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 .
Applicant(s) Response to Official Action
The response filed on 01/29/2026 has been entered and made of record.
Response to Arguments/Amendments
Presented arguments have been fully considered, but are rendered moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection necessitated by amendment(s) initiated by the applicant(s).
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 24-27, 29-35, 37-45 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claims 24 & 32 recite the limitation: "… the LCEVC syntax to cause first luma plane data and first chroma plane data associated with a residual level of a first tile of the encoded frame data to be included consecutively in a first group of bits of the bitstream, and to cause second luma plane data and second chroma plane data associated with the residual level of a second tile of the encoded frame data to be included consecutively in a second group of bits of the bitstream …" (emphasis added to accentuate insufficient antecedent basis). It is unclear if the first and second tiles refer to the same “residual level” or if the residual levels are independent.
For the purposes of examination, the limitation is interpreted as the following:
“… the LCEVC syntax to cause first luma plane data and first chroma plane data of a first tile associated with a residual level of the encoded frame data to be included consecutively in a first group of bits of the bitstream; and to cause second luma plane data and second chroma plane data associated with the residual level to be included consecutively in a second group of bits of the bitstream …”.
REASONS FOR ALLOWANCE
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: The instant invention is related to an enhanced presentation of tiles of residual sub-layers in low complexity enhancement video coding encoded bitstream. The proposed system reorganizes data for specific tiles within a sub-layer and stores them consecutively.
Prior art for was found for the claims as follows:
Re. Claim 24,
Meardi et al., (US 2022/0400270 A1) disclose the following limitations:
A system (Meardi: Abstract) comprising:
at least one memory (Meardi: Para. [1096] discloses computer-readable storage medium.);
computer-executable instructions (Meardi: Para. [1096] discloses the computer system performs the methods and processes embodied as data structures and code stored within the computer-readable storage medium can be performed by a processor.); and
at least one processor circuit to be programmed based on the computer-executable instructions to:
organize encoded frame into a bitstream based on a low complexity enhancement video coding (LCEVC) syntax (Meardi: Paras. [0529], [0590], [1096] disclose a processor performing methods to process and organize encoded enhancement stream data into a bitstream using a low complexity enhancement video coding (LCEVC) codec and syntax such as the LCEVC_LEVEL NAL unit type.);
the LCEVC syntax to cause first luma plane data and first chroma plane data of a first tile associated with a residual level of the encoded frame data to be included (Meardi: Paras. [0091], [0216], [0443]-[0448] disclose generating an encoded bitstream. FIG. 8 details a method of configuring the bitstream using NALUs, and FIGS. 21A and 21B explicitly show alternative organizational syntaxes for the enhancement data within the bitstream.);
assign a payload type value to the bitstream, the payload type value to indicate the bitstream is organized based on the LCEVC syntax (Meardi: Paras. [0565], [0593] disclose process_block syntax defines a payload_type field. This field is used to specify the content of the payload, with different values corresponding to different data structures, such as process_payload_encoded_data_tiled(), which is used for tiled data. This value indicates to the decoder that a specific tiled organizational syntax is being used.); and
cause transmission of the bitstream to a device (Meardi: Paras. [0001], [0059] disclose generating a compressed representation for “streaming and/or storage,” which involves the transmission of the generated bitstream.).
Claim 32 recites analogous limitations to claims 24 above, therefore in order to reduce superfluous citations of the prior art, the mappings for this claim have been omitted.
Applicant uniquely claimed a distinct feature in the instant invention, which is not found in the prior art, either singularly or in combination. The feature is [Claims 24, 32] “… the LCEVC syntax to cause first luma plane data and first chroma plane data of a first tile associated with a residual level of the encoded frame data to be included consecutively in a first group of bits of the bitstream; and to cause second luma plane data and second chroma plane data of a second tile of the encoded frame data associated with the residual level to be included consecutively in a second group of bits of the bitstream, the second group of bits after the first group of bits …”. This feature is not found or suggested in the prior art.
Claims 24-27, 29-35, 37-45 would be allowable, provided that the 35 U.S.C. 112(b) rejections are overcome.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure and can be seen in the list of cited references.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a). A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PEET DHILLON whose telephone number is (571)270-5647. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 5am-1:30pm. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sath V. Perungavoor can be reached on 571-272-7455. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/PEET DHILLON/Primary Examiner
Art Unit: 2488
Date: 03-30-2026