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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 3/12/2026 has been entered.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 3-5, 13-14, 28-31 and 36-43 have been considered but are moot because they relate to newly amended limitations for which new art Chen is applied.
In the Remarks filed 3/12/2026 the applicant asserts that the combination of Zhang and Jeong is directed only to increasing a number of candidates and are not directed to replacement. As noted in the rejection below, pruning is a prior art technique commonly applied to motion candidate lists in which identical motion entries are removed from the candidate list as no additional compression benefit is provided by repeated motion vector entries. New art Chen is introduced to teach this pruning technique and further indicates that temporal motion candidates may be pruned and are replaced with additional candidates to fill the motion candidate list. The combination of Zheng and Jeong, as noted by the applicant, is directed to generating these additional candidates to ensure a list is full.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 3-5, 13-14, 28-31 and 36-43 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang et al (2021/0368187) in view of Jeong (2020/0252617) and in further view of Chen et al (20180086325).
In regard to claim 1 Zhang discloses a method for decoding, the method comprising:
obtaining an ordered list of a plurality of positions in a spatial neighborhood of a current block in a picture (Zhang pars 71-98 note construction of a merge candidate list which includes a plurality of positions in a spatial neighborhood of a current block as described in Fig. 2 and pars 83-84);
using at least one position of the ordered list of the plurality of positions to extract a first motion information (Zhang pars 90-91 note extracting first information of an initial candidate from a first reference picture list to generate a combined bi-predictive candidate);
deriving a motion vector predictor from the first information and second motion vector information (Zhang Fig. 7 and pars 90-91 note generating an additional, bi-predictive candidate, using first and second motion information form the candidate list)
inserting the derived motion vector predictor in a list of motion vector predictor candidates used for the current block (Zhang Fig. 7 and par. 91, note inserting the combined bi-predictive candidate into the merge candidate list).
Zhang discloses generating additional motion vectors to be added to a merge candidate list (Zhang pars 90-98). It is noted that Zhang does not disclose details of a symmetric motion vector predictor. However, Jeong discloses a method of deriving a symmetric motion vector predictor from first motion information, the symmetric motion vector predictor having a first motion vector pointing to a first reference picture (Jeong pars 377-380 note determining a base motion vector in a list 0 or list 1 direction pointing to a first reference picture) and a second motion vector pointing to a second reference picture (Jeong pars 379-380 note determining a second reference picture in an opposite direction from the first, further note determining a second motion vector pointing at the second reference picture by reversing the sign of the base motion vector), the first reference picture and the second reference picture being symmetric with respect to the picture comprising the current block (Jeong par. 380 note the second reference picture is on the opposite side and at the same distance to the current frame as the first reference picture and is thus symmetric), a sum of the first and second motion vectors being null (Jeong par. 380 note the second motion vector is generated by reversing the sign of the base motion vector hence adding the second motion vector to the base motion vector will give a null value).
It is therefore considered obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention would recognize the advantage of including the symmetric motion vector predictor of Jeong as an additional merge candidate in the merge candidate list of Zhang in order to generate a bi-directional vector candidate from a single uni-directional vector as suggested by Jeong (Jeong pars 377-380).
As noted above, Zhang and Jeong discloses adding additional merge candidates, including a symmetric merge candidate to a merge candidate list when a number of candidates in a merge candidate list is less than a maximum number (Zhang pars 90-92). Zhang further discloses pruning operations (Zhang pars 132-146). It is noted that neither Zhang or Jeong disclose details of replacing temporal motion vector predictors. However, Chen discloses constructing a merge candidate list including one or more temporal motion vector predictors (TMVP) which may be added to the list, then removed from the list by pruning (Chen par 326 note first and second TMVP added to a motion candidate list, also note pars 237-328 TMVPs may be pruned). Chen further discloses replacing missing TMVP candidates with additional candidates to (Chen par. 324).
It is therefore considered obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention would recognize the advantage of including a pruning operation as taught by Chen in the invention of Zhang a Jeong, that removes TMVP candidates by pruning and replaces the missing TMVP candidate with additional motion candidates such as the symmetric motion vector of Zhang and Jeong, in order to avoid using duplicate candidates in the motion candidate list as suggested by Chen (Chen par. 328).
In regard to claim 3 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Zhang further discloses that the ordered list of a plurality of positions comprises at least two positions among:
a first position (A0) at a bottom left corner of the current block (Zhang Fig. 2 and par. 84 note block A0);
a second position (A1) at the bottom left corner of the current block above the first position (Zhang Fig. 2 and par. 84 note block A1);
a third position (B0) at an upper right corner of the current block (Zhang Fig. 2 and par. 84 note block B0);
a fourth position (B1) at an upper right corner of the current block on the left of the fourth position (Zhang Fig. 2 and par. 84 note block B1);
a fifth position (B2) at an upper left corner of the current block (Zhang Fig. 2 and par. 84 note block B2); an
a sixth position (H) at a bottom right corner of the current block (Zhang Fig. 6 and pars. 87-89 note co-located temporal candidate C0 located at a bottom right of the current block);
In regard to claim 4 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 2 above. Zhang further discloses that the second position is before the fourth position in the ordered list of a plurality of positions (Zhang Fig. 2 and pars 83-84 note neighboring blocks are derived in the order of A1->B1->B0->A0->B2, hence the second position A1 is before the fourth position B1).
In regard to claim 5 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Zhang in view of Jeong further discloses that the second motion information is used to obtain one motion vector predictor candidate to be inserted in one list of motion vector predictor candidates for predicting a motion vector of the current block for a merge mode or for an advanced motion vector prediction mode (Jeong pars 377-380 not determining second motion information as part of generating a bi-predicted motion vector; Zhang pars 71-80 note predicting a merge mode candidate using a merge candidate list, further note pars 78-80 and 90-98 additional merge candidates inserted into the merge candidate list).
Claims 13-14, 28-31 and 36-43 describe coding and decoding apparatus, a coding method, and a non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions for executing steps that correspond to the method described in the rejection of claims 1 and 3-6 above. refer to the statements made in regard to claims 1 and 3-6 above for the rejection of claims 13-14, 28-31 and 36-43 which will not be repeated here for brevity. Zhang and Jeong further discloses coding and decoding apparatus (Zhang Figs. 24-25 and pars. 4 and 325; Jeong Fig. 20 and pars 477-478).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JEREMIAH CHARLES HALLENBECK-HUBER whose telephone number is (571)272-5248. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Friday from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, William Vaughn can be reached at (571)272-3922. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/JEREMIAH C HALLENBECK-HUBER/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2481