DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to the RCE filed on March 31, 2026. Claims 1-16 are pending and are examined.
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 .
Response to Amendment
The amendments made to original claim 1 has been fully considered.
Response to Argument
Applicant's arguments and amendments received February 23, 2026 have been fully considered.
With regard to 35 U.S.C. § 103, Applicant argues that the cited prior art fails to disclose encoding the content based on the identified skip level for each frame of the plurality of frames without skipping the frame at encoding and transmitting skip level information to the external device for skipping frames in accordance with the transmitted skip level information at a time of decoding. This language corresponds to the newly amended language of claim 1. Specifically, Applicant argues that Normile changes the encoding scheme at the encoder based on a predicted state of the decoder, it does not encode content based on the identified skip level information for each frame of the plurality of frames without skipping the frame at encoding and transmitting skip level information for skipping frames in accordance with the transmitted skip level information at a time of decoding.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. Firstly, Applicant appears to assume that the modification of an “encoding scheme” refers to which frames are coded and which are dropped. However, this is inaccurate – modifying the “encoding scheme” at the encoder, as described, includes the modification/adjustment of frame quality, complexity, coding tools, and/or coding parameters (see, e.g., ¶¶20, 25-26, 31-32, 38-41). It does not describe dropping frames at the encoder. Rather, all discussion of dropping frames in Normile occurs at the decoder (see ¶¶49-50 – “temporal scalability allows a target decoder to gracefully drop frames… when needed”, “if an individual frame is determined at the encoder side to be highly complex… it may be selected to be a non-reference frame so that the target decoder has the option of dropping the frame”, “process 900 is employed at a target decoder… 904 includes not decoding the frame at all (i.e., dropping the frame)… reference frames are given a higher decoding priority, and a frame may only be completely dropped if it is a non-reference frame”). Normile’s description, as a whole, describes that the encoder analyzes characteristics of both the content received and the current state of the decoder, encodes the content to minimize complexity based on that information (including marking frames as reference (i.e., not skippable/droppable) or non-reference (i.e., skippable/droppable)), and transmits the coded content along with the frame markings, so that the decoder may decode accordingly to minimize complexity, including dropping/skipping non-reference frames at the decoder as needed (see, citations above and in greater detail below). Accordingly, Normile certainly discloses encoding the content based on the identified skip level (at least by marking each frame as reference or non-reference) for each frame of the plurality of frames without skipping the frame at encoding and transmitting skip level information (i.e., the marked frames) to the external device for skipping frames in accordance with the transmitted skip level information at a time of decoding.
Ultimately, Applicants arguments have been considered but they are directed to newly amended language, which is addressed below. See the rejection below for how the art on record reads on the newly amended language as well as the examiner's interpretation of the cited art in view of the presented claim set.
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, 4-9, 11, and 14-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Publication No. 2008/0062018 (“Normile”) in view of U.S. Patent Publication No. 2023/0034162 (“Yamashita”).
With respect to claim 1, Normile discloses the invention substantially as claimed, including
An electronic device comprising:
a communication interface connectable with a wireless network (see Fig. 1A and 1B, ¶¶17-21, describing a communication channel/wireless network connection that connects an encoder, i.e., communication interface, and decoders/external devices);
a memory storing at least one instruction (see ¶14, describing that the invention may be embodied by a computer-readable medium/memory storing program instructions executable by a processor); and
at least one processor (see citations and arguments with respect to element above) configured to, by executing the at least one instruction:
transmit a content to an external device in real time through the wireless network via the communication interface (see Figs. 1A and 1B, items 102, 104, 106, ¶¶17-21, 28, describing that the encoder may transmit/communicate content to a decoder/external device in real time through the wireless network/communication channel via the encoder/communication interface),
based on transmission [] information received from the external device and characteristics of the content, identify a skip level for each frame of a plurality of frames included in the content indicating whether a frame is skippable at a time of decoding (see ¶¶18, 20, 27-29, 38, 49-50, describing that based on dynamic feedback about the decoder state/performance level, i.e., transmission information, received from the decoder/external device and the complexity of the frames/data already encoded or to be encoded, i.e., characteristics of the content, the encoder may intelligently encode the data to optimize performance, including selecting/marking/identifying frames as non-reference or reference and/or providing them a decoding cost/priority, i.e., skip level, so that the target decoder has the option of dropping/skipping them at the decoder side, i.e., indicating whether a frame is skippable at the time of decoding, e.g., when they are marked as non-reference),
encode the content based on the identified skip level for each frame of the plurality of frames without skipping the frame at encoding (see citations with respect to element above, describing that the encoder then encodes the content based on the identified/marked/selected decoding priority/cost/non-reference selection, i.e., skip level, for each frame of the plurality of frames so that the decoder has the option to drop them when necessary, i.e., without skipping the frame at encoding), and
transmit skip level information for each frame of the plurality of frames indicating the skip level of the frame, and the encoded content, to the external device through the wireless network via the communication interface, for skipping frames in accordance with the transmitted skip level information at a time of decoding (see citations with respect to elements above, describing that the video frames may be marked/identified as non-reference or reference at the encoder and sent to the decoder, i.e., such an identification/marking/skip level is transmitted for each frame of the plurality of frames, and the encoded content may be transmitted to the decoder/device via the communication channel/wireless network so that the decoder has the option to skip/drop frames that are marked as non-reference (i.e., in accordance with the transmitted skip level information) at a time of decoding).
Normile describes that the decoder may provide dynamic feedback to the encoder indicating its current state and performance level, availability, processing speed, power consumption, available memory, DPB fullness, etc. when identifying droppable frames (see ¶¶20, 27-28, 38, 49). Although things like “processing speed”, “DPB fullness”, “available memory”, and “performance level”, would have been understood to impact transmission delay, Normile does not explicitly recite that feedback includes “delay” information.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Yamashita discloses that it was known to consider “delay” information when determining whether frames are droppable, i.e.:
based on transmission delay information received from the external device…, identify a skip level for each frame of a plurality of frames… (see Fig. 4, item CPK, ¶¶114-115, 145-140, 157, 184-188, 253-255, 271-272, describing that it was known for the reception unit/external device to transmit a control packet CPK status information including reception rate/delay amount/packet loss rate, i.e., delay information, to the transmission unit to determine which frames should be discarded/skipped, i.e., skip level for each frame of the plurality of frames).
At the time of filing, one of ordinary skill would have been familiar with the type of decoder state/performance information that may signal the need to skip/drop video frames including, as evidenced by Yamashita, decoder delay information. Accordingly, to such a person, using this type of delay information as state/performance information to signal the need to mark frames as droppable in the coding system of Normile would have represented nothing more than the combination of prior art elements according to predictable results and/or the simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to include a mechanism for including decoder delay information in the feedback of Normile in order to identify/mark droppable frames as taught by Yamashita.
With respect to claim 4, Normile discloses the invention substantially as claimed. As described above, Normile in view of Yamashita discloses all the elements of independent claim 1. Normile/Yamashita additionally discloses:
wherein based on the content being an audio content, the characteristics of the content include at least one of data continuity, a content type, or a sound size, and
based on the content being a video content, the characteristics of the content include at least one of a scene change, a content type, a motion size, or a framerate (see citations and arguments with respect to claim 1 above and Normile ¶¶17, 22, 29, describing that Normile’s method may be applied to any content, including audio and video, and that the characteristics of the content include the complexity/importance/significance of the data, i.e., content type – accordingly, based on the content being either audio, video, or both, the characteristics include content type).
The reasons for combining the cited prior art with respect to claim 1 also apply to claim 4.
With respect to claim 5, Normile discloses the invention substantially as claimed. As described above, Normile in view of Yamashita discloses all the elements of independent claim 1 and Normile in view of Yamashita and Rosenau discloses each and every element of dependent claim 4, the combination of which is incorporated herein. Normile/Yamashita/Rosenau additionally discloses:
wherein the at least one processor is configured to, by executing the at least one instruction:
based on identifying that the content is a first type content, identify the skip level for each frame of the plurality of frames such that a number of skippable frames becomes greater than or equal to a threshold number, and
based on identifying that the content is a second type content, identify the skip level for each frame of the plurality of frames such that the number of skippable frames becomes smaller than the threshold number (see citations and arguments with respect to claim 1 above and Normile ¶¶23, 26, 29, 49-50, describing that the pattern/number of frames marked as droppable/non-reference may be based on the complexity/cost of the content as compared to a target complexity, i.e., threshold, and that more frames may me marked non-reference for a sequence of frames with high-complexity or high cost in order to avoid viewing degradation, i.e., if the content is a first type of content – namely complex content, the skip level/non-reference marking may be indicated such that “more frames… may be marked as non-reference – although a specific threshold is not stated, the term “more” implies a threshold (e.g., more than for less complex content) and would have been understood to indicate a threshold to one of ordinary skill in the art this also implies that where content is less complex, i.e., a second type, the number of skippable frames will be less, e.g., less than the number of skippable frames for more complex content).
The reasons for combining the cited prior art with respect to claim 1 also apply to claim 5.
With respect to claim 6, Normile discloses the invention substantially as claimed. As described above, Normile in view of Yamashita discloses all the elements of independent claim 1. Normile/Yamashita additionally discloses:
wherein the at least one processor is configured to, by executing the at least one instruction:
based on the electronic device and the external device being in a situation of 1:1 transmission and reception, encode the content while skipping skippable frames based on the identified skip level for each frame of the plurality of frames, and
based on the electronic device and the external device being in a situation of 1:N transmission and reception, wherein N is greater than 1, encode the content such that skippable frames are skippable at a time of decoding at the external device based on the identified skip level for each frame of the plurality of frames (see citations and arguments with respect to claim 1 above, including Normile Figs. 1A, 1B, showing and describing that based on the electronic device and external device being in a situation of 1:N transmission and reception, where N is greater than 1, the content is encoded such that frames are skippable at the time of decoding at the decoder based on the skip level for a plurality of frames; see also Yamashita, Figs. 4, 9, ¶¶13-15, 25, 144-150, 157, 184-188, 272-273, which teaches that when the electronic device and external device are 1:1 transmission and reception, the content may be skipped based on feedback during encoding of the frames).
At the time of filing, one of ordinary skill would have been familiar with different transmission setups, including 1:N encoder to decoder scenarios as well as 1:1 encoder to decoder scenarios. Normile teaches a 1:N scenario and that it is helpful to allow the decoder to optionally control frame dropping where resources and availability may vary across different types of devices and decoders (see ¶¶16-18, 49-50). Yamashita teaches a 1:1 scenario in which the encoder does the frame dropping before signaling (see citations above). At the time of filing, one of ordinary skill in the art would have understood the benefits of allowing for decoder dropping especially in situations where, like Normile, decoder availability/resources may vary, but allowing for encoder dropping where there is one encoder to every decoder in order to reduce unnecessary bandwidth usage. Accordingly, such a person would have been motivated, in the system of Normile, to allow for encoder dropping of frames in 1:1 encoder/decoder scenarios as taught by Yamashita. Moreover, to such a person, doing so would have represented nothing more than the combination of prior art elements according to predictable results and/or the simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to include a mechanism for allowing for encoder dropping of frames in 1:1 transmission/reception scenarios in the coding system of Normile as taught by Yamashita.
With respect to claim 7, Normile discloses the invention substantially as claimed. As described above, Normile in view of Yamashita discloses all the elements of independent claim 1. Normile/Yamashita additionally discloses:
An electronic device comprising:
a communication interface connectable with a wireless network (see citations and arguments with respect to corresponding element of claim 1 above);
a memory storing at least one instruction (see citations and arguments with respect to corresponding element of claim 1 above); and
at least one processor (see citations and arguments with respect to corresponding element of claim 1 above) configured to, by executing the at least one instruction:
receive encoded content from an external device in real time through the wireless network via the communication interface (see citations and arguments with respect to corresponding element of claim 1 above, detailing that the decoder receives encoded video content from the encoder, i.e., an external device in real time through the wireless network via the communication channel);
decode the received content (see citations and arguments with respect to claim 1 above, describing that the decoder decodes video content received),
transmit transmission delay information to the external device based on a decoding delay state of the received content (see citations and argument with respect to corresponding element of claim 1 above, describing that in the combined system, the decoder transmits transmission delay information as feedback to the encoder/external device based on its decoding delay state of received content), and
based on receiving, through the wireless network via the communication interface, the encoded content including skip level information for each frame of a plurality of frames identified based on the transmitted transmission delay information and characteristics of the content and without the frame having been skipped in the encoded content, decode the received content based on the skip level information for each frame of the plurality of frames (see citations and arguments with respect to corresponding element of claim 1 above, describing that the encoder transmits and the decoder receives and decodes encoded video/frames, including skip level information for each frame, and that these skip levels are identified based on the delay information and characteristics of the content so that the decoder can determine whether to skip/drop the frame at the time of decoding, i.e., without the frame having been skipped in the encoded content),
wherein the skip level information for each frame of the plurality of frames indicates whether the frame is skippable at a time of decoding (see citations and arguments with respect to corresponding element of claim 1 above).
The reasons for combining the cited prior art with respect to claim 1 also apply to claim 7.
With respect to claim 8, Normile discloses the invention substantially as claimed. As described above, Normile in view of Yamashita discloses all the elements of independent claim 1. Normile/Yamashita additionally discloses:
wherein the at least one processor is configured to, by executing the at least one instruction:
identify whether frame skipping is necessary by monitoring a number of frames where decoding was delayed, and
based on determining that frame skipping is necessary, identify a skippable frame based on the skip level information for each frame of the plurality of frames, and decode the received content while skipping the identified skippable frame (see citations and arguments with respect to claims 1 and 7 above, and Yamashita ¶¶139-147 describing that the combined system determines whether frame dropping/skipping is necessary by monitoring delay information, which may include delayed decoding for a number of frames, and where skipping/dropping is necessary, IDs skippable/droppable/non-reference frames based on the skip level information for each of the plurality of frames and skips such frames during the decoding of received content at the decoder).
The reasons for combining the cited prior art with respect to claim 1 also apply to claim 8.
With respect to claim 9, Normile discloses the invention substantially as claimed. As described above, Normile in view of Yamashita discloses all the elements of dependent claim 8. Normile/Yamashita additionally discloses:
wherein the at least one processor is configured to, by executing the at least one instruction:
based on identifying that a skippable frame is additionally needed based on a number of the frames where decoding was delayed and the skip level information for each frame of the plurality of frames, transmit transmission delay information additionally requesting a skippable frame to the external device (see citations and arguments with respect to claims 7 and 8 above, describing that where frame dropping/skipping is needed, i.e., a skippable frame is additionally needed, e.g., based on a number of frames where coding was delayed, and based on skip level information for each frame, feedback information, e.g., including delay information, is transmitted to the encoder and which serves as a request for additional skippable/droppable frames).
The reasons for combining the cited prior art with respect to claim 1 also apply to claim 9.
With respect to claim 11, claim 11 recites the elements of claim 1 in method form rather than apparatus form. Accordingly, the disclosure cited with respect to claim 1 also applies to claim 11.
With respect to claim 14, claim 14 recites the elements of claim 4 in method form rather than apparatus form. Accordingly, the disclosure cited with respect to claim 4 also applies to claim 14.
With respect to claim 15, claim 15 recites the elements of claim 5 in method form rather than apparatus form. Accordingly, the disclosure cited with respect to claim 5 also applies to claim 15.
With respect to claim 16, claim 16 recites the elements of claim 6 in method form rather than apparatus form. Accordingly, the disclosure cited with respect to claim 6 also applies to claim 16.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claims 2-3, 10, and 12-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Normile in view of Yamashita and further in view of U.S. Patent Publication No. 2014/0362918 (“Bushell”).
With respect to claim 2, Normile discloses the invention substantially as claimed. As described above, Normile in view of Yamashita discloses all the elements of independent claim 1. Normile/Yamashita additionally discloses:
wherein the at least one processor is configured to, by executing the at least one instruction:
based on identifying a skippable frame among the plurality of frames included in the content, encode the content such that the identified skippable frame is skippable at a time of decoding at the external device, and
transmit the encoded content, with the skip level information for each frame of the plurality of frames included in [] the frame, to the external device through the wireless network via the communication interface (see citations and argument with respect to claim 1 above, describing that, in the combined system, when video frames are identified as non-reference/droppable/skippable, they are marked, i.e., encoded, as such and the decoder may have the option of skipping/dropping these frames at the time of decoding and that the video frames/encoded content, is transmitted with the markings/skip level information included for the frame to the decoder/external device via the wireless network).
Normile/Yamashita does not explicitly disclose where the skip level information is included in the transmission to the decoder, i.e., it does not explicitly disclose transmit[ting] the encoded content, with the skip level information for each frame of the plurality of frames included in an area of the frame.
However, in the same field of endeavor Bushell discloses that it was known to include such information in a flag on each frame, i.e., in an area of the frame (see ¶¶51, 66).
At the time of filing, one of ordinary skill would have been familiar with frame marking and how to mark a frame as non-reference/droppable, including, as evidenced by Bushell, marking the frames by use of a flag on each frame. Accordingly, to such a person, using this type of flag marking in the transmission system of Normile/Yamashita to indicate a non-reference/droppable frame would have represented nothing more than the combination of prior art elements according to predictable results and/or the simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to include a mechanism for marking droppable frames as non-reference/droppable using a flag on each frame in the transmission system of Normile/Yamashita as taught by Bushell.
With respect to claim 3, Normile discloses the invention substantially as claimed. As described above, Normile in view of Yamashita and Bushell discloses all the elements of dependent claim 2. Normile/Yamashita/Bushell additionally discloses:
wherein the at least one processor is configured to, by executing the at least one instruction:
based on identifying a skippable frame among the plurality of frames included in the content, encode the content while excluding the identified skippable frame from a reference frame (see citations and arguments with respect to claims 1-2 above, describing that the skippable/droppable frames are included in the content/encoded as non-reference, i.e., excluded from a reference frame).
The reasons for combining the cited prior art with respect to claims 1 and 2 also apply to claim 3.
With respect to claim 12, claim 12 recites the elements of claim 2 in method form rather than apparatus form. Accordingly, the disclosure cited with respect to claim 2 also applies to claim 12.
With respect to claim 13, claim 13 recites the elements of claim 3 in method form rather than apparatus form. Accordingly, the disclosure cited with respect to claim 3 also applies to claim 13.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Normile in view of Yamashita and further in view of U.S. Patent No. 6,034,731 (“Hurst, Jr.”).
With respect to claim 10, Normile discloses the invention substantially as claimed. As described above, Normile in view of Yamashita discloses all the elements of independent claim 7. Normile/Yamashita additionally discloses:
wherein the at least one processor is configured to, by executing the at least one instruction:
based on the skip level information for each frame of the plurality of frames, …, identify an audio frame and a video frame to be ultimately skipped, and
decode the received content while skipping the identified audio frame and the identified video frame (see citations and arguments with respect to claims 1, 7, and 4 above, describing that the combined system may apply to transmission of audio and/or video, and that, in it, based on skip level for the frames, such audio/video is identified to be skipped at the encoder and the decoder receives the content and skips the identified audio/video frames).
Normile/Yamashita details both audio and video as well as “audiovisual” content, but does not describe the synchronization process of such audio/video.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Hurst, Jr. discloses that it was known for such transmission systems to synchronize audio and video in order to skip frames, i.e.:
based on the … synchronization of an audio content and a video content, identify an audio frame and a video frame to be ultimately skipped (see 9:59-10:8, describing that it was known to synchronize audio and video content in order to identify both audio and video frames to be skipped).
At the time of filing, one of ordinary skill would have been familiar with the skipping of frames of audio, video, and content that includes both. Such a person would have also understood that, as evidenced by Hurst, Jr., skipping video without considering audio can cause synchronization issues with playback and errors in the lip sync. Accordingly, to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing, using Hurst Jr.’s method of identifying skip frames for audio and video content based on their synchronization would have represented nothing more than the combination of prior art elements according to predictable results and/or the simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to include a mechanism for identifying skip frames for audio and video content such that audio and video playback are synchronized in the frame skipping coding system of Normile/Yamashita as taught by Hurst, Jr.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LINDSAY JANE KILE UHL whose telephone number is (571)270-0337. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30 AM-5:00 PM.
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LINDSAY J UHL
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2481
/LINDSAY J UHL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2481
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