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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 May 4th, 2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
This action is in response to the remark entered on 05/04/2026.
Claims 1-20 are pending in the instant application.
Claims 1, 15 & 18-20 are amended.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's remarks filed 05/04/2026, pages 9-10, regarding the objection to the Abstract and rejection of claim 15 under 35 USC 112, first and second paragraphs, have been fully considered and are persuasive. These issues have been withdrawn.
Applicant's remarks filed 05/04/2026, pages 10-11, regarding the rejection of claims 1 & 18-20 have been fully considered, and are moot upon further consideration and a new ground(s) of rejection made under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang et al. (US 2022/0239899 A1) (hereinafter Zhang) in view of Zhou (US 2012/0320984 A1) (hereinafter Zhou), further in view of Chen et al. (US 2020/0068218 A1) (hereinafter Chen), and further in view of Zhang et al., “AHG 12: Adaptive Reordering of Merge Candidates with Template Matching (JVET-V0099-V3) (hereinafter Zhang2) as outlined below.
In response to Applicant’s remark that Examiner’s previously-cited references do not show the Applicant’s newly-recited claim limitations, the Examiner directs Applicant’s attention to the rejection of claims 1 & 18-20 below, where Applicant’s newly-recited claim limitations are addressed by Zhou and are rejected for the reasons outlined below.
Applicant’s remarks filed 05/04/2026, pages 11, with respect to the rejection of claims 2-12, 14 & 16-17 under 35 USC 103 have been fully considered, but they are not persuasive.
Applicant first relies on the patentability of the claims from which these claims depend to traverse the rejection without prejudice to any further basis for patentability of these claims based on the additional elements recited.
Examiner cannot concur with the Applicant because the combination of Zhang, Zhou, Chen, and Zhang2 teach independent claim 1 as outlined below. Thus, claims 2-12, 14 & 16-17 are also rejected for the similar reasons as outlined below.
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 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 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.
Claims 1-12, 14 & 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang et al. (US 2022/0239899 A1) (hereinafter Zhang) in view of Zhou (US 2012/0320984 A1) (hereinafter Zhou), further in view of Chen et al. (US 2020/0068218 A1) (hereinafter Chen), and further in view of Zhang et al., “AHG 12: Adaptive Reordering of Merge Candidates with Template Matching (JVET-V0099-V3) (hereinafter Zhang2).
Regarding claim 1, Zhang discloses a method for video processing [Abstract, decoding motion information during conversion between video block and video bitstream], comprising:
determining, during a conversion between a target video block of a video and a bitstream of the video [Abstract, decoding motion information during conversion between video block and video bitstream], at least one group of motion vector prediction (MVP) candidates of the target video block [Paragraph [0139], [0150]-[0156] & [0233]-[0258], Subgroups of MVP candidates];
determining a first MVP candidate list by performing a first process on the at least one group of MVP candidates [Paragraph [0149]-[0173], [0250]-[0259], constructing initial MVP candidate list by dividing candidates into subgroups];
determining a second MVP candidate list by performing a reordering process on the first MVP candidate list [Paragraph [0149]-[0173], [0208]-[0222], [0250]-[0259], Fig. 6, final MVP candidate list by dividing candidates into reordered subgroups by predetermined criterion]; and
performing the conversion based on the second MVP candidate list [Paragraph [0149]-[0173], [0208]-[0222], [0250]-[0259], Fig. 6, Encoder 200 encodes motion information and indices into bitstream using final list of candidates].
However, Zhang does not explicitly disclose wherein determining a group of the at least one group comprises: adding a first plurality of MVP candidates of a first candidate category into the group, a first number of the first plurality of MVP candidates being less than or equal to the threshold number; and adding a second plurality of MVP candidates of a second candidate category into the group.
Zhou teaches wherein determining a group of the at least one group comprises: adding a first plurality of MVP candidates of a first candidate category into the group, a first number of the first plurality of MVP candidates being less than or equal to the threshold number; and adding a second plurality of MVP candidates of a second candidate category into the group [Paragraph [0110]-[0118], if the number of native merging candidates, as first candidate category of MVP candidates, is not greater than the maximum allowed number of merging candidates allowed 1002, then virtual merging candidates, as second plurality of MVP candidates, are added 1006 to the merging candidate list, if needed, to generate a final merging candidate list with the maximum allowed number of merging candidates. If the number of merging candidates in the merging candidate list is less than the maximum allowed number, sufficient virtual merging candidates are added to the merging candidate list to increase the number of merging candidates to the maximum allowed number].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Zhang to integrate the MVP candidate process as described in Zhou as above, for the addition of virtual inter-prediction candidates to an inter-prediction candidate list may improve coding efficiency as a virtual inter-prediction candidate may provide better coding results than a native inter-prediction candidate (Zhou, Paragraph [0056]).
However, Zhang and Zhou do not explicitly disclose determining a first MVP candidate list by performing a first pass of reordering process on the at least one group of MVP candidates.
Chen teaches of determining a first MVP candidate list by performing a first pass of reordering process on the at least one group of MVP candidates [Paragraph [0138]-[0143], Group-based candidate reordering process, wherein can reorder better candidate group (i.e., a lower cost candidate group) to be front of worse candidate group (i.e., a higher cost candidate group) within list].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Zhang to integrate the candidate group reordering process as described in Chen as above, in order to improve the coding efficiency (Chen, Paragraph [0091]).
However, Zhang, Zhou, and Chen do not explicitly disclose determining a second MVP candidate list by performing a second pass of reordering process on the first MVP candidate list.
Zhang2 teaches of determining a second MVP candidate list by performing a second pass of reordering process on the first MVP candidate list [2 Proposed methods, TM merge mode, merge candidates are reordered (first reordering pass) before the refinement process (second pass of reordering process), which include subgroup candidates reordered ascendingly according to cost values].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Zhang to integrate the template matching cost reordering process as described in Zhang2 as above, in order to improve the coding efficiency of merge candidate index (Zhang2, 1 Introduction & 4 Conclusions).
Regarding claim 2, Zhang, Zhou, Chen, and Zhang2 disclose the method of claim 1, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Chen teaches wherein the at least one group of MVP candidates comprises at least one of: a single group of MVP candidates associated with a single candidate category, or a joint group of MVP candidates associated with a plurality of candidate categories [Paragraph [0138]-[0143], Group-based candidate reordering process, wherein can reorder better candidate group (i.e., a lower cost candidate group) to be front of worse candidate group (i.e., a higher cost candidate group) within list],
wherein determining a first MVP candidate list by performing a first pass of reordering process [Paragraph [0138]-[0143], Group-based candidate reordering process, wherein can reorder better candidate group (i.e., a lower cost candidate group) to be front of worse candidate group (i.e., a higher cost candidate group) within list] comprises:
sorting MVP candidates of the at least one group of MVP candidates based on costs of MVP candidates in the at least one group of MVP candidates [Paragraph [0138]-[0143], Group-based candidate reordering process, wherein can reorder better candidate group based upon estimated total cost of selected group];
for each group of the at least one group, determining at least one MVP candidate based on respective costs of MVP candidates in the group; and adding the at least one MVP candidate into the first MVP candidate list, wherein the costs comprise template matching costs [Paragraph [0132]-[0143], multiple “feature candidates” inside the group gr_i are selected. After multiple “feature candidates” inside the group gr_i are selected, the L-shape template with the L-shape matching method is applied to each feature candidate inside group gr_i of the selected groups to get the estimated cost. The estimated costs of feature candidates can represent the total cost for the selected group].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Zhang to integrate the candidate group reordering process as described in Chen as above, in order to improve the coding efficiency (Chen, Paragraph [0091]).
Regarding claim 3, Zhang, Zhou, Chen, and Zhang2 disclose the method of claim 1, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Chen teaches wherein determining a first MVP candidate list by performing a first pass of reordering process comprises: determining at least one reordered group of MVP candidates by performing the first pass of reordering; and
determining the first MVP candidate list based at least in part on the at least one reordered group of MVP candidates [Paragraph [0138]-[0143], Group-based candidate reordering process, wherein can reorder better candidate group (i.e., a lower cost candidate group) to be front of worse candidate group (i.e., a higher cost candidate group) within list].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Zhang to integrate the candidate group reordering process as described in Chen as above, in order to improve the coding efficiency (Chen, Paragraph [0091]).
Regarding claim 4, Zhang, Zhou, Chen, and Zhang2 disclose the method of claim 3, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Chen teaches wherein the at least one reordered group comprises a first reordered group and a second reordered group, the first and second reordered groups having an overlap candidate [Paragraph [0006]-[0010] & [0138]-[0143], Group-based candidate reordering process, wherein can reorder better candidate group (i.e., a lower cost candidate group) to be front of worse candidate group (i.e., a higher cost candidate group) within list, wherein groups of spatial candidates and temporal candidates each have redundant candidates].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Zhang to integrate the candidate group reordering process as described in Chen as above, in order to improve the coding efficiency (Chen, Paragraph [0091]).
Regarding claim 5, Zhang, Zhou, Chen, and Zhang2 disclose the method of claim 3, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Chen teaches wherein the at least one reordered group comprises a first reordered group and a second reordered group, the first and second reordered groups having no overlap candidate [Paragraph [0138]-[0143], Group-based candidate reordering process, wherein each group are separately categorized by spatial, temporal, sub-PU, etc.].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Zhang to integrate the candidate group reordering process as described in Chen as above, in order to improve the coding efficiency (Chen, Paragraph [0091]).
Regarding claim 6, Zhang, Zhou, Chen, and Zhang2 disclose the method of claim 3, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Chen teaches wherein MVP candidates in the first MVP candidate list are from the at least one group of MVP candidates [Paragraph [0138]-[0143], Group-based candidate reordering process, wherein each group are separately categorized by spatial, temporal, sub-PU, etc.].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Zhang to integrate the candidate group reordering process as described in Chen as above, in order to improve the coding efficiency (Chen, Paragraph [0091]).
Regarding claim 7, Zhang, Zhou, Chen, and Zhang2 disclose the method of claim 3, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Chen teaches wherein determining the first MVP candidate list based at least in part on the at least one reordered group of MVP candidates comprises: adding a first plurality of MVP candidates from the at least one reordered group into the first MVP candidate list; and adding a second plurality of MVP candidates of the target video block into the first MVP candidate list based on a further rule [Paragraph [0138]-[0143], Group-based candidate reordering process, wherein can reorder better candidate group (i.e., a lower cost candidate group) to be front of worse candidate group (i.e., a higher cost candidate group) within list, thus adding the first and second plurality of MVPs into list].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Zhang to integrate the candidate group reordering process as described in Chen as above, in order to improve the coding efficiency (Chen, Paragraph [0091]).
Regarding claim 8, Zhang, Zhou, Chen, and Zhang2 disclose the method of claim 1, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Zhang2 teaches wherein determining a second MVP candidate list by performing a second pass of reordering process on the first MVP candidate list comprises: sorting the first MVP candidate list based on costs of MVP candidates in the first MVP candidate list; and adding a number of MVP candidates in the first MVP candidate list into the second MVP candidate list based on the sorting [2 Proposed Methods, Merge candidates in each subgroup are reordered ascendingly according to cost values based on template matching. The template matching cost is measured by the sum of absolute differences (SAD) between samples of a template of the current block and their corresponding reference samples].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Zhang to integrate the template matching cost reordering process as described in Zhang2 as above, in order to improve the coding efficiency of merge candidate index (Zhang2, 1 Introduction & 4 Conclusions).
Regarding claim 9, Zhang, Zhou, Chen, and Zhang2 disclose the method of claim 8, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Zhang2 teaches wherein the first MVP candidate list is sorted regardless of candidate categories of MVP candidates in the first MVP candidate list [2 Proposed methods, TM merge mode, merge candidates are reordered (first reordering pass) before the refinement process].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Zhang to integrate the template matching cost reordering process as described in Zhang2 as above, in order to improve the coding efficiency of merge candidate index (Zhang2, 1 Introduction & 4 Conclusions).
Regarding claim 10, Zhang, Zhou, Chen, and Zhang2 disclose the method of claim 8, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Zhang2 teaches wherein adding a number of MVP candidates in the first MVP candidate list based on the sorting comprises: adding all MVP candidates in the first MVP candidate list into the second MVP candidate list based on the sorting [2 Proposed Methods, Merge candidates in each subgroup are reordered ascendingly according to cost values based on template matching. The template matching cost is measured by the sum of absolute differences (SAD) between samples of a template of the current block and their corresponding reference samples].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Zhang to integrate the template matching cost reordering process as described in Zhang2 as above, in order to improve the coding efficiency of merge candidate index (Zhang2, 1 Introduction & 4 Conclusions).
Regarding claim 11, Zhang, Zhou, Chen, and Zhang2 disclose the method of claim 8, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Chen teaches wherein the costs of MVP candidates in the first MVP candidate list comprise template matching costs of the MVP candidates in the first MVP candidate list [Paragraph [0132]-[0143], multiple “feature candidates” inside the group gr_i are selected. After multiple “feature candidates” inside the group gr_i are selected, the L-shape template with the L-shape matching method is applied to each feature candidate inside group gr_i of the selected groups to get the estimated cost].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Zhang to integrate the candidate group reordering process as described in Chen as above, in order to improve the coding efficiency (Chen, Paragraph [0091]).
Regarding claim 12, Zhang, Zhou, Chen, and Zhang2 disclose the method of claim 8, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Chen teaches of further comprising: determining the costs of the MVP candidates in the first MVP candidate list in the first pass of reordering [Paragraph [0132]-[0143], multiple “feature candidates” inside the group gr_i are selected. After multiple “feature candidates” inside the group gr_i are selected, the L-shape template with the L-shape matching method is applied to each feature candidate inside group gr_i of the selected groups to get the estimated cost].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Zhang to integrate the candidate group reordering process as described in Chen as above, in order to improve the coding efficiency (Chen, Paragraph [0091]).
However, Zhang and Chen do not teach reusing the costs of the MVP candidates in the first MVP candidate list in the second pass of reordering.
Zhang2 teaches of reusing the costs of the MVP candidates in the first MVP candidate list in the second pass of reordering [2 Proposed Methods, Merge candidates in each subgroup are reordered ascendingly according to cost values based on template matching. The template matching cost is measured by the sum of absolute differences (SAD) between samples of a template of the current block and their corresponding reference samples].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Zhang to integrate the template matching cost reordering process as described in Zhang2 as above, in order to improve the coding efficiency of merge candidate index (Zhang2, 1 Introduction & 4 Conclusions).
Regarding claim 14, Zhang, Zhou, Chen, and Zhang2 disclose the method of claim 1, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Zhang discloses wherein a number of at least partial MVP candidates of the group is limited by a threshold number [Paragraph [0169]-[0178], threshold number Y].
Regarding claim 16, Zhang, Zhou, Chen, and Zhang2 disclose the method of claim 1, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Zhang discloses wherein the conversion includes encoding the target video block into the bitstream [Paragraph [0259], It shall be understood that, the reordering process by the video decoder 300 may be the same as the reordering process by the video encoder 200].
Regarding claim 17, Zhang, Zhou, Chen, and Zhang2 disclose the method of claim 1, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Zhang discloses wherein the conversion includes decoding the target video block from the bitstream [Paragraph [0169]-[0178], It shall be understood that, the reordering process by the video decoder 300 may be the same as the reordering process by the video encoder 200].
Regarding claim 18, apparatus claim 18 is drawn to the apparatus using/ performing the same method as claimed in claim 1. Therefore apparatus claim 13 corresponds to method claim 1, and is rejected for the same rationale as used above.
Furthermore, Zhang discloses of the apparatus for processing video data comprising a processor and a non-transitory memory with instructions thereon, wherein the instructions upon execution by the processor, cause the processor to perform method claim 1 [Paragraph [0067]-[0070] & [0466], Processing unit or processor].
Regarding claim 19, non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions claim 19 corresponds to the same method as claimed in claim 1, and therefore is also rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as listed above.
Furthermore, Zhang discloses of a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions [Paragraph [0459], a machine-readable medium may be any tangible medium that may contain or store a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device, including RAM, ROM].
Regarding claim 20, method claim 20 for storing a bitstream of a video corresponds to the same method as claimed in claim 1, and therefore is also rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as listed above.
Furthermore, Zhang discloses of storing the bitstream in a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium [Paragraph [0102]-[0103], the encoded video data may also be stored onto a storage medium/ server 130].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 13 & 15 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 and overcoming rejections under 35 USC 112(b).
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The various claimed limitations mentioned in the claims are not taught or suggested by the prior art taken either singly or in combination, with emphasize that it is each claim, taken as a whole, including the interrelationships and interconnections between various claimed elements make them allowable over the prior art of record.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL CHANG whose telephone number is (571)272-5707. The examiner can normally be reached M-Sa, 12PM - 10 PM.
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/DANIEL CHANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487
