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 § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Chen et al. US 2019/0230350.
In regard to claim 10, it is directed to a non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored therein a bitstream generated by acts. Significantly, the claimed non-transitory computer readable medium is NOT implementing any actual method; no instructions/steps are being executed. Instead, the claimed storage medium merely stores the data output from and/or generated by a series of acts. In other words, these claims are directed to a mere machine-readable medium storing data content (a bitstream generated by a method).
Applicant therefore seeks to patent the storage of a bitstream in the abstract. In other words, the claim seeks to patent the content of the information (bitstream comprising video information) and not the process itself. Moreover, this stored bitstream does not impose any definitive physical organization on the data as there is no functional relationship between the bitstream and the storage medium. In conclusion, the identified claim and any claims depending therefrom are directed to mere data content (bitstream generated by a series of acts) stored as a bitstream on a computer-readable storage medium. Under MPEP 2111.05(III), such claims are merely machine-readable media. Furthermore, the Examiner found and continues to find that there is no disclosed or claimed functional relationship between the stored data and medium. Instead, the medium is merely a support or carrier for the data being stored. Therefore, the data stored and the way such data is generated should not be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.05 applying In re Lowry, 32 F.3d 1579, 1583-84, 32 USPQ2d 1031, 1035 (Fed. Cir. 1994) and In re Ngai, 367 F.3d 1336, 70 USPQ2d 1862 (Fed. Cir. 2004). As such, this claim is subject to a prior art rejection based on any non-transitory computer readable medium known before the earliest effective filing date of the present application. Therefore, the claim is anticipated by
Chen, which discloses
a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored therein a bitstream comprising video information generated by acts (Fig. 18: memory 1230 and 1232)
Claim(s) 1-3, 5, 7-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Chen et al. US 2019/0230350.
Chen discloses
1. and under complementary rationales 9. And 10. A method of decoding an image, the method comprising: obtaining a first motion vector and a second motion vector of a current block (Fig. 15: v0, v1); obtaining a first prediction block based on the first motion vector of the current block (Fig. 6; 0045-51); obtaining a second prediction block based on the second motion vector of the current block (Fig. 6; 0045-51); and obtaining a final prediction block of the current block based on the first prediction block and the second prediction block, wherein the final prediction block is obtained based on a weighted sum of the first prediction block and the second prediction block, and wherein a first weight applied to the first prediction block and a second weight applied to the second prediction block are determined based on a weight candidate set including a plurality of weight candidates (Fig. 6; 0045-51; 0057-62; 0087).
2. The method of claim 1, wherein, based on index information for the current block, one of the weight candidates is selected (Fig. 6; 0004; 0045-51; 0057-62; 0087).
3. The method of claim 2, wherein the index information for the current block is decoded from the bitstream (Fig. 6; Fig. 9: 902, 904; 0004; 0045-51; 0057-62; 0087).
5. The method of claim 2, wherein the first motion vector and the second motion vector of the current block are derived to be the same as one of merge candidates included in a merge candidate list of the current block, and wherein the index information is also derived to be the same as the one of the merge candidates (0005; 0103).
7. The method of claim 1, wherein the final prediction block is obtained by adding an offset to a value obtained by the weighted sum (0032-35; equ. 13 and 14).
8. The method of claim 7, wherein the offset has a positive value (0032-35; equ. 13 and 14; nothing stating it has to be negative so it can be positive).
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen in view of Kim et al. US 2021/0160487
4. The method of claim 3,
Chen does not explicitly disclose the following, however Kim teaches wherein the index information is binarized with truncated rice binarization method (0059-61).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill before the effective filing date to modify the reference(s) as above in order to use a binarization process that may be performed on syntax elements as part of an entropy coding process as binarization is a lossless process and may include one or a combination of techniques (Kim 0059).
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen in view of Tanizawa et al. US 2014/0079125
6. The method of claim 1,
Chen does not explicitly disclose the following, however Tanizawa teaches wherein, according to the index information of the current block, one of the first weight and the second weight is determined as a negative value while the other is determined as a positive value (0114-5).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill before the effective filing date to modify the reference(s) as above in order derives a selection range of the weighting factor by assigning values in the negative and positive directions with the reference value of the weighting factor being set as approximate center and checks that the weighting factor is included in the derived selection range of the weighting factor (Tanizawa 0115)
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSEPH W BECKER whose telephone number is (571)270-7301. The examiner can normally be reached flexible usually 10-6.
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/JOSEPH W BECKER/Examiner, Art Unit 2483