DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Claim Objections
Claim 6 is objected to under 37 CFR 1.75 as being a substantial duplicate of claim7. When two claims in an application are duplicates or else are so close in content that they both cover the same thing, despite a slight difference in wording, it is proper after allowing one claim to object to the other as being a substantial duplicate of the allowed claim. See MPEP § 608.01(m). Same applies for claims 14 that is same as claim 15 and claim 22 that is same as claim 23.
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.
Claims 2-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hoarty et al (US 2019/0261012) in view of Sato et al (US 2017/0345187)
As to claim 2, Hoarty et al teaches system comprising: one or more processors; and a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations including: receiving a video frame of a media segment (A message decoding engine 1205 can perform a detection process to locate the data pixels within a pixel patch area (corresponding to a pixel symbol area)”, paragraph 103)
determining a pixel region of the video frame to encode a dataset, wherein the pixel region includes a first set of pixels of the video frame; ((Fig. 3A, “Once extracted, one or more lines (or columns) of video data are modulated with the additional watermark data. For example, the top two lines of video data can be encoded with the additional data (which can be in compliance with the A/335 standard), paragraph [0079-0080]);
encoding the dataset into the video frame as a watermark, (Fig. 3A, “Once extracted, one or more lines (or columns) of video data are modulated with the additional watermark data. For example, the top two lines of video data can be encoded with the additional data (which can be in compliance with the A/335 standard)).
While Hoarty meets a number of the limitations of the claimed invention, as pointed out more fully above, Hoarty fails to specifically teach “wherein the dataset is encoded by modifying a luminance or chrominance value of pixels of the first set of pixels”
Specifically, Sato et al teaches an operation of deriving a chrominance prediction value based on a chrominance value of the previous image data, an operation of generating a fast decoded, chrominance value by adding the inverse quantized chrominance value and the chrominance prediction value, an operation of selecting one of candidate coefficients as a modification factor, and an operation of generating a second decoded chrominance value by adding the first decoded chrominance value and a value by multiplying the inverse quantized luminance value by the modification factor (paragraph [025-0026]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Hoarty and include the operation of Sato et al in order to optimize image quality.
As to claim 3, Sato et al teaches the system of claim 2, wherein the operations further include: facilitating a transmission of the video frame with the watermark (efficiency of data transmission for image encoding/decoding may be optimized; paragraph [00169]).
As to claim 4, Hoarty et al teaches the system of claim 2, wherein the operations further include: modifying the dataset by adding an error correction coding to the dataset ( error detection or correction encoding of the data contained in the composite message. Any suitable method of error detection or correction for this purpose can be used, paragraph [0097]).
As to claim 5, Sato et al teaches the system of claim 2, wherein encoding the dataset into the video frame includes: identifying a second set of pixels proximate to at least one pixel of the first set of pixels; and modifying a luminance or chrominance value of pixels of the second set of pixels based on the luminance or chrominance value of pixels of the first set of pixels ( operation of selecting one of the first vector value and adjacent vector values adjacent to the first vector value as a second vector value such that a similarity index between a luminance value corresponding to the second vector value and the luminance value corresponding to the reference position is minimized, and an operation of calculating the luminance prediction value based on the luminance value corresponding to the second vector value, paragraph[0010]).
As to claim 6, Hoarty teaches the system of claim 2, wherein the operations further include: encoding the dataset into a subsequent video frame as a watermark, wherein the dataset is encoded by modifying a luminance or chrominance value of pixels of a third set of pixels, and wherein the third set of pixels are located in a different location from the first set of pixels (The average value of the pixels within the pixel symbol area is determined and then used to find an area of pixels whose Cb and/or Cr values are measurably different from the adjacent pixel values along a pixel row of video information. For example, the original one or more pixels that are designated to carry the watermark data (e.g., the top one or more pixel rows, such as the extracted one or more pixel rows in the extracted area 202 of FIG. 2) will be altered by the video encoding and decoding processes in the pipeline from the source of the watermarked video to the television receiver that decodes the compressed digital video stream, paragraph[0050-0051],[0103]).
As to claim 7, Hoarty teaches the system of claim 2, wherein the operations further include: encoding the dataset into a subsequent video frame as a watermark, wherein the dataset is encoded by modifying a luminance or chrominance value of pixels of a third set of pixels, and wherein the third set of pixels are located in a different location from the first set of pixels (The average value of the pixels within the pixel symbol area is determined and then used to find an area of pixels whose Cb and/or Cr values are measurably different from the adjacent pixel values along a pixel row of video information. For example, the original one or more pixels that are designated to carry the watermark data (e.g., the top one or more pixel rows, such as the extracted one or more pixel rows in the extracted area 202 of FIG. 2) will be altered by the video encoding and decoding processes in the pipeline from the source of the watermarked video to the television receiver that decodes the compressed digital video stream, paragraph [0050-0051],[0103]).
As to claim 8, Sato et al teaches the system of claim 2, wherein a location of the pixel region within the video frame is configured to represent one or more bits of the dataset(The bit rate controller 240 may determine the quantization parameter and control a bit rate based on one or more of a status of the rate buffer 295, the number of bits used for the current prediction mode, the adjustment result of the quantization parameter, etc., paragraph [0080]).
As to claim 9, Hoarty teaches the system of claim 2, wherein the watermark includes a trigger that, upon being decoded by a media device, causes the media device to present a replacement media segment (The re-encoded slice replaces the originally encoded slice including the top one or more rows of the encoded video frame 200, paragraph [0094])
The limitation of claims 10-25 has been addressed above.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NANCY BITAR whose telephone number is (571)270-1041. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Friday from 8:00 am to 5:00 p.m..
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NANCY . BITAR
Examiner
Art Unit 2664
/NANCY BITAR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2664
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