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 .
Detailed Action
Response to Amendment
This Office Action is in response to the correspondence on 12/05/2025. Applicant’s argument, filed on 12/05/2025 has been entered and carefully considered. Claims 1-20 are pending.
The 35 USC § 101 rejection for “computer-readable storage medium” is withdrawn based on the claim amendments submitted on 12/05/2025.
The application filed on 06/05/2024 claims priority to PRO 63/507,371 filed on 06/09/2023.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments in the 12/05/2025 Remarks have been fully considered but they are not persuasive because of the following:
Regarding claim 1, 10 and 16, on page 5-6 argues “coefficient of the current block”. While the applicant’s argument points are understood, the examiner respectfully disagrees it is because Wang in view of Han teaches (Wang teaches, Equation 46-51, relationship of rate adjustment with the coefficient, it is obvious to the ordinary skill in the art that the current scope of the claim in taught by the cited prior arts).
Therefore, the rejection is maintained.
Examiner’s Note
Claims 1-9 refer to "A method of processing video data”, Claims 10-18 refer to "A device for processing video data”, and Claims 19-20 refer to "A computer-readable storage medium”. Claims 10-20 are similarly rejected in light of rejection of claims 1-9, any obvious combination of the rejection of claims 1-9, or the differences are obvious to the ordinary skill in the art. It is well known in the art that encoding and decoding are reverse processes of video coding method/system. It is requested to keep the scope of all the independent claims similar for advancing the prosecution.
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 1-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al. (“Low Complexity Trellis-Coded Quantization in Versatile Video Coding”, IEEE Transaction On Image Processing, IEEE, USA, Vol. 30, 01/20/2021) in view of Han et al. (US 20210006792 A1), hereinafter Han.
Regarding claim 1, Wang discloses a method of processing video data, the method comprising (Abstract): determining a quantization level for a coefficient of a current block from a plurality of quantization levels (Page 2382, Equation 28); determining an offset value for the coefficient of the current block based on the quantization level, wherein the offset value is a first offset value based on the quantization level being a first quantization level or a second, different offset value based on the quantization level being a second quantization level (Page 2385, Equation 46);
Wang discloses all the elements of claim 1 but Wang does not appear to explicitly disclose in the cited section determining a quantization parameter or an inverse-quantization parameter for the coefficient based on the determined offset value; and as part of encoding or decoding the current block, performing one of quantization or inverse-quantization for the coefficient based on the determined quantization parameter or the determined inverse-quantization parameter.
However, Han from the same or similar endeavor teaches determining a quantization parameter or an inverse-quantization parameter for the coefficient based on the determined offset value; and as part of encoding or decoding the current block, performing one of quantization or inverse-quantization for the coefficient based on the determined quantization parameter or the determined inverse-quantization parameter (Fig. 7).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Wang to incorporate the teachings of Han to providing flexibility of precise quantization parameter (Han, Abstract). Similar reasoning/motivation of modification can be applied/extended to the other related/dependent claims.
Regarding claim 2, Wang in view of Han discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising: determining a quantizer for the coefficient from at least a first quantizer and a second quantizer, wherein determining the offset value comprises determining the offset value based on the quantization level and the quantizer (Wang, page 2381, Right Column).
Regarding claim 3, Wang in view of Han discloses the method of claim 2, wherein the coefficient is a first coefficient, the offset value is an offset value for the first coefficient, the quantization level is the first quantization level for the first coefficient, the quantizer for the first coefficient is the first quantizer, the quantization parameter is a first quantization parameter, and the inverse-quantization parameter is a first inverse-quantization parameter, the method further comprising: determining a quantizer for a second coefficient, for quantization or inverse quantization, wherein the quantizer for the second coefficient is the second quantizer; determining that a quantization level for the second coefficient is the first quantization level; determining an offset value for the second coefficient based on the quantizer for the second coefficient being the second quantizer, and the quantization level being the first quantization level, wherein the offset value for the second coefficient is different than the offset value for the first coefficient based on the quantizer for the first and second coefficient being different, while the quantization level for the first and second coefficient is the same; determining a second quantization parameter or a second inverse-quantization parameter for the second coefficient based on the determined offset value for the second coefficient; and performing one of quantization or inverse-quantization for the second coefficient based on the determined second quantization parameter or the determined second inverse-quantization parameter (Wang, page 2381, Right Column).
Regarding claim 4, Wang in view of Han discloses the method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of quantization levels is associated with a different offset value (Wang, page 2385, Equation 46).
Regarding claim 5, Wang in view of Han discloses the method of claim 1, wherein determining the offset value comprises: determining that the offset value is the first offset value based on the quantization level being one or negative one, or determining that the offset value is the second offset value based on the quantization level being greater than one or less than negative one (Wang, page 2385, Equation 46).
Regarding claim 6, Wang in view of Han discloses the method of claim 1, wherein determining the offset value comprises: determining that the offset value is the first offset value based on an absolute value of the quantization level being less than a threshold, or determining that the offset value is the second offset value based on the absolute value of the quantization level being greater than the threshold (Wang, page 2385, Equation 46).
Regarding claim 7, Wang in view of Han discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the first offset value is associated with the first quantization level and the coefficient being for a luma block, and the first offset value is different than offset values associated with the first quantization level and coefficients being for a chroma block, and wherein the second offset value is associated with the second quantization level and the coefficient being for the luma block, and the second offset value is different than offset values associated with the second quantization level and coefficients being for the chroma block (Wang, page 2385, Equation 46, Han, Fig. 6).
Regarding claim 8, Wang in view of Han discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising encoding the current block, wherein encoding the current block comprises: determining a prediction block for the current block; and determining the coefficient based on a difference between the prediction block and the current block, wherein performing one of quantization or inverse-quantization for the coefficient based on the determined quantization parameter or the determined inverse-quantization parameter comprises performing quantization for the coefficient based on the determined quantization parameter to generate a quantized coefficient, wherein encoding the current block further comprises signaling information indicative of the quantized coefficient (Wang, Section I, Introduction, Based on VVC standard).
Regarding claim 9, Wang in view of Han discloses the method of claim 1, wherein performing one of quantization or inverse-quantization for the coefficient based on the determined quantization parameter or the determined inverse-quantization parameter comprises performing inverse-quantization for the coefficient based on the determined inverse-quantization parameter to generate an inverse-quantized coefficient, the method further comprising decoding the current block, wherein decoding the current block: determining residual values for the current block based on the inverse-quantized coefficient; determining a prediction block for the current block; and adding the prediction block to the residual values to reconstruct the current block (Wang, Section I, Introduction, Based on VVC standard).
Regarding claim 10-20, See Examiner’s Note. Please consider prior art Amon et al. (“Adaptive Quantization Offset”, 15, JVT Meeting; 72. MPEG Meeting; 04/16/2025), hereinafter Amon, during the response.
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MOHAMMAD J RAHMAN whose telephone number is (571)270-7190. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM.
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/Mohammad J Rahman/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487