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
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 7 and 21 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claims 7 and 21, respectively cite, “and taking the droppable video frame dropped first with a number equal to the total number of frames currently to be dropped as the target droppable video frame.” The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. While the claim recites language found in Paragraph 0078 of Applicant’s originally filed specification, the specification fails to disclose any information regarding how a video frame that is “dropped first” is “taken” as the target droppable video frame. MPEP 2163, section I discloses, “A question as to whether a specification provides an adequate written description may arise in the context of determining whether an original claim is described sufficiently (see, e.g., LizardTech, Inc. v. Earth Resource Mapping, Inc., 424 F.3d 1336, 1345, 76 USPQ2d 1724, 1733 (Fed. Cir. 2005).” Since the claim limitations set forth that the video frame is “dropped first”, the Examiner has determined there is not an adequate written description sufficiently describing how the same video frame is then taken… “to be dropped as the target droppable video frame”, as it has already been established that the video frame has already been dropped. Paragraph 0079 sets forth to provide an example of this process, but the content of Paragraph 0079 does not set forth the same premise of a video frame that is dropped first, and then is taken to be dropped as the target droppable video frame.
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 7 and 21 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 7 and 21, respectively cite, “and taking the droppable video frame dropped first with a number equal to the total number of frames currently to be dropped as the target droppable video frame.” This limitation suffers from poor grammar and/or punctuation and is indefinite as to what is occurring in the “taking” action and is additionally indefinite as to what limitation, specifically, is being “taken”.
Claim Objections
Claims 3 and 17 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claims 3 and 17, respectively, cite the limitations, “in the same group of pictures, a plurality of reference frames correspond decreasing drop priorities…”. These respective limitations suffer from poor grammar and should be corrected to read, “in the same group of pictures, a plurality of reference frames correspond to decreasing drop priorities…”
Appropriate correction is required.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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 1-3, 5-6, 8, 11-12, 14-17, and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fu et al (hereinafter Fu) US 20170347158 in view of Stanwood et al (hereinafter Stanwood) US 20120013748.
Referring to claim 1, Fu discloses a frame dropping method, comprising:
obtaining a current video frame queue currently to be sent (see Paragraphs 0038-0042 for disclosing obtaining a current video frame sequence/queue currently to be sent);
determining a timeout video frame in the current video frame queue (see Paragraphs 0055-0056 for disclosing a timeout video frame, interpreted to be the current frame when it is detected that frame(s) will need to be dropped, in the current video frame sequence), and determining a total number of frames currently to be dropped corresponding to the current video frame queue based on a number of the timeout video frame and a number of frames yet to be dropped (see Paragraph 0057-0059 for disclosing determining a total number of frames currently to be dropped corresponding to the current frame/timeout video frame and a number of frames yet to be dropped/all video frames in the video frame sequence that reference the current frame according to a reference relationship);
determining a droppable video frame in the current video frame queue (see Paragraph 0057-0059 for disclosing determining droppable video frames in the current video frame sequence); and
determining a target droppable video frame from the droppable video frame based on the total number of frames currently to be dropped, and performing frame dropping processing on the target droppable video frame, wherein the drop priority is determined based on decoding reference information corresponding to the droppable video frame (see Paragraph 0031, 0044-0054 and 0059 for disclosing determining the specific/target video frames to drop based on the total number of frames currently to be dropped, as seen above, and performing the frame dropping on the identified specific/target frames, wherein the dropping is determined based on decoding reference information corresponding to the droppable video frames (e.g., the frames that refer to the frame being dropped will also be dropped along with the referred-to frame, wherein the reference information can be in regards to decoding reference information such as the frames being identified as I/IDR/key frames and P/non-key/forward-predicted frames).
Fu is unclear as to determining a target video frame to drop based on a drop priority corresponding to the droppable video frames.
Stanwood discloses determining a target video frame to drop based on a drop priority corresponding to the droppable video frames (see Fig. 8b and Paragraphs 0153 and 0180-0188 for disclosing determining which specific/target video frames to drop based on a drop priority (i.e., priority burden determination) corresponding to droppable video frames).
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the drop priority of Stanwood with the system of Fu in order to optimize system performance of capacity and spectrum constrained, multiple-access communication systems by selectively discarding packets (see Stanwood, Paragraph 0005).
Referring to claim 2, Stanwood discloses determining the drop priority based on decoding reference information corresponding to the droppable video frame comprises:
in a case where the droppable video frame is a key frame, determining the drop priority corresponding to the droppable video frame based on a preset key frame priority determination manner, in a case where the droppable video frame is a reference frame, determining the drop priority corresponding to the droppable video frame based on a preset reference frame priority determination manner, wherein the reference frame refers to a video frame which is referred to by other video frames when decoding the other video frames, in a case where the droppable video frame is a non-reference frame, determining the drop priority corresponding to the droppable video frame based on a preset non-reference frame priority determination manner, wherein the non-reference frame refers to a video frame which is not referred to by other video frames when decoding the other video frames (see Paragraphs 0180-0188 for disclosing in the case of I/key frames, P/reference, and B/non-reference frames, respective drop priorities are determining corresponding to the video frames based on a respective preset frame determination manner for each type of frame, wherein a P frame is referred to by B frames, and no frames refer to a B frame).
Referring to claim 3, Stanwood discloses in a same group of pictures, the key frame corresponds to a highest drop priority, the reference frame corresponds to a next drop priority, and the non-reference frame corresponds to a lowest drop priority (see Fig. 8b and Paragraphs 0180-0188, noting that the lower “frame priority” numbers represent the higher frame burden, indicating that these frames should be dropped last, while the higher “frame priority” numbers representing the lower burden should be dropped first, therefore B-frames are dropped first, then P-frame, then I-frames);
in the same group of pictures, a plurality of reference frames correspond decreasing drop priorities and a plurality of non-reference frames correspond to increasing drop priorities (see Fig. 8b and Paragraphs 0180-0188 for disclosing in the same group of pictures, a plurality of P-frames that correspond to decreasing drop priorities (“frame priority” numbers that are lower than B-frames indicating burden between that of I and B frames and higher priority for keeping and thus will be dropped later than B-frames) and a plurality of B-frames correspond to increased drop priorities ( “frame priority” numbers that are higher than P-frames indicating higher burden and lower priority for keeping and thus will be dropped sooner than P-frames));
key frames in different groups of pictures correspond to increasing drop priorities (see Fig. 8b and Paragraphs 0180-188 for disclosing the second I-frame, interpreted to be the start of the next group of pictures, corresponds to increasing drop priorities (“frame priority” numbers that are the lowest indicating the highest burden and highest priority for keeping and thus will be dropped only after all other P and B frames are dropped).
Referring to claim 5, Stanwood discloses the determining the droppable video frame in the current video frame queue comprises:
in response to detecting that at least one key frame is present in the current video frame queue, and that a last key frame is not a first-in-queue frame, treating each video frame before the last key frame in the current video frame queue as the droppable video frame (see Fig. 8b and Paragraphs 0180-0188 for disclosing in response to detecting a first key frame and a second key frame that isn’t the first key frame in the queue, each video frame in the queue is treated as droppable as the burden for every keyframe in the queue is evaluated for priority/burden).
Referring to claim 6, Stanwood discloses the determining the target droppable video frame from the droppable video frame based on the total number of frames currently to be dropped and the drop priority corresponding to the droppable video frame comprises:
in response to detecting that a number of the droppable video frame is greater than the total number of frames currently to be dropped (see Paragraph 0120 for disclosing detection the need to drop a total amount of frames from the queue that is less than every frame in the queue), determining the target droppable video frame from the droppable video frame according to the drop priority corresponding to the droppable video frame and the total number of frames currently to be dropped (see Fig. 8b and 0180-188 for disclosing determining the target/specific frames to be dropped from the queue of droppable frames according to the drop priority/burden);
Fu discloses in response to detecting that the number of the droppable video frame is less than or equal to the total number of frames currently to be dropped, taking each droppable video frame as the target droppable video frame (see Paragraphs 0057-0059 for disclosing the number of droppable video frames is (equal to) the total number of frames currently to be dropped (i.e., from the current frame/timeout video frame and a number of frames yet to be dropped/all video frames in the video frame sequence), all these (droppable) frames are specified/targeted as video frames to be dropped).
Referring to claim 8, Fu discloses the determining the droppable video frame in the current video frame queue comprises:
in response to detecting that no key frame is present in the current video frame queue, or that only one key frame is present as a first-in-queue frame, treating each video frame in the current video frame queue as the droppable video frame (as seen in the rejection of claim 1 wherein one GOP possesses 1 I/key frame and all frames in the queue are treated as droppable).
Referring to claim 11, Stanwood discloses after determining the timeout video frame in the current video frame queue, further comprising performing a delay processing on a current timeout moment (see Paragraph 0098 for disclosing at any point the system deems necessary (i.e., can be before, after, or during any particular determination of a timeout video moment or frame in a current frame queue), performing a delay process).
Fu in view of Stanwood is unclear as to delay processing based on a preset delay duration, and updating the current timeout moment.
Official Notice is taken that a delay process is based on a preset delay duration and the resulting delay will result in a new moment or time in which processes are conducted. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Fu in view of Stanwood to have a preset delay duration and delaying processes by the delay duration so that the system can best take steps to first mitigate any perceived problems that could take precedence over the current process before continuing said process.
Referring to claim 12, Fu discloses after performing frame dropping processing on the target droppable video frame, further comprising:
determining and updating the number of frames yet to be dropped based on the total number of frames currently to be dropped and a number of the target droppable video frame (as seen in the rejection of claim 1, further noting Fu’s disclosure is not limited to a single instance and will be performed at any point it is determined to be necessary to drop frames, thereby determining and updating the process based on each respective scenario for which it is deemed necessary to drop frames).
Claim 14 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 1, further noting Fu discloses a server, comprising at least one processor, a memory, configured to store at least one program, the at least one program, when executed by at least one processor, causes at least one processor to implement a frame dropping method (see Paragraph 0297) as seen in the rejection of claim 1.
Claim 15 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 1, further noting Fu discloses a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon a computer program which, when executed by a processor, implements a frame dropping method (see Paragraph 0297) as seen in the rejection of claim 1.
Claim 16 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 2.
Claim 17 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 3.
Claim 19 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 5.
Claim 20 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 6.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 9-10, and 18 are 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NICHOLAS T CORBO whose telephone number is (571)270-5675. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Friday 11am-7pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Benjamin Bruckart can be reached at 571-272-3982. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/NICHOLAS T CORBO/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2424
01/23/2026