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 .
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) 1-2, 6-7, 13, 19, 31-34, 36-37 and 39-41 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mullakhmetov et al (2020/0382808 hereafter Mull) in view of Chen et al (2020/0128258).
In regard to claim 1 Mull discloses a method for processing a current block within a current picture (Mull Figs. 4-8 and 12-14), the method comprising:
decoding partial motion vector difference (MVD) information of the current block form a coded video bitstream (Mull Fig. 8 step 806 note parsing MVD absolute value information);
determining motion vector predictors (MVPs) (Mull Figs. 5 and 12 note parsing MVP index, further note par. 6 an MVP index indicates a motion vector predictor in a candidate list);
determining complete MVD information by using the partial MVD information to generate a set of MVD hypothesis pairs, wherein the MVD hypothesis pairs comprise any or all combinations of possible MVDs (Mull Fig. 8 steps 802 and 808 and pars 160-162 note building a list of MVDs with all possible combinations of sign values), and wherein determining the complete MVD information further comprises, for each of the MVD hypothesis pairs;
performing bilateral matching on all possible MVD candidates based on the MVP and partial MVD information (Mull Fig. 8 and pars 160-162 note determining a cost of each possible MVD candidate using bilateral matching)
determining a similarity score for the MVD hypotheses (Mull par. 160 note bilateral matching cost, also note par. 151 cost is calculated based on a distortion metric, finally note par. 172 for examples of distortion metrics), wherein the similarity score is one of;
a sum of absolute sample differences (Mull par. 172 note SAD or sum of absolute differences);
a sum of absolute mean-removed sample differences (Mull par. 172 note MSE or mean squared error); and
a sum of squared sample differences (Mull par. 172 note SSD or sum of squared differences); and
determining final prediction blocks of the current block using the complete MVD information and MVPs (Mull Fig. 8 step 809 and par. 162 note selecting an MVD candidate based on the calculated costs).
Mull discloses determining MVD costs based on bilateral matching (Mull par. 160). It is noted that Mull does not disclose details of bilateral matching. However, Chen discloses performing bilateral matching using MVDs (Chen Fig. 14 and pars and that that bilateral matching includes:
determining first and second motion vector predictors (MVPs) (Chen Fig. 2 and pars 11-12 note initial MVs MV0 and MV1 as motion vector predictors);
determining a set of MVD hypothesis pairs comprising all combinations of allowable first and second MVDs (Chen Fig. 2 and par. 12 note motion estimation, which evaluates all potential MVDs within a search range)
determining a first motion vector (MV) based on the first MVD and the possible first MVD of the MVD hypothesis pair (Chen Fig. 2 note dashed line motion vector in block 270a as an example of a motion vector based on a possible MVD):
determining a first prediction block based on the first MV (Chen Fig. 2 note block 250a);
determining a second MV based on the second MVP and the possible second MVD of the MVD hypothesis pair (Chen Fig. 2 note dashed line motion vector in block 270b as an example of a motion vector based on a possible MVD);
determining a second prediction block based on the second MV (Chen Fig. 2 note block 250b);
determining first and second final prediction blocks of the current block using the complete MVD information and the first and second MVPs (Chen Fig. 2 and par. 12 note blocks 250a and 250b determined as the final prediction blocks as a result of motion estimation).
It is therefore considered obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate bilateral template matching as taught by Chen as the bilateral matching of Mull in order to gain the advantage of computing matching costs as required by Mull (Mull par. 160).
In regard to claim 2 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Mull and Chen further discloses further discloses that the partial first and second MVD information includes complete or partial magnitude information for the first and second MVDs and does not include sign information, and determining the complete first and second MVD information includes determining sign information for the first and second MVDs (Mull pars 151-152 note absolute values of MVDs are transmitted without sign information and pars 153-154 sign information is derived by determining cost for each sign combination, further note Chen Fig. 2 note first and second MVs and MVDs MV0’ and MV1’ are determined when performing bilateral matching)
In regard to claim 6 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. further discloses that the partial MVD information includes first and second decoded values, the possible first MVDs of the MVD hypothesis pairs are derived from the first decoded value, and the possible second MVDs of the MVD hypothesis pairs are derived from the possible second MVDs of the MVD hypothesis pairs are derived from the second decoded value (Mull Figs. 5, 8 and 12 note MVP index and absolute values of MVDs as decoded information further note Chen Fig. 2 initial searches are performed around decoded motion vector values).
In regard to claim 7 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 6 above. Mull further discloses that the first decoded value indicates a complete magnitude of an x-component of a first MVD (Mull Fig. 8 step 806 and pars 160-162 note parsing the complete magnitude information of the MVD information (abs(MVD.x), abs(MVD.y) ) , and an x-component of the possible first MVDs of the MVD hypothesis pairs has the magnitude indicated by the first decoded value with either a positive or negative sign (Mull par. 160 and 162 note determining all possible MVD candidates with all possible sign combinations)
In regard to claim 13 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 6 above. Chen further discloses that the first decoded value indicates a partial magnitude indicating possible magnitudes of an x-component of a first MVD, and an x-component of a first MVD, and an x-component of the possible first MVDs of the MVD hypothesis pairs has a magnitude that is one of the possible magnitudes indicated by the first decoded value with either a positive or a negative sign (Chen pars 100-104 note an MVD maybe transmitted with only partial, integer level, precision in which case bi-lateral matching is used to refine the integer MVD information to have fractional pixel accuracy, further note Fig. 2 and pars 11-13 bi-lateral template matching uses an initial motion vector as a first of plural hypothesis pairs of matching points within a search area).
In regard to claim 19 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 6 above. Mull further discloses determining that the first decoded value is greater than a threshold (Mull par. 14 note determining whether or not the first and second MVD candidates are greater than zero).
In regard to claim 31 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Mull and Chen further discloses at least one of the following steps:
decoding a flag from the coded video bitstream, wherein the decoded flag has a value that indicates that the partial MVD information of the current block is present in the coded video bitstream and that the complete MVD information of the current block must be determined (Mull pars 161-162 note value MVSD_idx is transmitted which indicates that an MVD list is to be constructed);
determining that the current block has a motion vector resolution coarser than a certain resolution (Chen par. 103 note performing MVD refinement when the MVD resolution is an at an integer level of coarseness, and not performing MVD refinement when the MVD has a fractional resolution); and
determining than the current picture has a first reference picture with a picture order count (POC) smaller than the POC of the current picture and a second reference picture with a POC smaller than the POC of the current picture.
In regard to claim 41 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Mull further discloses that determining the complete MVD information further comprises using the similarity scores for the MVD hypothesis pairs to select an MVD hypothesis pair of the set of MVD hypothesis pairs that produces the best similarity score, wherein the best similarity score is the similarity score that indicates the smallest differences or the highest similarities between the values of samples of the first and second prediction blocks determined for the MVD hypothesis pair, and wherein the complete MVD information is the selected MVD hypothesis pair (Mull pars 159 and 164 note the selected MVD is the lowest cost MVD).
Claim 32 recites a decoding apparatus which implements steps corresponding to the method of claim 1 above. Refer to the statements made in regard to claim 1 above for the rejection of claim 32 which will not be repeated here for brevity. In particular regard to claim 32 Mull further discloses a decoding apparatus (Mull Fig. 2 and pars 142-148)
Claims 33-34, 36-37 and 39-40 recite an encoding method and apparatus which implements steps corresponding to the decoding method of claims 1-2 and 31 above. Refer to the statements made in regard to claims 1-2 and 31 above for the rejection of claims 33-34, 36-37 and 39-40 which will not be repeated here for brevity. In particular regard to claims 33 and 40 Mull further discloses an encoding method and apparatus (Mull Fig. 1 and pars 106-141)
Claim(s) 3 and 35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mull in view of Chen as applied to claims 1 and 33 above and in further view of Wennersten et al (20190141346).
In regard to claims 3 and 35 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claims 1 and 33 above. It is noted that neither Mull nor Chen disclose details of partial magnitude information based on significant bits. However, Wennersten discloses partial MVD information includes partial magnitude information for one or more of first and second MVDs, and determining the complete MVD information includes determining complete magnitude information for one or more of the first and second MVDs (Wennersten Fig. 2 and pars 35-53 particularly note par. 37 using partial MVD component
x
^
also note pars 43-53
x
^
may represent partial magnitude information of the MVD component x);
wherein the partial magnitude information preferably includes one or more of the most significant bits of a magnitude of one of the first and second MVDs and preferably does not include one or more of the least significant bits of the magnitude of one of the first and second MVDs (Wennersten pars 43-53 note
x
^
may be the magnitude of the x component of the MVD without the least significant bit).
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 further including the partial magnitude MVD technique of Wennersten in addition to or as an alternative to the partial MVD of Mull in order to reduce the size of the MVD representation as suggested by Wennersten (Wennersten par. 37).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 38 and 42-43 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:
Claim 38, in addition to the requirements of the claims from which it depends, further requires coding the partial MVD information based on the relationship between POC values of the reference pictures of the current picture and the POC of the current picture.
The closest arts are Mull, Chen and Wennersten. Mull discloses coding partial MVD information by excluding a sign bit. Chen discloses using an integer MVD as a partial MVD to be refined. Wennersten discloses coding partial MVD information by excluding a least significant bit of an MVD magnitude. However none of the prior arts disclose coding partial MVD information based on the POC relationship between the current picture and two reference frames as required by claim 38.
Claims 42-43, in addition to the requirements of the claims from which they depend, further require selecting an MVD hypothesis pair form among two or more hypothesis pair which share the same best similarity score by either selecting the first hypothesis pair to produce the score or selecting the hypothesis pair with the most similar sign values to the first and second MVPs.
The closest arts are Mull, Chen and Fludkov et al (20140169472). Mull indicates that MVD hypothesis pairs may have a same cost value (Mull par. 160) but merely indicates that costs are sorted in the same order in the encoder and decoder and does not indicate a method of selecting between MVDs with the same cost. Fludkov discloses that when two motion vector candidates have the same best cost value the candidate with the smallest vector magnitude is selected (Fludkov par. 45). However none of the prior arts alone or in combination discloses selecting between plural MVD hypothesis pairs that provide the same best cost value by selecting one hypothesis pair based on order priority or sign similarities as required b claims 42-43 respectively.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
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