DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statement
2. The information disclosure statement (IDS) was submitted on 09/12/2024. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
The applied reference has a common inventor with the instant application. Based upon the earlier effectively filed date of the reference, it constitutes prior art under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as Specifically relates to inventors, Shiqi Wang (herein associated with Cui) and Sam Kwong (associated with Meng Wang, herein Meng).
Note: 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.
3. Claims 1 - 19, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Meng Wang et al., (hereinafter Wang); “Low Complexity Quantization in High Efficiency Video Coding”, DOI: 10,1109/ACCESS.2020.3012145, Aug. 19, 2020 and Jing Cui et al., (hereinafter Cui); “Hybrid All Zero Soft Quantized Block Detection for HEVC”, 1057-7149 © 2018 IEEE in view of Kyujoong Lee (hereinafter Lee); “A Novel Algorithm for Zero Block Detection in High Efficiency Video Coding”; 1932-4553 © 2013 IEEE and further in view of Siwei Ma et al., (hereinafter Ma) “Low Compexity Trellis-Coded Quantization in Versatile Video Coding”, arXiv:2008.11420v1 [cs.MM] 26 Aug 2020.
Re Claim 1. Wang discloses, an all-zero block (AZB) detection method for video coding (the AZB Detection in Fig.1), comprising:
a) detecting if a residual signal comprises a spatial domain genuine all-zero block (GAZB) (detecting from the residual signal the genuine AZB (G-AZB) represented at Fig.1 Pg.145160 and denoting that the transform block (TB) can be quantized to AZB through hard-decision quantization in spatial domain, Sec.IV, Pg.145164-145165 to be smaller than “1” for G-AZB Pg.145164 with a threshold calculated per Eq.(21));
b) detecting if the residual signal comprises a frequency domain GAZB, (based on an observation that RDOQ, would adjust the quantization level of “1” to “0” for coefficients located at high frequency domain in larger TBs, an early quantization level decision forces the quantization level to be “0” without the RDOQ process, Sec.III-Sub.A Pg.145162);
c) detecting if the residual signal comprises a pseudo-AZB (PAZB), (the residual comprises a P-AZB representing the coefficients potentially being placed to AZB through RDOQ estimation, Sec.IV, Pg.145164 where the P-AZB detection is performed on non-G-AZB per citation;
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Sec.IV Pg.145165); and
d) determining that the residual signal is a non-AZB signal (determining the residual signal is a non-all-zero block (NZB), Sec.IV. Pg.145165).
However, while the G-AZB, in spatial and frequency domain, the P-AZB and NZB detections are taught by Wang, there is no express disclosure of the sequence constraints established by the claims order of process recited at Step a) to Step b) and to Step c).
The analogous art to Cui teaches these limitations, 1. An all-zero block (AZB) detection method for video coding (the AZB, G-AZB, P-AZB detection Sec.III, Pg.4989), comprising: (all the limitations at:
a) detecting if a residual signal comprises a spatial domain genuine all-zero block (GAZB); (a) detecting the G-AZB, Sec.III-Sub.B in spatial domain AZB);
b) detecting if the residual signal comprises a frequency domain GAZB, if no said spatial domain GAZB is detected in Step a); (b) detecting the G-AZB in frequency domain by Hadamard transform);
c) detecting if the residual signal comprises a pseudo-AZB (PAZB), if no said frequency domain GAZB (improve detection accuracy by considering frequency characteristics Sec.I, Pg.4997) is detected in Step b); (c) detecting pseudo, P-AZB, Sec.III-Sub.C, Pg.4991); and
d) determining that the residual signal is a non-AZB signal if no PAZB is detected in Step c) (d) determining the non-AZB at Fig. 1, Sec.II Pg.4989, Fig.3 Sec.III-Sub.C Pg.4991, by which representing the constraint and the order of detecting GAZB – PAZB – non-AZB, according to Step a), Step b) and Step c) as depicted in Fig.1, reproduced below for brevity;
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, Sec.II, at Pg.4989).
Similarly, Lee teaches the processing sequence recited at limitations a) to d) by detecting the zero blocks (ZB), before the DCT transform and quantization (Q) operations and, (Sec.I, Introduction, e.g., detecting the G-AZB the P-AZB and the nonzero block NZB, before the transform and quantization process representing the goal for reduced coding computation by avoiding DCT and Quantization, Sec.I, Pg.1124, and at Fig.1, Pg.1125, also described at Sec.II-Sub.A, B, Sec.III-Sub.A, B and algorithm code Sec.III-Sub.D and Fig.4).
In an analogous art Ma teaches the, b) detecting if the residual signal comprises a frequency domain GAZB, if no said spatial domain GAZB is detected in Step a) (truncating the residuals located in the high frequency domain, in an effort to further save the coding bits, by considering the cost accumulating e.g., RD cost, at Eq.(30), (31) and (32) in reverse scanning order from last non-zero coefficient, Sec.III, Pg.5);
The skilled in the art would have found obvious before the effective filing date of invention to combine prior art elements according to known methods of transform based coding techniques, being directed to all-zero coefficient blocks deemed to reduce coding complexity by skipping transform and quantization processes, as discretely taught by Wang (Abstract) and detailed by Cui (at least at Fig.1) and further finding validation to in combining in the disclosure to Lee, where Ma teaches the known method of frequency division at transform block level by RD estimation of high frequency non-zero coefficients adopted in the VVC standard and embedding quantization candidates in the block into trellis graph along the minimum RD cost path, (Sec.III, Fig.4), by which validating the prior art combining elements according to known methods to yield predictable results in terms of the claimed matter. MPEP 2143(A-C).
Re Claim 2. Wang, Cui and Lee along with Ma disclose, the AZB detection method of claim 1, further comprises,
Wang teaches that, before Step a), a step of validating a distribution of multiple said residual signals for both square and non-square residual blocks (suggesting establishing the rate and distortion models for RDOQ, Sec.III, to the transform coefficients and the detection of AZB, per Fig.1, Sec.I, Pg.145160, or Sec.III-SubA).
Cui teaches this limitation at (Sec.III-Sub.B Pg.4990).
Re Claim 3. Wang, Cui and Lee along with Ma disclose, the AZB detection method of claim 2,
Wang teaches that, wherein the distribution is approximated by a Laplacian distribution (with a hybrid Laplacian distribution at transform block (TB) level of different sizes, Sec.III-Sub.B at Pg.145163).
Cui teaches that, wherein the distribution is approximated by a Laplacian distribution (the approximation model for the residual data is based on Laplacian distribution per mathematical expression (15), Sec.III-Sub.B, Pg.4990).
Re Claim 4. Wang, Cui and Lee along with Ma disclose, the AZB detection method of claim 1,
Wang teaches that, wherein Step a) further comprises a step of assessing if a sum of absolute differences (SAD) of the residual signal is smaller than an SAD upper threshold (the AZB detection condition is derived before transform or quantization by using SAD or SATD for spatial domain, Sec.IV, Pg.145164), and
a step of determining that the residual signal comprises the spatial domain GAZB if the SAD is smaller than the SAD upper threshold (and having the residuals in spatial domain smaller than a threshold TH for computed at (28) for AZB and G-AZB, Sec.IV Pg.145165).
Cui teaches these limitations at, (Sec.I Introduction Pg.4987).
Re Claim 5. Wang, Cui and Lee along with Ma disclose, the AZB detection method of claim 4,
Cui teaches that, wherein the SAD upper threshold is derived at least based on a theoretical coefficient upper bound in a frequency domain (the threshold value of upper bound is derived between the SAD and DCT transform coefficients, Sec.I Introduction Pg.4987).
Re Claim 6. Wang, Cui and Lee along with Ma disclose, the AZB detection method of claim 4,
Cui teaches that, wherein the SAD upper threshold is derived at least based on a block size of the residual signal (the SAD upper threshold is based on the block size, Sec.I, Pg.4988).
Re Claim 7. Wang, Cui and Lee along with Ma disclose, the AZB detection method of claim 5,
Cui teaches this limitation, wherein both the SAD upper threshold and the theoretical coefficient upper bound are determined only by a block size of the residual signal, a Quantization Parameter (QP), and a transform type (deriving the upper bound of the sum of absolute difference (SAD) and determining the block as AZB if SAD of the coding block is below the upper bound theoretical threshold value and determined based on the relationship between the SAD and DCT coefficients, or the SAD is computed based on the quantization parameter to determined the threshold, Sec.I Pg.4987 Right-Column)
Lee teaches that, wherein both the SAD upper threshold and the theoretical coefficient upper bound are determined only by a block size of the residual signal, a Quantization Parameter (QP), and a transform type (determined by the Hadamard transform type performing both, the SAD/SATD upper bound and comparing to a predetermined threshold, at Abstract, Introduction at Pg.1124-1125 etc.,).
Re Claim 8. Wang, Cui and Lee along with Ma disclose, the AZB detection method of claim 5,
Ma teaches the, wherein both the upper threshold and the theoretical coefficient upper bound are pre-calculated and stored in a look-up table prior to Step a) (obtaining the coding bit of the coordinates (x,y) regarding the last non-zero coefficient represented by RLP, is obtained from a look-up table, a look-up table, Sec.II-Sub.C, Pg.4 prior to determining the zero quantized coefficients of the high frequency regions according to rate distortion optimization, RDO, Sec.IV-Sub.A, Pg.6).
Re Claim 9. Wang, Cui and Lee along with Ma disclose, the AZB detection method of claim 1,
Wang teaches, wherein Step b) further comprises a step of assessing if a last significant coefficient in a transform block of the residual signal is larger than a theoretical coefficient upper bound in a frequency domain (searching for the last non-zero coefficient for determining the RDOQ, by determining in frequency domain a conditional probability L, being larger than a predetermined value 1, 2, 3 e.g., larger than 3, Sec.III-Sub.A, Pg.145162 Left-Column), and
a step of determining that the residual signal comprises the frequency domain GAZB if the last significant coefficient is larger than the theoretical coefficient upper bound (where the AZB includes G-AZB and P-AXB that are placed in the AZB through RDOQ, for last non-zero coefficient of the upper bound -i.e., the high frequency coefficients at the bottom-right of the TB, emphasis added-, Sec.IV Pg.145164, Left-Column).
Re Claim 10. Wang, Cui and Lee along with Ma disclose, the AZB detection method of claim 9,
Ma teaches that, wherein the last significant coefficient is determined by applying the theoretical coefficient upper bound to each transform coefficient in inverse scan order (the coefficient group is scan in reverse order, mapped into trellis, Sec.IV-Sub.A, Pg.6, Fig.4) .
Re Claim 11. Wang, Cui and Lee along with Ma disclose, the AZB detection method of claim 1,
Wang teaches that, wherein Step b) further comprises a step of attempting to find a last significant coefficient in a transform block of the residual signal, and a step of determining that the residual signal comprises the frequency domain GAZB if no said last significant coefficient can be found (for the larger TUs, the transform block (TB) is divided into high-frequency region and low-frequency region according to the QP and a maximum QPmax, by which two frequency ranges are derived to forecast the P-AZB, Sec.IV Pg.145165).
Re Claim 12. Wang, Cui and Lee along with Ma disclose, the AZB detection method of claim 1,
Ma teaches that, further comprises, after Step b), a step of building a trellis graph from a last significant coefficient in a transform block of the residual signal to a top-left significant coefficient (the coefficients from the bottom right to the top-left within the coding block are mapped into trellis along with accessible states, Sec.IV-Sub.A, Pg.6 and Fig.4).
Re Claim 13. Wang, Cui and Lee along with Ma disclose, the AZB detection method of claim 1,
Ma teaches that, wherein Step c) detects if the residual signal comprises the PAZB that is caused by a trellis-coded quantization (TCQ) (the coefficients from the bottom right to the top-left within the coding block are mapped into trellis along with accessible states, Sec.IV-Sub.A, Pg.6 and Fig.4).
Re Claim 14. Wang, Cui and Lee along with Ma disclose, the AZB detection method of claim 13,
Wang teaches the, wherein Step c) further comprises a step of determining if the residual signal comprises the PAZB or comprises no AZB by using a rate-distortion (RD) estimation (the P-AZB detection is also performed on the non-zero, non-GAZB, based on the RD cost, at Eq.(30) Sec.IV, Pg.145165, Left-Col.).
Re Claim 15. Wang, Cui and Lee along with Ma disclose, the AZB detection method of claim 14,
Ma teaches about, wherein for the TCQ a path with a smallest RD cost is chosen in Step c) (the TCQ goal is finding the optimal quantization solution achieving minimum RD cost, Pgs.4-6 Sec.III, Algorithm 1, and Sec.IV).
Re Claim 16. Wang, Cui and Lee along with Ma disclose, the AZB detection method of claim 14,
Wang teaches that, wherein Step c) further comprises detecting if the residual signal comprises the PAZB, by assessing whether a smallest RD cost occurs when all indices are quantized to zeros (detecting the P-AZB representing those in frequency domain that could be potentially placed to AZB through RDOQ, Sec.IV, Pg.145164 Left-Col.).
Re Claim 17. Wang, Cui and Lee along with Ma disclose, the AZB detection method of claim 13,
Wang teaches about, wherein Step c) further comprises a step of calculating if a ratio of large coefficients is larger than a theoretical coefficient upper bound in a frequency domain (determining the P-AZBs incurred, by RDOQ, RD comparison of associated RD costs, for all-zero JAZB and of the non-zero JNZB , where the SATD of non-zero coefficients is larger than a threshold, Sec.IV, the Eq.(30-(37) concluding as cited;
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Sec.IV, Pg.145165); and
a step of determining that the residual signal comprises the PAZB if the ratio is larger than the theoretical coefficient upper bound (the P-AZB is determined by comparing the upper band of frequencies to the G-AZB coefficients to a threshold as below cited;
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at Sec.IV, Pg.145165).
Re Claim 18. This claim represents the non-transitory computer-readable medium, having stored thereon program instructions that, (Ma: SIMD at Sec.I) upon execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform each and every limitation of the method claim 1, hence it is rejected on the same mapped evidence mutatis mutandis.
Re Claim 19. This claim represents the computing system comprising a “bestowing space” and computing hardware for “encoder optimization” per (Ma: Sec.I Introduction) implementing each and every limitation of the method claim 1, hence it is rejected on the same mapped evidence mutatis mutandis.
Conclusion
4. The prior art made of record and not relied upon, is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure as further listed;
Heiko Scwarz et al., “Quantization and Entropy Coding in the Versatile Vide Coding (VVC) Standard”; Vol.31 No.10, October 2021 © 2021 IEEE. See PTO-892 form.
Applicant is required under 37 C.F.R. 1.111(c) to consider these references when responding to this action.
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DRAMOS . KALAPODAS
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2487
/DRAMOS KALAPODAS/