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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)- (d), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Status of Claims
This Office Action is in response to the amendment filed on 05/26/2026. Claims 1,2, 4-5, 8-9, and 11 have been amended. Claims 6-7 have been cancelled. Accordingly, claims 1,2-5 and 8-11 are currently pending for examination.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 10/28/2024 filed in accordance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, it is being considered by the examiner.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 2-5, depending therefrom, are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim. However, these claims would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Response Amendments
Applicant’s Amendment filed on May 26, 2026, has been entered and made of record.
Applicants’ arguments regarding Flynn and Zhang have been considered. In view of the amended claims, Flynn is no longer relied upon for the motion-compensation and triangle-related features; those features are now addressed by Pham and Catana. Accordingly, Applicant’s arguments directed to Flynn are moot.
With respect to Zhang, Applicant argues that Zhang does not disclose, teach, or suggest constructing a plane of at least one triangle based on at least one motion compensated point and approximating the at least one motion compensated point onto the plane of at least one triangle. Applicant further argues that Zhang does not disclose, teach, or suggest determining the geometric information of a current point within the current prediction unit by concurrently considering at least one motion compensated point and at least one point included in the plane of the at least one triangle.
The modified rejection now relies on Pham for the motion-compensation point-cloud features and Catana for the triangle, planer, and point-projection feature. Zhang is relied upon for the additional edge-based vertex feature of claim 8, namely obtaining vertices generated by a point-cloud surface and edges of a block (Zhang, ¶[0029]).
Accordingly, Applicant’s arguments regarding Zhang are addressed by the modified rejection, which relies on Pham and Catana for the features identified by applicant and Zhang for additional edge-based vertex feature of claim 8.
Rejections - 35 USC § 103
8. 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.
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
9. Claims 1 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CAO KEMING (WO-2022076701-A1) hereinafter “Cao” in view of Pham Van et al (US-20230342987-A1) hereinafter “Pham” further in view of Catana Salazar et al (US-20230051312-A1) hereinafter “Catana”
Regarding Claim 1 Cao-Pham-Catana
Cao-Pham-Catana discloses 1. (Currently Amended) A method for compressing a point cloud, (Cao, claim 23 “A method for encoding point cloud data,”) comprising:
performing global motion compensation based on a previous frame of a current frame;
(Cao, [0004] “…apply “global” motion compensation to the reference frame (e.g., a predicted frame) to account for a rotation of the entire reference frame and/or a translation of the entire reference frame…”)
dividing the current frame into a plurality of prediction units; (Cao, [0021] “A geometry-based point cloud compression (G-PCC) coder (e.g., a G-PCC encoder or a G-PCC decoder) may be configured to apply motion compensation to a reference frame to generate a motion compensated frame. For example, a G-PCC encoder may apply “global” motion compensation to the reference frame to account for a rotation of the entire reference frame and/or a translation of the entire reference frame.” i.e., G-PCC encoders inherently operate spatial regions (e.g., Voxel blocks or octree nodes))
determining [[a]] at least one compensated point within a current prediction unit by performing local motion compensation on the current prediction unit; (Cao,[0004] “… a G-PCC encoder may apply “global” motion compensation to the reference frame (e.g., a predicted frame) to account for a rotation of the entire reference frame and/or a translation of the entire reference frame., In this example the G-PCC encoder may apply “local” motion estimation to account for a rotation and/or translation at a finer scale than the global motion compensation.” See also ¶[0083]) and
Cao does not explicitly disclose
determining geometric information of a current point within the current prediction unit based on the at least one the motion compensated point and at least one point included in a plane of at least one triangle,
wherein the current prediction unit is divided into at least one triangle based on the at least one motion compensated point, and
wherein the at least one point is determined by approximating the at least one motion compensated point onto the plane of the at least one triangle.
However, Pham, in view of Catana further teaches the following:
determining geometric information of a current point within the current prediction unit based on the at least one the motion compensated point and at least one point included in a plane of at least one triangle, (Pham, discloses geometric information of a current point within a current prediction unit based on at least one motion-compensation point, wherein point-cloud geometry is represented using pruned octree and a surface model comprises a triangulation ([0059]; see also [0165]-[0171];).
Catana further teaches the “at least one point included in a plane of at least one triangle” feature, wherein compensated points are connected to form polygon, including triangles (¶[0038]), and each resulting triangles is treated as an independent plane, with information associated with the compensated points defining the triangle being interpolating over the triangle (¶¶[0039]-[0040]; see also ¶¶[[0067]-[0068])
wherein the current prediction unit is divided into at least one triangle based on the at least one motion compensated point, (Catana further teaches the “current prediction unit is divided into at least one triangle based on the at least one motion compensated point” feature, wherein, compensated points are connected to form polygons, including triangles (¶¶ [0038]-[0039], and a set of triangle is determined having vertices corresponding to points of the compensated point cloud (¶¶ [0066]-[0067]) and
wherein the at least one point is determined by approximating the at least one motion compensated point onto the plane of the at least one triangle. (Catana further teaches that a mapping, including projection, used to map a polygon is also applied to the corresponding compensated point(s) (¶ [0037]). Catana further teaches that each triangle is treated as an independent plane (¶ [0040]) and that compensated points are interpolated over each triangle (¶ [0049]; see also ¶¶ [0067]- [0068])
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Cao with Pham and Catana to configure the system of Cao to perform the above-described features, as taught by Pham and Catana. One ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to incorporate such teachings to improve geometrical accuracy of the point-cloud geometry, as taught by Catana (Catana, ¶ [0080])
Note: The motivation that was utilized in the rejection of claim 1 applies equally as well as claim 11.
Regarding Claim 11 Cao-Pham-Catana
Cao discloses A device for compressing a point cloud, (Cao, [0006] “A device for encoding point cloud data…”) comprising:
a processor configured to control the device; (Cao, [0006] “...the device…one or more processors coupled … and implemented in circuitry.”) and
a memory coupled with the processor and configured to store data. (Cao, [0006] “The device comprising a memory to store the point cloud data and one or more processors coupled to tire memory and implemented in circuitry.”) wherein the processor is configured to:
The remaining limitations of independent claim 11 recite features that are substantially similar to those set forth in independent claim 1. Accordingly, the reasoning and analysis provided with respect to claim 1 apply equally to claim 11.
Regarding Claim 6-7 (Canceled)
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
9. Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cao-Pham-Catana in further view of Zhang et al (US-20220124374-A1) hereinafter “Zhang”.
Regarding Claim 8 Cao-Pham-Catana-Zhang
Cao-Pham-Catana discloses 1. (Currently Amended) The method of claim 1,
wherein dividing the current prediction unit into [[the]] at least one triangle comprises:
obtaining a plurality of vertices based on a plurality of motion compensated points adjacent to edges of the current prediction unit; (Pham teaches performing motion compensation on points associated with a prediction unit/node, including applying a local node motion vector to points within a node of a prediction/reference frame and obtaining motion-compensated point information for inter prediction (Pham, ¶¶[0165]-[0171]). Zhang further teaches TriSoup geometry coding in which, based on a surface formed by the distribution of the point cloud in a block, a plurality of vertices are obtained from the surface and the edges of the block (Zhang, ¶[0029]). Thus, Zhang teaches the edge-based vertex determination, while Pham teaches the use of motion-compensated point-cloud information.) and
dividing the current prediction unit into the at least one triangle by connecting the plurality of vertices. (Catana further teaches connecting compensated point-cloud points to form polygons, including triangles (Catana, ¶[0038]), and determining triangles having vertices corresponding to points of the compensated point cloud (Catana, ¶¶[0066]-[0067]; see also ¶[0076])
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Cao and Pham with the TriSoup edge-based vertex determination of Zhang and the triangulation technique of Catana. Pham provides motion-compensated point-cloud information for a prediction unit, Zhang teaches obtaining vertices from the point-cloud surface and edges of a block, and Catana teaches connecting point-cloud vertices to form triangles. Such a combination would have predictably provided a triangular surface representation of the motion-compensated point-cloud geometry for geometry prediction and reconstruction. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to incorporate Zhang’s teaching into the Cao-Pham-Catana system to improve coding efficiency, as taught by Zhang (¶ [0059])
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
9. Claims 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cao-Pham-Catana in view of Flynn et al (US-2021004992-A1) hereinafter “Flynn” further in view of Lasserre et al (US-20210201541-A) herein after “Lasserre”.
Regarding Claim 9 Cao-Pham-Catana-Flynn-Lasserre
Cao-Pham-Catana discloses 9. (Currently Amended) The method of claim 1, as discussed above. However, Cao-Pham-Catana does not expressly disclose:
wherein the current prediction unit is divided into a plurality of voxels based on a predefined tree structure,
wherein the current point corresponds to a central position of each of the plurality of voxels.
However, Flynn discloses the following:
wherein the current prediction unit is divided into a plurality of voxels based on a predefined tree structure, (Flynn ¶¶ [0045]-[0046], disclosing a tree-based structure in which a bounding three-dimensional volume is recursively divided into sub-volumes, wherein an octree divides cube sub-volumes into eight further sub-volumes/sub-cubs; see also ¶[0049]) and
However, Flynn does not expressly disclose
wherein the current point corresponds to a central position of each of the plurality of voxels.
However, Lasserre discloses the following:
wherein the current point corresponds to a central position of each of the plurality of voxels. (Lasserre, ¶[0150],disclosing a point associated with a cube and located at the center of the cube; see also ¶[0152], explaining that locating the point at the center of the cube avoids additional information regarding the spatial location of the point once the cube is identified in the octree-based structure).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to apply Lasserre’s center-point representation to the voxel-based tree structure of Flynn because Lasserre teaches that locating the point at the center of the cube avoids additional information identifying the spatial location of the point within the cube (Lasserre, ¶[0152])
Regarding Claim 10 Cao-Pham-Catana-Flynn-Lasserre
Cao-Pham-Catana-Flynn-Lasserre discloses 10. (Original) The method of claim 9,
Flynn further discloses wherein the predefined tree structure includes at least one of a binary tree, a quad tree, or an oct tree. (Flynn, [0046], disclosing that a commonly used tree structure is an octree).
Pertinent Prior Art
10. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure
OH et al. US-20220130075-A1
Lasserre et al US-20240214600-A1
Conclusion
11. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ASTEWAYE GETTU ZEWEDE whose telephone number is (703)756-1441. The examiner can normally be reached Mo-Fr 8:30 am to 5:30 pm.
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/ASTEWAYE GETTU ZEWEDE/Examiner, Art Unit 2481 /WILLIAM C VAUGHN JR/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2481
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