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
This Office Action is sent in response to Applicant’s Communication received 25 September 2024 for application number 18/771,269. The Office hereby acknowledges receipt of the following and placed of record in file: Specification, Drawings, Abstract, Oath/Declaration, Claims.
Claims 1-19 are presented for examination.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on the following dates are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97 and are being considered by the Examiner: 7/12/24.
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 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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 18, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Danieau et al. (US 2022/0343546).
Regarding claim 1, Danieau discloses an image encoding method (abstract), the method comprising:
generating an atlas from at least one two-dimensional or three-dimensional image (pars. 10, 11); and
encoding the atlas and metadata for the atlas, wherein the metadata includes information about a patch packed in the atlas, the patch information includes information about a three-dimensional point projected on a two-dimensional patch (pars. 86-88; figs. 4 and 5).
Regarding claim 2, see teachings of claim 1. Danieau further discloses wherein: the information about the three-dimensional point includes at least one of position information, size information, occupancy information or color information by direction on a three-dimensional space of the three-dimensional point (pars. 88-90).
Regarding claim 9, see teachings of claim 1. Danieau does not explicitly disclose wherein: the patch information further includes a flag indicating whether there are three-dimensional points that are redundantly projected on a same position (par. 99). A flag is a type of syntax (par. 114) that is well known in the art.
Regarding claim 10, Danieau discloses an image decoding method (abstract), the method comprising: decoding an atlas and metadata for the atlas (fig. 2); and generating a viewport image by using the atlas and the metadata, wherein the metadata includes information about a patch packed in the atlas, the patch information includes information about a three-dimensional point projected on a two-dimensional patch (pars. 64, 86-88).
Regarding claim 11, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 2.
Regarding claim 18, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 9.
Regarding claim 19, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 1.
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, 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.
Claim(s) 3-5, 12, 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Danieau et al. (US 2022/0343546) in view of Roimela et al. (US 2021/0383590).
Regarding claim 3, see teachings of claims 1 and 2. Danieau does not explicitly disclose wherein: a position of the three-dimensional point is determined based on a multi-layer structure.
In the same field of endeavor, Roimela discloses wherein: a position of the three-dimensional point is determined based on a multi-layer structure (par. 109).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, with motivation to modify Danieau to include the teachings of Roimela in order to enable encoding of more complex reflections consisting of multiple visual layers (Roimela, par. 109).
Regarding claim 4, see teachings of claims 1-3. Roimela further discloses wherein:the position information includes information identifying a layer in which the three- dimensional point is included and offset information showing an interval between layers in the multi-layer structure (par. 109).
Regarding claim 5, see teachings of claims 1 and 2. Danieau does not explicitly disclose wherein: size information of the three-dimensional point is determined as a radius of a spherical shaped point.
In the same field of endeavor, Roimela discloses wherein: size information of the three-dimensional point is determined as a radius of a spherical shaped point (par. 187).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, with motivation to modify Danieau to include the teachings of Roimela in order obtain simple fog volumes (Roimela, par. 187).
Regarding claim 12, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 4.
Regarding claim 13, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 5.
Claim(s) 7, 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Danieau et al. (US 2022/0343546) in view of Lin et al. (US 2024/0430403).
Regarding claim 7, see teachings of claim 1. Danieau does not explicitly disclose wherein: the color information by direction includes coefficient information of a spherical harmonic function.
In the same field of endeavor, Lin discloses wherein: the color information by direction includes coefficient information of a spherical harmonic function (par. 318).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, with motivation to modify Danieau to include the teachings of Lin in order to represent data (Lin, par. 318).
Regarding claim 15, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 7.
Claim(s) 8, 16, 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Danieau et al. (US 2022/0343546) in view of Fang et al. (US 11,908,067).
Regarding claim 8, see teachings of claim 1. Danieau does not explicitly disclose wherein: the patch information further includes a flag indicating whether the patch includes a non-Lambert region.
In the same field of endeavor, Fang discloses wherein: the patch information further includes a flag indicating whether the patch includes a non-Lambert region (col. 2, last par, to col. 3, first par.).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, with motivation to modify Danieau to include the teachings of Fang in order to input the high-dimensional deformation feature vector into a feature mapping network (Fang, col. 1, last par.).
Regarding claim 16, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 8.
Regarding claim 17, see teachings of claims 10 and 16. Fang further discloses wherein: when a pixel to be reproduced in the viewport image is included in the non-Lambert region, a value of the pixel is obtained based on transparency information or color information by direction of the three-dimensional point (col. 2, last par. To col. 3, first par.).
Claim(s) 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Danieau et al. (US 2022/0343546) in view of Matsumoto et al. (US 2022/0035164).
Regarding claim 14, see teachings of claims 10 and 11. Danieau does not explicitly disclose wherein:the occupancy information shows a transmittance for the three-dimensional point.
In the same field of endeavor, Matsumoto discloses wherein:the occupancy information shows a transmittance for the three-dimensional point (par. 37).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, with motivation to modify Danieau to include the teachings of Matsumoto in order determine the reflectivity.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 19 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Claims 19 recites a “computer readable recording medium” which appears to cover both transitory and non-transitory embodiments. See specification, par. 273, which gives examples of one embodiment, may comprise one or more articles, “such as a magnetic storage medium, an optical readout medium, a digital storage medium, etc.”. The “such as” is broad and is open to many interpretations such as signal or software. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is required to give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification during proceeding before the USPTO. See In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (during patent examination the pending claims must be interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably allow). The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim drawn to a computer readable medium (also called machine readable medium and other such variations) typically covers forms of non-transitory tangible media and transitory propagating signals per se in view of the ordinary and customary meaning of computer readable media, particularly when the specification is silent. See MPEP 2111.01. When the broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim covers a signal per se, the claim must be rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as covering non-statutory subject matter. See ln re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346, 1356-57 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (transitory embodiments are not directed to statutory subject matter) and Interim Examination Instructions for Evaluating Subject Matter Eligibility under 35 U.S.C. 101 Aug. 24 2009; p. 2.
The Examiner suggests that the Applicant add the limitation “non-transitory” to the computer readable medium as recited in the claim(s) in order to properly render the claim(s) in statutory form in view of their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the originally filed specification.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 6 is 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claim 6, none of the references, alone or in combination, discloses wherein: at least one of the occupancy information or the color information by direction of the three-dimensional point is calculated based on a view with a smallest loss cost based on a difference value between original information and information reconstructed by all rays incident from a plurality of views.
Prior Art not relied upon: Please refer to the references listed in attached PTO-892, which are not relied upon for the claim rejections, since these references are pertinent to the disclosure.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NGUYEN T TRUONG whose telephone number is (571)272-5262. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon - Fri, 6AM - 2PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, JAMIE ATALA can be reached on 571-272-7384. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/NGUYEN T TRUONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2486