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 .
Priority
Acknowledgement is made of Applicant’s claim of the present application being a continuation of PCT International Patent Application No. PCT/CN2023/075950, filed on February 14, 2023, and claim priority and benefit under 35 U.S.C. 119(a-d) to Chinese Patent Application No. CN202210153272.X, filed on February 18, 2022.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (“IDS”) filed on 01/05/2026 was reviewed and the listed references were noted.
Drawings
The 6-page drawings have been considered and placed on record in the file.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Claim Objections
Claims 19-20 are objected to because of the following informalities: the recited “A non-transitory readable storage” must be corrected to recite “A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium”. Appropriate correction is required.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
Claims 1, 6-15, and 19 are provisionally rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over the claims of co-pending Application No. 18/807,280 in view of Hemmer et al. (US 20200265611 A1), and in further view of Zakharchenko et al. (US 20240242391 A1).
The following is a chart mapping, for example independent claim 1 of the instant application to claim 1 of co-pending Application No.18/807,280:
Instant Application
Application No.18/807,280
A coding method, comprising:
quantizing, by the encoder, geometric information of the decimated mesh to obtain first information, wherein the first information comprises at least one of the following: the first precision geometric information, the second precision geometric information, or information of supplementary points;
wherein the reconstructed mesh is determined based on the first information, the first precision geometric information is geometric information obtained after quantization of the target three-dimensional mesh, the second precision geometric information is geometric information lost during quantization of the target three-dimensional mesh, and the information of the supplementary point is information of a point generated during quantization and requiring additional processing.
A coding method, comprising: quantizing, by an encoder, geometric information of a target three-dimensional mesh, to obtain first information, wherein the first information comprises at least one of the following: first precision geometric information, second precision geometric information, or information about a supplementary point;
and encoding, by the encoder, the first information, wherein the first precision geometric information is quantized geometric information of the target three-dimensional mesh, the second precision geometric information is geometric information lost in a quantization process of the target three-dimensional mesh, and the information about the supplementary point is information about a point that is generated in the quantization process and that needs additional processing.
Regarding claim 1, the claim 1 of the co-pending Application No. 18/807,280 does not explicitly teach, “decimating, by an encoder, a target three-dimensional mesh to obtain a decimated mesh” and “coding, by the encoder, the first information and connectivity information of a reconstructed mesh”. Since co-pending Application No. 18/807,280 does not explicitly disclose these limitations, Examiner relies on the teachings of Hemmer in an analogous field of endeavor. Specifically, Hemmer teaches, “decimating, by an encoder, a target three-dimensional mesh to obtain a decimated mesh” (Hemmer, Para. [0029] discloses; “For example, a progressive mesh encoder may use the mesh decimation process to define a lower level of detail (LOD) to be used by a progressive mesh decoder, in which a lower LOD corresponds to a less faithful representation of a surface of a three-dimensional object.”) “coding, by the encoder, the first information and connectivity information of a reconstructed mesh;” (Hemmer, Para. [0118] discloses; “Connectivity. The connectivity symbols after diameter-based prediction (FIG. 8) are encoded using an entropy coder. [0121] Geometry. The quantized residuals after barycentric predictions are entropy encoded”).
Co-pending Application No. 18/807,260 and Hemmer are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of processing three-dimensional image representations. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Application No. 18/807,260 to incorporate the teachings of Hemmer in order to decimate a mesh before processing, and code first and connectivity information. One would have been motivated to combine the previously described method of Application No. 18/807,260 with the teachings of Hemmer to increase efficiency by reducing the size of the mesh before processing. Accordingly, it would have been obvious to combine Application No. 18/807,260 and Hemmer to obtain the above specified limitations.
Further regarding claim 1, the combination of Application No. 18/807,260 and Hemmer does not explicitly teach “wherein the reconstructed mesh is determined based on the first information”. Since the combination of Application No. 18/807,260 and Hemmer does not explicitly disclose this limitation, Examiner relies on the teachings of Zakharchenko in an analogous field of endeavor. Specifically, Zakharchenko teaches, “wherein the reconstructed mesh is determined based on the first information” (Zakharchenko, Para. [0034] discloses; “The 3D mesh content can be reconstructed from the connectivity information extracted.” It would be obvious to perform the reconstruction method of Zakharchenko with the first information of Zou.)
Application No. 18/807,260, Hemmer, and Zakharchenko are all considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of processing three-dimensional meshes. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Application No. 18/807,260 and Hemmer to incorporate the teachings of Zakharchenko in order to perform mesh reconstruction according to connectivity information and first information. One would have been motivated to combine the previously described method of Application No. 18/807,260 and Hemmer with the teachings of Zakharchenko to increase the accuracy of the reconstructed mesh. Accordingly, it would have been obvious to combine Application No. 18/807,260, Hemmer, and Zakharchenko to obtain the above specified limitations. Similar analysis may be performed between: claim 6 of the instant application and claim 2 of Application No. 18/807,260; claim 7 of the instant application and claim 3 of Zou; claim 8 of the instant application and claim 4 of Application No. 18/807,260; claim 9 of the instant application and claim 5 of Application No. 18/807,260; claim 10 of the instant application and claim 6 of Application No. 18/807,260; claim 11 of the instant application and claim 7 of Application No. 18/807,260; claim 12 of the instant application and claim 9 of Application No. 18/807,260; claim 13 of the instant application and claim 10 of Application No. 18/807,260; and claim 14 of the instant application and claim 9 of Application No. 18/807,260. Similar analysis is performed for independent claims 15 and 19 of Application No. 18/807,260.
Instant Application
1, 15, 19
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Co-pending Application No. 18/807,260
1
2
3
8
5
6
7
9
10
9
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1, 15, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b). Claims 1, 15, and 19 recite the limitations "the first precision geometric information" and “the second precision geometric information” in lines 5 and 6. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Additionally, claims 2-14, 16-18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) due to their recited dependency on claims 1, 15, and 19.
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b). Claim 13 recites the limitation “the first precision geometry map” and “the second precision geometry map”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 9, 15, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Graziosi (“[V-Mesh] Report for EE 4.0 on content preparation and anchor generation”) in view of Hemmer et al. (US 20200265611 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Graziosi teaches, “A coding method, comprising: decimating, by an encoder, a target three-dimensional mesh to obtain a decimated mesh;” (Graziosi, “Data pre-processing”, Page 7 discloses; “The mesh decimation was accomplished with Meshlab, by applying the mesh decimation filter that preserves the texture boundaries”) “quantizing, by the encoder, geometric information of the decimated mesh to obtain first information, wherein the first information comprises at least one of the following: the first precision geometric information, the second precision geometric information, or information of supplementary points;” (Graziosi, “Mesh voxelization”, Page 5 discloses, “The meshes provided have vertex positions and UV coordinates in floating-point notation, and one of the mandates of this EE is to voxelize the content, that is, to quantize the positions and UV coordinates into integer values. Examiner interprets “vertex positions” to be geometric information and “integer values” to be precision geometric information.) “and coding, by the encoder, the first information and connectivity information of a reconstructed mesh;” (Graziosi, Page 18 discloses; “Draco is used to encode the mesh connectivity, the vertices 3D position and texture coordinates” It would be obvious to use the connectivity of the reconstructed mesh as explained in the next limitation rejection.) “(Graziosi, Page 8-10 discloses information about generating an “anchor”, which Examiner interprets to be a “point”. The explanation about the additional processing is also on Page 10. Graziosi also discloses how the anchor is considered in the reconstructing of the mesh on Page 8.) Graziosi does not explicitly teach, “wherein the reconstructed mesh is determined based on the first information, the first precision geometric information is geometric information obtained after quantization of the target three-dimensional mesh, the second precision geometric information is geometric information lost during quantization of the target three-dimensional mesh”. Since Graziosi does not explicitly disclose these limitations, Examiner relies on the teachings of Hemmer in an analogous field of endeavor. Specifically, Hemmer teaches, “wherein the reconstructed mesh is determined based on the first information, the first precision geometric information is geometric information obtained after quantization of the target three-dimensional mesh, the second precision geometric information is geometric information lost during quantization of the target three-dimensional mesh,” (Hemmer, Para. [0029] discloses; “For example, a progressive mesh encoder may use the mesh decimation process to define a lower level of detail (LOD) to be used by a progressive mesh decoder, in which a lower LOD corresponds to a less faithful representation of a surface of a three-dimensional object. Nevertheless, there are other LOD reduction processes, e.g., quantization, by which a lower LOD may be defined by an encoder for a decoder.” and Hemmer Para. [0040] discloses; “In some implementations, the position coordinates are quantized so that the real numbers have truncated bit representations.” Examiner interprets this to show that Hemmer is preforming quantization on geometric information (“position coordinates”) to obtain geometric information and the information lost from quantization (“level of detail”). It would be obvious to combine this with the reconstruction of Graziosi.)
Graziosi and Hemmer are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of processing three-dimensional image representations. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Graziosi to incorporate the teachings of Hemmer in order to include precision geometric information in the reconstruction of a mesh. One would have been motivated to combine the previously described method of Graziosi with the teachings of Hemmer to ensure the mesh reconstruction is as accurate as possible. Accordingly, it would have been obvious to combine Graziosi and Hemmer to obtain the above specified limitations.
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Graziosi and Hemmer teaches, “The method according to claim 1, wherein the information of the supplementary point comprises at least one of the following: an index of a vertex in the first precision geometric information corresponding to the supplementary point; third precision geometric information of the supplementary point, wherein the third precision geometric information is three-dimensional coordinate information obtained after quantization of the supplementary point; or fourth precision geometric information of the supplementary point, wherein the fourth precision geometric information is three-dimensional coordinate information lost during quantization of the supplementary point.” (Hemmer, Para. [0062] discloses; “The XYZ quantization manager 144 is configured to perform an XYZ quantization operation on the vertex position data 135 to produce the candidate data 150′. In some implementations, the XYZ quantization operation includes decrementing the length of a bit string representing each of the coordinate triplets represented by the vertex position data 135 by one bit. In such implementations, a vertex of the mesh is located at a center of a three-dimensional cell of a lattice. The XYZ quantization operation is configured to move the vertex to the center of a three-dimensional cell of a new lattice that has a larger spacing than the previous lattice.”) The proposed combination as well as the motivation for combining the Graziosi and Hemmer references in the rejection of claim 1, apply to claim 9 and are incorporated herein by reference. Thus, the method of claim 9 is met by Graziosi and Hemmer.
Claim 15 recites a system with elements corresponding to the steps recited in Claim 1. Therefore, the recited elements of this claim are mapped to the proposed combination in the same manner as the corresponding steps in its corresponding method claim. Additionally, the rationale and motivation to combine the Graziosi and Hemmer references, presented in rejection of Claim 1, apply to this claim. Finally, the combination of Graziosi and Hemmer references discloses a processor and a memory (Hemmer, Para. [0036] discloses; “In some embodiments, one or more of the components of the compression computer 120 can be, or can include processors (e.g., processing units 124) configured to process instructions stored in the memory 126.”).
Claim 19 recites a computer-readable storage medium storing a program with instructions corresponding to the steps recited in Claim 1. Therefore, the recited programming instructions of this claim are mapped to the proposed combination in the same manner as the corresponding steps in its corresponding method claim. Additionally, the rationale and motivation to combine the Graziosi and Hemmer references, presented in rejection of Claim 1, apply to this claim. Finally, the combination of Graziosi and Hemmer references discloses a computer readable storage medium (Hemmer, Para. [0185] discloses; “The memory 1604 may also be another form of computer-readable medium, such as a magnetic or optical disk.”).
Claims 2, 5, 16, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Graziosi in view of Hemmer, in further view of Zakharchenko et al. (US 20250069273 A1 w/ EFD of 12/30/2021).
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Graziosi and Hemmer does not explicitly teach, “The method according to claim 1, wherein obtaining of the connectivity information of the reconstructed mesh comprises: performing, by the encoder, geometric reconstruction based on coding information of the first information; performing, by the encoder, mesh reconstruction based on geometric information after reconstruction and the decimated mesh to obtain the reconstructed mesh; and obtaining, by the encoder, the connectivity information of the reconstructed mesh based on the reconstructed mesh.” Since the combination of Graziosi and Hemmer does not explicitly disclose these limitations, Examiner relies on the teachings of Zakharchenko in an analogous field of endeavor. Specifically, Zakharchenko teaches, “The method according to claim 1, wherein obtaining of the connectivity information of the reconstructed mesh comprises: performing, by the encoder, geometric reconstruction based on coding information of the first information;” (Zakharchenko, [0006] discloses; “The operations include reconstructing geometry information of a dynamic mesh from a geometry component bitstream in a coded mesh bitstream of the dynamic mesh, the reconstructed geometry information comprising data specifying a plurality of vertices of the dynamic mesh; reconstructing connectivity information of the dynamic mesh from a connectivity component bitstream in the coded mesh bitstream” “Coded mesh bitstream” is interpreted to have coding information of the information.) “performing, by the encoder, mesh reconstruction based on geometric information after reconstruction and the decimated mesh to obtain the reconstructed mesh;” (Zakharchenko, [0004] discloses; “reconstructing the dynamic mesh based on the reconstructed geometry information and the refined connectivity information” It would be obvious to combine this with the decimated mesh of Graziosi.) “and obtaining, by the encoder, the connectivity information of the reconstructed mesh based on the reconstructed mesh.” (Zakharchenko, [0004] discloses; “reconstructing connectivity information of the dynamic mesh from a connectivity component bitstream in the coded mesh bitstream, the reconstructed connectivity information comprising data specifying a plurality of faces of the dynamic mesh;” It would be obvious to combine this with the decimated mesh of Graziosi.)
Graziosi, Hemmer, and Zakharchenko are all considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of processing three-dimensional image representations. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Graziosi and Hemmer to incorporate the teachings of Zakharchenko in order to obtain the correct connectivity information of the reconstructed mesh. One would have been motivated to combine the previously described method of Graziosi and Hemmer with the teachings of Zakharchenko to increase the accuracy of the connectivity of the reconstructed mesh. Accordingly, it would have been obvious to combine Graziosi, Hemmer, and Zakharchenko to obtain the above specified limitations.
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Zakharchenko teaches, “The method according to claim 1, further comprising: obtaining, by the encoder, attribute information of the reconstructed mesh;” (Zakharchenko, Para. [0035] discloses; “The encoder can extract an attribute component (containing color information), a geometry component (containing a list of vertex coordinates), a connectivity component (containing a list of faces with corresponding vertex index and texture index), and a mapping component…” It would be obvious to combine this with the reconstructed mesh of Graziosi.) “and coding, by the encoder, the attribute information.” (Zakharchenko, Para. [0065] discloses; “The uncompressed attribute component generated by the attribute image composition module 110 and represented as images can be provided to a video coder 120a to generate the coded attribute component.”) The proposed combination as well as the motivation for combining the Graziosi, Hemmer, and Zakharchenko references in the rejection of claim 2, apply to claim 5 and are incorporated herein by reference. Thus, the method of claim 5 is met by Graziosi, Hemmer, and Zakharchenko.
Claim 16 recites a system with elements corresponding to the steps recited in Claim 2. Therefore, the recited elements of this claim are mapped to the proposed combination in the same manner as the corresponding steps in its corresponding method claim. Additionally, the rationale and motivation to combine the Graziosi, Hemmer, and Zakharchenko references, presented in rejection of Claim 2, apply to this claim. Finally, the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Zakharchenko references discloses a processor and a memory (Hemmer, Para. [0036] discloses; “In some embodiments, one or more of the components of the compression computer 120 can be, or can include processors (e.g., processing units 124) configured to process instructions stored in the memory 126.”).
Claim 20 recites a computer-readable storage medium storing a program with instructions corresponding to the steps recited in Claim 2. Therefore, the recited programming instructions of this claim are mapped to the proposed combination in the same manner as the corresponding steps in its corresponding method claim. Additionally, the rationale and motivation to combine the Graziosi, Hemmer, and Zakharchenko references, presented in rejection of Claim 2, apply to this claim. Finally, the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Zakharchenko references discloses a computer readable storage medium (Hemmer, Para. [0185] discloses; “The memory 1604 may also be another form of computer-readable medium, such as a magnetic or optical disk.”).
Claims 3 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Graziosi in view of Hemmer, in further view of McCarthy et al. (US 20140269903 A1).
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Graziosi and Hemmer does not explicitly teach, “The method according to claim 1, wherein the decimating a target three-dimensional mesh to obtain a decimated mesh comprises: decimating, by the encoder, the target three-dimensional mesh based on a quantization parameter to obtain the decimated mesh.” Since the combination of Graziosi and Hemmer does not explicitly disclose these limitations, Examiner relies on the teachings of McCarthy in an analogous field of endeavor. Specifically, McCarthy teaches, “The method according to claim 1, wherein the decimating a target three-dimensional mesh to obtain a decimated mesh comprises: decimating, by the encoder, the target three-dimensional mesh based on a quantization parameter to obtain the decimated mesh” (McCarthy, Abstract discloses; “and decimation is performed to match the pixel values to a spatial resolution of quantization parameter values (QP) values in a look up table (LUT).”
Graziosi, Hemmer, and McCarthy are all considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of processing three-dimensional image representations. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Graziosi and Hemmer to incorporate the teachings of McCarthy to ensure that quantization and decimation are performed under the same parameter. One would have been motivated to combine the previously described method of Graziosi and Hemmer with the teachings of McCarthy to allow a device to decimate and quantize under the same parameter. Accordingly, it would have been obvious to combine Graziosi, Hemmer, and McCarthy to obtain the above specified limitations.
Claim 17 recites a system with elements corresponding to the steps recited in Claim 3. Therefore, the recited elements of this claim are mapped to the proposed combination in the same manner as the corresponding steps in its corresponding method claim. Additionally, the rationale and motivation to combine the Graziosi, Hemmer, and McCarthy references, presented in rejection of Claim 3, apply to this claim. Finally, the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and McCarthy references discloses a processor and a memory (Hemmer, Para. [0036] discloses; “In some embodiments, one or more of the components of the compression computer 120 can be, or can include processors (e.g., processing units 124) configured to process instructions stored in the memory 126.”).
Claims 4 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Graziosi in view of Hemmer, in further view of McCarthy, and still in view of Purnomo (“Hardware-Compatible Vertex Compression Using Quantization and Simplification”).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and McCarthy does not explicitly teach, “The method according to claim 3, wherein the decimating the target three-dimensional mesh based on a quantization parameter to obtain the decimated mesh comprises: when performing vertex merging in the target three-dimensional mesh, adjusting, by the encoder, positions of some or all of vertices subjected to vertex merging in the target three-dimensional mesh to multiples of the quantization parameter to obtain the decimated mesh.” Since the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and McCarthy does not explicitly disclose these limitations, Examiner relies on the teachings of Purnomo, in an analogous field of endeavor. Specifically, Purnomo teaches, “The method according to claim 3, wherein the decimating the target three-dimensional mesh based on a quantization parameter to obtain the decimated mesh comprises: when performing vertex merging in the target three-dimensional mesh, adjusting, by the encoder, positions of some or all of vertices subjected to vertex merging in the target three-dimensional mesh to multiples of the quantization parameter to obtain the decimated mesh.” (Purnomo, Abstract discloses; “Given a user-specified number of bits per vertex, we automatically allocate bits to vertex attributes for quantization to maximize quality, guided by an image-space error metric. This allocation accounts for the constraints of graphics hardware by packing the quantized attributes into bins associated with the hardware’s vectorized vertex data elements. We show that this general approach is also applicable if the user specifies a total desired model size. We present an algorithm that integrally combines vertex decimation and attribute quantization to produce the best quality model for a user-specified data size.” It would be obvious to use a quantization parameter to prepare the decimated mesh for quantization.)
Graziosi, Hemmer, McCarthy, and Purnomo are all considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of processing three-dimensional image representations. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and McCarthy to incorporate the teachings of Purnomo to ensure the decimated mesh is compatible with the quantization to be performed later. One would have been motivated to combine the previously described method of Graziosi, Hemmer, and McCarthy with the teachings of Purnomo to decimate all-sized meshes in accordance with a quantization parameter, so that quantization can run smoothly. Accordingly, it would have been obvious to combine Graziosi, Hemmer, McCarthy, and Purnomo to obtain the above specified limitations.
Claim 18 recites a system with elements corresponding to the steps recited in Claim 4. Therefore, the recited elements of this claim are mapped to the proposed combination in the same manner as the corresponding steps in its corresponding method claim. Additionally, the rationale and motivation to combine the Graziosi, Hemmer, McCarthy, and Purnomo references, presented in rejection of Claim 4, apply to this claim. Finally, the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, McCarthy, and Purnomo references discloses a processor and a memory (Hemmer, Para. [0036] discloses; “In some embodiments, one or more of the components of the compression computer 120 can be, or can include processors (e.g., processing units 124) configured to process instructions stored in the memory 126.”).
Claims 6 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Graziosi in view of Hemmer, in further view of Park et al. (US 20240155157 A1 w/ EFD of 03/04/2021).
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Graziosi and Hemmer does not explicitly teach, “The method according to claim 1, wherein the quantizing geometric information of the decimated mesh to obtain first information comprises: quantizing, by the encoder, each vertex in the decimated mesh based on a quantization parameter of each component to obtain the first precision geometric information.” Since the combination of Graziosi and Hemmer does not explicitly disclose these limitations, Examiner relies on the teachings of Park in an analogous field of endeavor. Specifically, Park teaches, “The method according to claim 1, wherein the quantizing geometric information of the decimated mesh to obtain first information comprises: quantizing, by the encoder, each vertex in the decimated mesh based on a quantization parameter of each component to obtain the first precision geometric information” (Park, Para. [0121] discloses; “The quantizer 40001 performs a quantization operation of multiplying the difference between the minimum position value and the position value of each point by a preset quantization scale value and then finding the nearest integer value by rounding the value obtained through the multiplication.”)
Graziosi, Hemmer, and Park are all considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of processing three-dimensional image representations. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Graziosi and Hemmer to incorporate the teachings of Park to quantize each vertex based on a quantization parameter. One would have been motivated to combine the previously described method of Graziosi and Hemmer with the teachings of Park to ensure that every vertex is quantized according to the preferred quantization parameter. Accordingly, it would have been obvious to combine Graziosi, Hemmer, and Park to obtain the above specified limitations.
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Park teaches, “The method according to claim 6, wherein the quantizing geometric information of the decimated mesh to obtain first information further comprises: determining, by the encoder, the information of the supplementary point based on the geometric information of the decimated mesh and the first precision geometric information” (Park, Para. [0025] discloses; “According to an embodiment, the signaling information may include information related to sampling, and decoding the geometry information may include reconstructing the geometry information based on the information related to the sampling.” and Park, Para. [0019] discloses; “According to an embodiment, the information related to the sampling may be information for identifying positional differences between original points and the sampled points.”) The proposed combination as well as the motivation for combining the Graziosi, Hemmer, and Park references in the rejection of claim 6, apply to claim 8 and are incorporated herein by reference. Thus, the method of claim 8 is met by Graziosi, Hemmer, and Park.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Graziosi in view of Hemmer, in further view of Park, and still in view of Doumanoglou et al. (“Benchmarking Open-Source Static 3D Mesh Codecs for Immersive Media Interactive Live Streaming”).
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Park does not explicitly teach, “The method according to claim 6, wherein the quantizing geometric information of the decimated mesh to obtain first information further comprises: obtaining, by the encoder, the second precision geometric information based on the first precision geometric information and the quantization parameter of each component.” Since the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Park does not explicitly disclose these limitations, Examiner relies on the teachings of Doumanoglou in an analogous filed of endeavor. Specifically, Doumanoglou teaches, “The method according to claim 6, wherein the quantizing geometric information of the decimated mesh to obtain first information further comprises: obtaining, by the encoder, the second precision geometric information based on the first precision geometric information and the quantization parameter of each component.” (Doumanoglou, Section II D. OpenCTM discloses; “The difference between each vertex and its grid cell’s origin is computed and quantized based on the requested precision.” Second information is interpreted to be the difference between each vertex and its grid cell’s origin. It would be obvious to use the same quantization parameter as disclosed by Park in the rejection of claim 6.)
Graziosi, Hemmer, Park, and Doumanoglou are all considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of processing three-dimensional image representations. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Park to incorporate the teachings of Doumanoglou to obtain the second precision geometric information based on first geometric information and the quantization parameter. One would have been motivated to combine the previously described method of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Park with the teachings of Doumanoglou to correctly determine the second precision geometric information. Accordingly, it would have been obvious to combine Graziosi, Hemmer, Park, and Doumanoglou to obtain the above specified limitations.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Graziosi in view of Hemmer, in further view of Rhyu et al. (WO 2020122675 A1).
Regarding claim 10, the combination of Graziosi and Hemmer teaches, “The method according to claim 1, wherein the coding the first information comprises: processing, by the encoder, the first information to obtain second information” (Hemmer, Para. [0029] discloses; “For example, a progressive mesh encoder may use the mesh decimation process to define a lower level of detail (LOD) to be used by a progressive mesh decoder, in which a lower LOD corresponds to a less faithful representation of a surface of a three-dimensional object. Nevertheless, there are other LOD reduction processes, e.g., quantization, by which a lower LOD may be defined by an encoder for a decoder.” and Hemmer Para. [0040] discloses; “In some implementations, the position coordinates are quantized so that the real numbers have truncated bit representations.” Examiner interprets this to show that Hemmer is processing first information (“position coordinates”) to obtain second information (“level of detail”)) (Rhyu, Abstract discloses; “obtaining a texture image on the basis of the texture information; displaying the scaled vertices on an occupancy map; converting the face information on the basis of at least one of the scale factor and the occupancy map; and compressing the geometry image, the texture image, the occupancy map, and the converted face information with a video based point cloud compression (V-PCC) encoder, and generating a bitstream.”)
Graziosi, Hemmer, and Rhyu are all considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of image processing. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Graziosi and Hemmer to incorporate the teachings of Rhyu to obtain an occupancy map or geometry map. One would have been motivated to combine the previously described method of Graziosi and Hemmer with the teachings of Rhyu to have the ability to encode this information for later retrieval. Accordingly, it would have been obvious to combine Graziosi, Hemmer, and Rhyu to obtain the above specified limitations.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Graziosi in view of Hemmer, in further view of Rhyu, and still in view of Zaghetto et al. (“[VPCC] [EE2.6-related] Mesh Patch Data”).
Regarding claim 11, the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer and Rhyu teaches, “(Hemmer, Para. [0084] discloses; “Accordingly, the triangular texture patches are packed by attaching the triangles as much as possible so as to exchange a low number of texture seams for limited texture distortion.”) “and obtaining, by the encoder, a first precision occupancy map and a first precision geometry map based on the two-dimensional image information.” (Rhyu, Abstract discloses; “obtaining a texture image on the basis of the texture information; displaying the scaled vertices on an occupancy map; converting the face information on the basis of at least one of the scale factor and the occupancy map; and compressing the geometry image, the texture image, the occupancy map, and the converted face information with a video based point cloud compression (V-PCC) encoder, and generating a bitstream.”) The combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Rhyu does not explicitly teach, “The method according to claim 10, wherein in a case that the first information comprises the first precision geometric information, the processing the first information to obtain second information comprises: performing, by the encoder, three-dimensional patch partition on the first precision geometric information; performing, by the encoder, two-dimensional projection on partitioned three-dimensional patches to obtain two-dimensional patches”. Since the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Rhyu does not explicitly disclose these limitations, Examiner relies on the teachings of Zaghetto in an analogous field of endeavor. Specifically, Zaghetto teaches, “The method according to claim 10, wherein in a case that the first information comprises the first precision geometric information, the processing the first information to obtain second information comprises: performing, by the encoder, three-dimensional patch partition on the first precision geometric information;” (Zaghetto, Page 2 “2.2 Patch Generation” discloses; “For the patch generation, we also implement a mesh segmentation following closely what was done for point clouds. Note that the procedure for mesh segmentation is an encoder-only procedure, and more optimized methods could be used.”) “performing, by the encoder, two-dimensional projection on partitioned three-dimensional patches to obtain two-dimensional patches;” (Zaghetto, Page 2 “2.2 Patch Generation” discloses; “Next, adjacent triangles are aggregated into connected components, and then the area of the projected connected component is verified against a user-defined threshold.”)
Graziosi, Hemmer, Rhyu and Zaghetto are all considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of image processing. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Rhyu to incorporate the teachings of Zaghetto to obtain precision occupancy and geometry maps. One would have been motivated to combine the previously described method of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Rhyu with the teachings of Zaghetto to process the three-dimensional mesh into a 2-dimensional map. Accordingly, it would have been obvious to combine Graziosi, Hemmer, Rhyu, and Zaghetto to obtain the above specified limitations.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Graziosi in view of Hemmer, in further view of Rhyu, and still in view of Doumanoglou et al. (“Benchmarking Open-Source Static 3D Mesh Codecs for Immersive Media Interactive Live Streaming”).
Regarding claim 12, the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Rhyu does not explicitly teach, “The method according to claim 10, wherein in a case that the first information comprises the second precision geometric information, the processing the first information to obtain second information comprises: obtaining, by the encoder, an arrangement order of vertices in the first precision geometric information; and arranging, by the encoder, the second precision geometric information corresponding to the vertices in the first precision geometric information in a two-dimensional image to generate a second precision geometry map.” Since the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Rhyu does not explicitly disclose these limitations, Examiner relies on the teachings of Doumanoglou in an analogous field of endeavor. Specifically, Doumanoglou teaches, “The method according to claim 10, wherein in a case that the first information comprises the second precision geometric information, the processing the first information to obtain second information comprises: obtaining, by the encoder, an arrangement order of vertices in the first precision geometric information;” (Doumanoglou, Section II D. OpenCTM discloses; “Initially, a grid that fits the bounding box of the mesh is constructed and the mesh vertices are sorted based on their index inside the grid and subsequently (upon equality) based on their x coordinate.”) “and arranging, by the encoder, the second precision geometric information corresponding to the vertices in the first precision geometric information in a two-dimensional image to generate a second precision geometry map.” (Doumanoglou, Section II D. OpenCTM discloses; “Then, the triangles are sorted based on their first and second indices, with the second indices being used when the first indices are equal. Finally, a delta coding scheme on the final triangle list is applied so that the first index of each triangle is delta coded with respect to the previous triangle in the list, while the other two indices of the triangle are encoded as a difference with respect to the first index of the same triangle”)
Graziosi, Hemmer, Rhyu and Doumanoglou are all considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of image processing. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Rhyu to incorporate the teachings of Doumanoglou to arrange the order of vertices to generate a second precision geometry map. One would have been motivated to combine the previously described method of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Rhyu with the teachings of Doumanoglou to have 2 different geometry maps corresponding to the mesh data. Accordingly, it would have been obvious to combine Graziosi, Hemmer, Rhyu, and Doumanoglou to obtain the above specified limitations.
Claims 13 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Graziosi in view of Hemmer, in further view of Rhyu, and still in view of Zakharchenko et al. (US 20240242391 A1)
Regarding claim 13, the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Rhyu does not explicitly teach, “The method according to claim 10, wherein the coding the second information comprises: coding, by the encoder, the first precision geometry map and the second precision geometry map to obtain a geometry map substream”. Since the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Rhyu does not explicitly disclose these limitations, Examiner relies on the teachings of Zakharchenko in an analogous field of endeavor. Specifically, Zakharchenko teaches, “The method according to claim 10, wherein the coding the second information comprises: coding, by the encoder, the first precision geometry map and the second precision geometry map to obtain a geometry map substream” (Zakharchenko, Para. [0059] discloses; “The demultiplexer can separate the compressed bitstream into various substreams, including an attribute substream, a geometry substream, an occupancy map substream, a patch substream, a connectivity substream, and a vertex map substream.” It would be obvious to code the second information of Hemmer to obtain the geometry map of Zakharchenko.)
Graziosi, Hemmer, Rhyu and Zakharchenko are all considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of image processing. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Rhyu to incorporate the teachings of Zakharchenko to code different geometry maps to obtain a geometry sub-stream. One would have been motivated to combine the previously described method of Graziosi, Hemmer, and Rhyu with the teachings of Zakharchenko to have both precision geometry maps in a sub-stream. Accordingly, it would have been obvious to combine Graziosi, Hemmer, Rhyu, and Zakharchenko to obtain the above specified limitations.
Regarding claim 14, the combination of Graziosi, Hemmer, Rhyu, and Zakharchenko teaches, “The method according to claim 10, wherein in a case that the first information comprises the information of the supplementary point, the processing the first information to obtain second information comprises: arranging, by the encoder, third precision geometric information of the supplementary point into a first raw patch;” (Zakharchenko, Para. [0057] discloses; “Points are segmented into regular patches, and points not segmented into regular patches (e.g., not handled by the default patch generation process) are packed into raw patches.”) “arranging, by the encoder, fourth precision geometric information of the supplementary point into a second raw patch according to a same arrangement order as the first raw patch;” (Zakharchenko, Para. [0057] discloses; “Points are segmented into regular patches, and points not segmented into regular patches (e.g., not handled by the default patch generation process) are packed into raw patches.” It would be obvious to use the method of Zakharchenko on 2 sets of geometric information.) “and compressing, by the encoder, the first raw patch and the second raw patch to obtain a geometry map of the supplementary point.” (Rhyu discloses; “The dynamic point cloud encoding structure has a structure in which each surface of the point cloud is projected onto a two-dimensional plane every frame to generate patch information and a distance information map composed of several pieces, and compresses it with a video encoder” It would be obvious to classify the output of compressing the patch information as a geometry map.) The proposed combination as well as the motivation for combining the Graziosi, Hemmer, Rhyu, and Zakharchenko references in the rejection of claim 13, apply to claim 14 and are incorporated herein by reference. Thus, the method of claim 14 is met by Graziosi, Hemmer, Rhyu, and Zakharchenko.
Conclusion
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/JUSTIN M OAKES/Examiner, Art Unit 2662
/Siamak Harandi/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2662
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