CTNF 18/763,694 CTNF 91883 DETAILED ACTION This office action is in response to the application filed on July 3, 2024. Claims 1 – 20 are pending. Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. Priority 02-27 AIA Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. PCTCN2022070181 , filed on January 4, 2022 . Information Disclosure Statement 06-52 The information disclosure statement (IDS) was submitted on July 3, 2024. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the Examiner. Specification 06-16 AIA Applicant is reminded of the proper language and format for an abstract of the disclosure. The abstract should be in narrative form and generally limited to a single paragraph on a separate sheet within the range of 50 to 150 words. The form and legal phraseology often used in patent claims, such as "means" and "said," should be avoided. The abstract should describe the disclosure sufficiently to assist readers in deciding whether there is a need for consulting the full patent text for details. The language should be clear and concise and should not repeat information given in the title. It should avoid using phrases which can be implied, such as, "The disclosure concerns," "The disclosure defined by this invention," "The disclosure describes," etc. In addition, the form and legal phraseology often used in patent claims, such as “means” and “said,” should be avoided. 06-13 AIA The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because it uses the phrase “00Embodiments of the present disclosure provide ”, which can be implied . Correction is required. See MPEP § 608.01(b). Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 07-06 AIA 15-10-15 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 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. 07-07-aia AIA 07-07 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 – 07-08-aia AIA (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. 07-15 AIA Claim s 1 – 4 and 6 - 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102( a)(1 ) as being anticipated by ZHANG et al., (US 2022/0247427 A1) referred to as ZHANG hereinafter . Regarding Claim 1, ZHANG discloses a method for point cloud coding ( Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, point cloud coding) , comprising: determining, during a conversion between a current frame of a point cloud sequence and a bitstream of the point cloud sequence (Fig. 1 Par. [0032] point cloud data (i.e. current frame) to be encoded, into geometric bitstream), a density value of the current frame, the density value indicating a density of point in at least a partition of the current frame (Par. [0110] a scaling ratio r between a point cloud sequence space and an actual space is introduced, and an actual density p of a point cloud (i.e. density value formula (7)) is calculated (i.e. determining) according to r and a length 1, a width w, and a height h of a bounding box (i.e. partition of current frame), where the actual density, point cloud sequence types may be partitioned into three types: sparse, medium, and dense); determining at least one score threshold for determining a prediction state of a sub-node of a node of the current frame based on the density value (Par. [0114] calculate an average value of the 26 weight parameters by using the above formula (4) to obtain an occupancy weight score.sub.m, corresponding to the child node m (act 305). A quantity of occupied neighboring nodes in all 26 neighboring nodes is No, and thresholds corresponding to the quantity No of occupied neighboring nodes in a preset occupancy threshold set are a first threshold th0(No) (i.e. score threshold) and a second threshold th1(No) (i.e. score threshold); by comparing the occupancy weight score.sub.m, with the first threshold th0(No) and the second threshold th1(No) respectively, the encoder achieves prediction of occupancy information of the child node m, and obtains a node type corresponding to the child node m (act 306)) , a node representing a spatial partition of the current frame (Par. [0004] In a process of octree-based geometric information encoding, spatial correlation between a node to be predicted and neighboring nodes around it may be used for intra prediction on occupancy information of child nodes of the node to be predicted); and performing the conversion based on the at least one score threshold (Par. [0109] performing prediction of occupancy information on the node to be predicted, the first weight, the second weight, the third weight, the first threshold, and the second threshold used by the encoder are matched with the point cloud sequence type corresponding to the node to be predicted. Par. [0114] performs an encoding processing based on the predicted occupancy information corresponding to the node to be predicted to obtain bitstream data (act 3010)). Regarding Claim 2, ZHANG discloses claim 1. ZHANG further discloses wherein determining the density value comprises at least one of : determining the density value based on a number of occupied sub-nodes of preceding nodes coded before the current node, the preceding nodes having the same octree depth with the current node, determining the density value based on a number of occupied sub-nodes of preceding nodes coded before the current node, the preceding nodes having a smaller octree depth than the current node, or determining the density value based on a number of occupied neighbour nodes of the current node (Par. [0041] Whether the child node m is occupied or not is predicted by using two preset thresholds th0(No) and th1(No), and a prediction result is obtained. (No) may represent a quantity of occupied nodes in all 26 neighboring nodes of the node to be predicted). Regarding Claim 3, ZHANG discloses claim 2. ZHANG further discloses wherein the occupied neighbour nodes share at least one of the following with a sub-node of the current node (Par. [0035] In a process of octree-based geometric information encoding, the bounding box is equally partitioned into 8 sub-cubes, and a non-empty sub-cube (containing points in the point cloud) may be continued to be partitioned into 8 equal parts (i.e. sub-node), until leaf nodes obtained through partitioning are 1×1×1 unit cubes): a face, an edge, or a vertex (Fig. 4 and Fig. 5, Par. [0035] Based on a surface formed by distribution of the point cloud in each block, at most twelve vertexes (intersection points) produced by the surface (i.e. face) and twelve edges of the block are obtained, and the vertexes are arithmetically encoded (surface fitting based on intersection points) to generate a binary geometric bitstream, namely a geometric bitstream). Regarding Claim 4, ZHANG discloses claim 2. ZHANG further discloses wherein the occupied neighbour nodes share at least one of the following with the current node (Par. [0035] In a process of octree-based geometric information encoding, the bounding box is equally partitioned into 8 sub-cubes (i.e. current node), and a non-empty sub-cube (containing points in the point cloud) may be continued to be partitioned into 8 equal parts, until leaf nodes obtained through partitioning are 1×1×1 unit cubes) : a face, an edge, or a vertex (Fig. 4 and Fig. 5, Par. [0035] Based on a surface formed by distribution of the point cloud in each block, at most twelve vertexes (intersection points) produced by the surface (i.e. face) and twelve edges of the block are obtained, and the vertexes are arithmetically encoded (surface fitting based on intersection points) to generate a binary geometric bitstream, namely a geometric bitstream) . Regarding Claim 6, ZHANG discloses claim 2. ZHANG further discloses wherein determining at least one score threshold based on the density value comprises: determining the at least one score threshold based on a metric of the density value (Par. [0043] when th0(No) and th1(No) are used for predicting whether the child node m is occupied or not, the prediction result may include unoccupancy, occupancy, and unprediction (i.e. metric). For example, when the estimated value score.sub.m is smaller than th0(No), it may be determined that the prediction result is unoccupancy; when the estimated value score.sub.m is greater than th1(No), it may be determined that the prediction result is occupancy; and when the estimated value score.sub.m is greater than th0(No) and smaller than th1(No), it may be determined that the prediction result is unprediction). Regarding Claim 7, ZHANG discloses claim 6. ZHANG further discloses wherein the metric comprises one of t he following: a constant metric, a piecewise metric, a linear metric, a power metric, a logarithmic metric, or an exponential metric ( Par. [0043] when th0(No) and th1(No) are used for predicting whether the child node m is occupied or not, the prediction result may include unoccupancy, occupancy, and unprediction (i.e. piecewise metric). For example, when the estimated value score.sub.m is smaller than th0(No), it may be determined that the prediction result is unoccupancy; when the estimated value score.sub.m is greater than th1(No), it may be determined that the prediction result is occupancy; and when the estimated value score.sub.m is greater than th0(No) and smaller than th1(No), it may be determined that the prediction result is unprediction) . Regarding Claim 8, ZHANG discloses claim 1. ZHANG further discloses further comprising: including an indicator indicating whether to apply the method in the bitstream (Par. [0094] the encoder may output “whether to predict” and “predicted value” represented through 0 or 1 (i.e. indicator) to be used in subsequent entropy encoding of occupancy information. Herein, “1 1” may represent “occupancy”; “1 0” may represent “unoccupancy”; and “0 0” may represent “unprediction”). Regarding Claim 9, ZHANG discloses claim 8. ZHANG further discloses wherein including an indicator in the bitstream comprises: including the indicator from an encoder to a decoder (Par. [0094] the encoder may output “whether to predict” and “predicted value” represented through 0 or 1 to be used in subsequent entropy encoding (i.e. from encoder to decoder) of occupancy information. Herein, “1 1” may represent “occupancy”; “1 0” may represent “unoccupancy”; and “0 0” may represent “unprediction”) in one of the following: the bitstream, a frame, a tile, a slice, or an octree (Par. [0087] the preset correlation coefficient needs to be signalled in a binary bitstream output by the encoder as an input of a decoder). Regarding Claim 10, ZHANG discloses claim 1. ZHANG further discloses further comprising: determining an indicator indicating whether to apply the method by at least one of: an encoder or a decoder (Par. [0094] the encoder may output “whether to predict” and “predicted value” represented through 0 or 1 (i.e. indicator) to be used in subsequent entropy encoding of occupancy information. Herein, “1 1” may represent “occupancy”; “1 0” may represent “unoccupancy”; and “0 0” may represent “unprediction”) . Regarding Claim 11, ZHANG discloses claim 10. ZHANG further discloses wherein determining the indicator comprises: determining the indicator based on a point cloud density (Par. [0094] the encoder may output “whether to predict” and “predicted value” represented through 0 or 1 (i.e. indicator) to be used in subsequent entropy encoding of occupancy information (i.e. point cloud density). Herein, “1 1” may represent “occupancy”; “1 0” may represent “unoccupancy”; and “0 0” may represent “unprediction”) . Regarding Claim 12, ZHANG discloses claim 8. ZHANG further discloses wherein the indicator comprises a binary value (Par. [0094] the encoder may output “whether to predict” and “predicted value” represented through 0 or 1 (i.e. indicator is binary value) to be used in subsequent entropy encoding of occupancy information. Herein, “1 1” may represent “occupancy”; “1 0” may represent “unoccupancy”; and “0 0” may represent “unprediction”) . Regarding Claim 13, ZHANG discloses claim 8. ZHANG further discloses wherein the indicator indicates whether occupancy information of nodes having the same octree depth (Par. [0113] when encoding the geometric information based on the octree, the encoder may first determine the occupancy information corresponding to the neighboring node of the node to be predicted (i.e. same depth)) with a current sub-node of the current frame is used to predict an occupancy bit of the current sub-node (Par. [0094] the encoder may output “whether to predict” and “predicted value” represented through 0 or 1 (i.e. indicator) to be used in subsequent entropy encoding of occupancy information. Herein, “1 1” may represent “occupancy”; “1 0” may represent “unoccupancy”; and “0 0” may represent “unprediction”) . Regarding Claim 14, ZHANG discloses claim 8. ZHANG further discloses wherein the indicator ( Par. [0094] the encoder may output “whether to predict” and “predicted value” represented through 0 or 1 (i.e. indicator) to be used in subsequent entropy encoding of occupancy information. Herein, “1 1” may represent “occupancy”; “1 0” may represent “unoccupancy”; and “0 0” may represent “unprediction”) is consistent in a coding unit, wherein the coding unit comprises one of the following: a frame, a tile, a slice, or an octree level (Par. [0114] when encoding geometric information based on an octree, when performing intra prediction of occupancy information on a node (i.e. coding unit) to be predicted, an encoder may input a layer level corresponding to the node to be predicted) . Regarding Claim 15, ZHANG discloses claim 8. ZHANG further discloses wherein the indicator ( Par. [0094] the encoder may output “whether to predict” and “predicted value” represented through 0 or 1 (i.e. indicator) to be used in subsequent entropy encoding of occupancy information. Herein, “1 1” may represent “occupancy”; “1 0” may represent “unoccupancy”; and “0 0” may represent “unprediction”) is consistent in the point cloud sequence (Par. [0108] the encoder may also first determine a point cloud sequence type corresponding to the node to be predicted. Par. [0112] the point cloud sequence type needs to be signalled in a binary bitstream output by the encoder as an input of a decoder). Regarding Claim 16, ZHANG discloses claim 1. ZHANG further discloses further comprising: including information indicating how to apply the method in the bitstream ( Par. [0094] the encoder may output “whether to predict” and “predicted value” (i.e. how to apply) represented through 0 or 1 (i.e. indicator) to be used in subsequent entropy encoding of occupancy information. Herein, “1 1” may represent “occupancy”; “1 0” may represent “unoccupancy”; and “0 0” may represent “unprediction”) , wherein including information in the bitstream comprises: including the information from an encoder to a decoder in one of the following: the bitstream, a frame, a tile, a slice, or an octree (Par. [0087] the preset correlation coefficient needs to be signalled in a binary bitstream output by the encoder as an input of a decoder) . Regarding Claim 17, ZHANG discloses claim 1. ZHANG further discloses wherein the conversion includes encoding the current frame into the bitstream, or wherein the conversion includes decoding the current frame from the bitstream ( Par. [0109] performing prediction of occupancy information on the node to be predicted, the first weight, the second weight, the third weight, the first threshold, and the second threshold used by the encoder are matched with the point cloud sequence type corresponding to the node to be predicted. Par. [0114] performs an encoding processing (i.e. conversion) based on the predicted occupancy information corresponding to the node to be predicted to obtain bitstream data (act 3010)) . Regarding Claim 18, it is drawn to an apparatus that corresponds to the method claimed in Claim 1. Therefore Claim 18 corresponds to method Claim 1 and is rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as used above. Claim 18 further recites a processor and a non-transitory memory (Fig. 11, Par. [0200] processor 304 and memory 305, Par. [0214] The computer software product is stored in a storage medium, and includes several instructions for enabling a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) or a processor to perform all or part of acts of the methods of the embodiments. The aforementioned storage medium includes various media, such as a U disk, a mobile hard disk, a Read Only Memory (ROM), a Random Access Memory (RAM), a magnetic disk, or an optical disk, which are capable of storing program codes). Regarding Claim 19, it is drawn to a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that corresponds to the method claimed in Claim 1. Therefore Claim 19 corresponds to method Claim 1 and is rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as used above. Claim 19 further recites storing instructions that cause a processor to perform acts (Par. [0214] The computer software product is stored in a storage medium, and includes several instructions for enabling a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) or a processor to perform all or part of acts of the methods of the embodiments. The aforementioned storage medium includes various media, such as a U disk, a mobile hard disk, a Read Only Memory (ROM), a Random Access Memory (RAM), a magnetic disk, or an optical disk, which are capable of storing program codes) . 07-15 AIA Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102( a)(1 ) as being anticipated by PANG et al, (US 2023/0056576 A1) referred to as PANG hereinafter . Regarding Claim 20, PANG teaches a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium storing a bitstream (Par. [0166] a computer readable storage medium having stored thereon a bitstream generated according to any of the methods) of a point cloud sequence (Par. [0023] encoding in a bitstream the quantized first and second point clouds) which is generated by a method (Par. [0045] a computer-readable medium storing point cloud data encoded using one or more of the methods described herein. The medium may be a non-transitory computer-readable medium) performed by a point cloud processing apparatus (Par. [0044] an apparatus include a processor and a computer-readable medium storing instructions operative to perform at least one or more of the methods), wherein the method comprises: determining a density value of a current frame of the point cloud sequence, the density value indicating a density of point in at least a partition of the current frame; determining at least one score threshold for determining a prediction state of a sub-node of a node of the current frame based on the density value, a node representing a spatial partition of the current frame; and generating the bitstream based on the at least one score threshold (See MPEP §2113 recites: "Product-by-Process claims are not limited to the manipulations of the recited steps, only the structure implied by the steps") . Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-20-aia AIA 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 of this title, 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. 07-21-aia AIA Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZHANG et al., (US 2022/0247427 A1) in view of HUR et al., (US 2022/0256190 A1) referred to as HUR hereinafter . Regarding Claim 5, ZHANG discloses claim 2. ZHANG further discloses wherein the occupied neighbour nodes have a distance with a sub-node of the current node or with the current node among a plurality of nodes (Par. [0039] a distance d.sub.k,m from the neighboring node k to a child node m of the node to be predicted may be determined, Par. [0067] a preset weight set is acquired according to the distance parameter and the quantity of occupied child nodes. Par. [0069] the preset weight set may include a first weight, a second weight, and a third weight. Specifically, the preset weight set corresponds to the distance parameter and the quantity of occupied child nodes, wherein both the first weight and the second weight correspond to the distance parameter). While ZHANG teaches in Par. [0032] the attribute information encoding mainly includes distance-based lifting transform which depends on Level of Detail (LOD) partitioning and Region Adaptive Hierarchical Transform (RAHT) directly performed, ZHANG does not specifically teach a smallest distance. Therefore, ZHANG fails to explicitly teach the occupied neighbour nodes have a smallest distance with a sub-node of the current node or with the current node among a plurality of nodes However, HUR teaches the occupied neighbour nodes have a smallest distance with a sub-node of the current node or with the current node among a plurality of nodes (Par. [0327] the method of performing a primary search based on division of an octree-based neighbor point search range and a center position value for each octree node, the points located within a neighbor point search range are divided into groups according to the depth of an octree occupancy code and nodes belonging to the corresponding depth, the center position value of each group is obtained, the distance between a target prediction point (e.g., the point Px) and the center position value of each group is calculated, and when the calculated distance value is smaller (i.e. smallest distance) than a preset value (e.g. a specific threshold), a neighbor point is detected from among points belonging to a corresponding group). References ZHANG and HUR are considered to be analogous art because they relate to point cloud coding. Therefore, it would be obvious to one possessing ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to specifying a smallest distance as taught by HUR in the invention of ZHANG in order to detect a neighbor point from among points having calculated distance values smaller than a preset threshold within the bounding boxes (See HUR, Par. [0326]). Conclusion The prior art references made of record are not relied upon but are considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Sinharoy et al. (US 2020/0020132 A1) relates to compressing and decompressing point clouds. Any inquiry concerning this communication should be directed to SUSAN E HODGES whose telephone number is (571)270-0498. The Examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Friday from 8:00 am (EST) to 4:00 pm (EST). If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner's supervisor, Brian T. Pendleton, can be reached on (571) . The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). /Susan E. Hodges/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2425 Application/Control Number: 18/763,694 Page 2 Art Unit: 2425 Application/Control Number: 18/763,694 Page 3 Art Unit: 2425 Application/Control Number: 18/763,694 Page 4 Art Unit: 2425 Application/Control Number: 18/763,694 Page 5 Art Unit: 2425 Application/Control Number: 18/763,694 Page 6 Art Unit: 2425 Application/Control Number: 18/763,694 Page 7 Art Unit: 2425 Application/Control Number: 18/763,694 Page 8 Art Unit: 2425 Application/Control Number: 18/763,694 Page 9 Art Unit: 2425 Application/Control Number: 18/763,694 Page 10 Art Unit: 2425 Application/Control Number: 18/763,694 Page 11 Art Unit: 2425 Application/Control Number: 18/763,694 Page 12 Art Unit: 2425 Application/Control Number: 18/763,694 Page 13 Art Unit: 2425
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