pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph) is not invoked is rebutted when the claim element recites function but fails to recite sufficiently definite structure, material or acts to perform that function.
Claim elements in this application that use the word “means” (or “step for”) are presumed to invoke 35 U.S.C. 112(f) except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Similarly, claim elements that do not use the word “means” (or “step for”) are presumed not to invoke 35 U.S.C. 112(f) except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
Claim(s) 1-14 does not require 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA U.S.C. 112 6th paragraph interpretation because they are method claims and / or they are CRM claims.
Upon examination of the specification and claims, the examiner has determined, under the best understanding of the scope of the claim(s), rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(a)/(b) is not necessitated because of the following reasons: sufficient support are provided in the written description / drawings of the invention.
[3] Grounds of Rejection
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
1. 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.
2. Claims 1-3 and 5-7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wei (US 20200380698) in view of Abousleman (US 6661842).
Regarding claim 1, Wei discloses a method, performed by a control system having a machine vision algorithm, the method comprising:
receiving at least one of an image, a video frame, or a point cloud frame (see figure 4, 420 image sensor captures images and sends to 410, 410 receives image(s));
responsive to detecting an object of a group of classes of a predefined group of classes in the at least one of the image, the video frame, or the point cloud frame, setting a target bit rate of an compression circuit FB the compression circuit);
responsive to not detecting any object that belongs to any of the predefined group of classes in the at least one of the image, the video frame, or the point cloud frame, setting the target bit rate to one of a default bit rate and a current bit rate (see paragraph 28, when the foreground and background signal SFB represents the image of in the interested region ROIA of the post-processed image is a background image, the image compression circuit 430 can compress the image of in the interested region ROIA by a lower bit rate, where the background is one class and foreground belong to another class, the bite rate is adjusted when the background is detected which is the other class); and
sending an instruction to the compression circuit
Wei is does not explicitly include an encoder in a compression circuit. However, Abousleman teaches implementing an encoder in a compression circuit (see figure 4, 416 encoder is within 400 which is the circuit). The combination of Wei and Abousleman as a whole discloses all the limitations of claim 1.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include implementing an encoder in a compression circuit reduce, and represent large amounts of input data, such as, multiple signal lines or high-dimensional data, into a smaller, more efficient binary code format, allowing for reduced storage and faster transmission.
Regarding claim 2, Wei discloses the method of claim 1, wherein setting the target bit rate of the encoder to the specific value comprises: responsive to the object being in a first predefined group, setting the target bit rate to a first value (see paragraph 28, when the foreground and background signal SFB represents the image of in the interested region ROIA of the post-processed image is a background image, the image compression circuit 430 can compress the image of in the interested region ROIA by a lower bit rate, the higher bitrate is read as the bitrate); and responsive to the object being in a second predefined group, setting the target bit rate to a second value different from the first value (see paragraph 28, the lower bit rate is read as the second bit rate).
Regarding claim 3, Wei discloses the method of claim 2, wherein the first value is higher than the second value (see paragraph 28, when the foreground and background signal SFB represents the image of in the interested region ROIA of the post-processed image is a background image, the image compression circuit 430 can compress the image of in the interested region ROIA by a lower bit rate, the higher bitrate is read as the bitrate and the lower bit rate is read as the second bit rate).
Regarding claim 5, Abousleman discloses the method of claim 1, wherein receiving at least one of an image, a video frame, or a point cloud frame comprises receiving an encoded image, an encoded video frame or an encoded point cloud frame from the encoder (see figure 4, 416 encoder is within 400 which is the circuit which outputs encoded video frame, 402 are the frames received by 400). See the motivation for claim 1. In addition, including “receiving an encoded image, an encoded video frame or an encoded point cloud frame from the encoder” in order to optimize the balance between visual/spatial quality and available transmission bandwidth which prevents delays within the network.
Regarding claim 6, the combination Wei and Abousleman as a whole discloses the method of claim 5 wherein sending an indication to the encoder of a bit rate to use comprises: sending a target bit rate to the encoder responsive to an object of the predefined group of classes being detected (see paragraph 52, therefore this system will adaptively adjust to distribute a bit rate of the stream to use for the kind of interested target objects, encoder is disclosed by Abousleman); and responsive to no object of the predefined group of classes being detected, performing one of sending a default target bit rate to the encoder or not sending any bit rate to the encoder thereby indicating that a current target bit rate should be maintained (see paragraph 52, a sub-region image of in an interested region is classified to an image group having a foreground pedestrian, as to the compression of the parent image, a bit rate of the interested region will be increased. When a sub-region image of in an interested region is classified to an image group without a foreground pedestrian, if it is the background then there’s no object present). See the motivation for claim 1.
Regarding claim 7, Abousleman discloses the method of claim 1, wherein sending the instruction to the encoder of a bit rate to use comprises sending information about which part of a video sequence or a point cloud sequence should be compressed at which bit rate (see column 13, lines 25-31, formation process 1300 begins by obtaining an encoding rate (R) 1302 from a pool of encoding bit rates 1304 that includes a range of rates, the pool of encoding bit rates 1304 may include a range of rates from one bit-per-sample to eight bits-per-sample in one-bit increments, after an encoding rate (R) is obtained 1302 from the pool of encoding bit rates 1304). See the motivation for claim 1. In addition, “sending information about which part of a video sequence or a point cloud sequence should be compressed at which bit rate” in order to optimize the balance between visual/spatial quality and available transmission bandwidth.
3. Claims 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wei (US 20200380698) in view of Abousleman (US 6661842) and Wen (US 20080165861).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Wei and Abousleman as a whole discloses all the limitations of claim 1, but is silent in disclosing the method of claim 1, wherein responsive to there being a plurality of objects detected: determining one or more groups of classes of the predefined group of classes to which the plurality of objects belong to determining a highest bit rate of target bit rates associated with the one or more groups of classes; and setting the target bit rate to the highest bit rate. Wen discloses the method of claim 1, wherein responsive to there being a plurality of objects detected: determining one or more groups of classes of the predefined group of classes to which the plurality of objects belong to determining a highest bit rate of target bit rates associated with the one or more groups of classes (see paragraph 49, encoding systems embodying the present invention can also classify MBs into different classes of spatial ROI and non-spatial ROI MBs with different levels of priorities); and setting the target bit rate to the highest bit rate (see paragraph 49, the intelligent encoder can assign spatial ROI MBs to have the highest priority, the lowest quantization parameter, the highest target bitrate).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include determining one or more groups of classes to which objects belong and then selecting the highest bit rate among the associated target bit rates is a in order to balance, high-quality data retention with limited bandwidth or storage. Selecting the highest bitrate from these target options ensures that the most important objects are rendered with sufficient detail, preventing motion blur or pixelation
3. Claims 11-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wen (US 20080165861) in view of Senarath (US 6778499).
Regarding claim 11, Wen discloses a method performed by an encoder configured to use different bit rates, the method comprising:
encoding video frames at a lowest bit rate of the different bit rates (see paragraph 49, the non-spatial ROI MBs having the lowest overall priority can be assigned the highest quantization parameter, the lowest target bitrate);
sending at least one frame to a control system for analysis (see figure 1, 102 sends frames to 112 for analysis);
receiving an instruction from the control system to encode at a specified bit rate (see paragraph 31, the incoming video is received at an option generator 302 that generates the options for the encoding operation, in view of the resources and constraints as noted above, then an encoding rule generator 304 determines the encoding parameter settings that will be selected for the video content and resources available).
Wen is silent in disclosing filling a buffer with one of uncompressed sensor output or with encoding at a highest bit rate of the different bit rates and encoding data in the buffer at the specified bit rate.
Senarath discloses filling a buffer with one of uncompressed sensor output or with encoding at a highest bit rate of the different bit rates (see figure 1, 36 filled with uncompressed data from sensor) and encoding data in the buffer at the specified bit rate (see figure 1, 18 data channel encoder encodes data in the buffer and also see column 7, lines 22-25, filled with uncompressed data from sensor, the controller remains in state 54. 55: When the controller enters this state, R(t) is preferably set to a rate of RMAX, which is the maximum possible data rate of the bursty data stream, R(t) may be set to a value which is slightly greater than RMAX, where if LBUF (t) falls below a threshold occupancy level LL3):
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It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include encoding data in the buffer at the specified bit rate in order
to manage the trade-off between data quality and resource constraints, primarily bandwidth and storage capacity. It also ensures the data stream does not exceed the available network bandwidth.
Regarding claim 12, Senarath discloses the method of claim 11, further comprising: periodically sending at least one frame of encoded data from the buffer to the control system for further analysis (see figure 1, 38 and also see column 4, lines 59-64, controller 38 follows a sequence of steps for processing the buffer occupancy level LBUF (t) and the system parameters in order to generate a signal indicative of a desired output rate, denoted R(t), and a signal indicative of a desired output power level, denoted P(t)); receiving a second instruction from the control system to encode at a new specified bit rate (see figure 2 illustration below); and encoding data in the buffer at the new specified bit rate (column 7, lines 22-25, filled with uncompressed data from sensor, the controller remains in state 54. 55: When the controller enters this state, R(t) is preferably set to a rate of RMAX, which is the maximum possible data rate of the bursty data stream, R(t) may be set to a value which is slightly greater than RMAX, where if LBUF (t) falls below a threshold occupancy level LL3):
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See the motivation for claim 11. In addition, periodically sending at least one frame of encoded data from a buffer to a control system to maintain system stability, safeguarding data integrity, and allowing real-time analysis without overloading the receiver.
Regarding claim 13, Senarath discloses the method of claim 12 wherein the second instruction indicates the new specified bit rate as the lowest bit rate and instructs the encoded to dismiss the data in the buffer (see column 4, lines 17-21, data stream produced by the data source 12 is typically bursty in nature, with a bit rate that varies in time between a minimum bit rate RMIN and a maximum bit rate RMAX and possibly one or more intermediate bit rates, also when data overflow in the data buffer, data will be remove). See the motivation for claim 11. In addition, “instructs the encoded to dismiss the data in the buffer” to reduce the outgoing data rate to prevent the receiver’s buffer from emptying (underflow), which would cause a video pause.
Regarding claim 14, Senarath discloses the method of claim 11, wherein the instruction and the second instruction specify which part of a video sequence or a point cloud sequence should be compressed at which bit rate (see figure 1 illustration below):
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See the motivation for claim 11. It also ensures the data stream does not exceed the available network bandwidth.
[4] Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8-10 are allowable for the reasons above.
Muthiah (US 20210400302) discloses a method performed by a control system having a machine vision algorithm, the method comprising:
receiving at least one frame from an encoder (see paragraph 50, the encoder in the video capture unit at the capture point dynamically determines the bit rate based on the current capture compared to the previous capture);
using the machine vision algorithm for detection and classification of one or more objects in the at least one frame (see paragraph 52, It should be noted that any suitable machine leaning model can be used, such as, but not limited to, a region convolutional neural network (R-CNN) and a spatial pyramid pooling network, the R-CNN is read as machine learning algorithm), the machine vision algorithm producing a
sending an instruction towards the encoder to use a new bit rate or a modification of a current target bit rate based
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Riguer (US 20210092424) discloses framerate adjustment unit 302 adjusts the framerate based on the available computing resources in accordance with reprojection scores for those clients. In one example, the framerate adjustment unit 302 considers all reprojection scores for all clients and reduces framerate for those clients that have higher reprojection scores and are more amenable to reprojection (see paragraph 37) but is silent in disclosing the machine vision algorithm producing a score indicating how certain the machine vision algorithm is about the detection and classification of the one or more objects and sending an instruction towards the encoder to use a new bit rate or a modification of a current target bit rate based on the score responsive to one or more objects being detected.
Combining Muthiah and Riguer to form a rejection is improper, as it improperly 'piecemeals' the prior art without providing a sound rationale for combining them.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALEX LIEW (duty station is located in New York City) whose telephone number is (571)272-8623 (FAX 571-273-8623), cell (917)763-1192 or email alexa.liew@uspto.gov. Please note the examiner cannot reply through email unless an internet communication authorization is provided by the applicant. The examiner can be reached anytime.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, MISTRY ONEAL R, can be reached on (313)446-4912. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ALEX KOK S LIEW/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2674 Telephone: 571-272-8623
Date: 1/28/26