DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the application filed on November 29, 2024. Claims 1 - 13 are pending.
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
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for priority based on U.S. provisional applications 63/349,171 filed on June 6, 2022.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) was submitted on November 29, 2025. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the Examiner.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(5) because it includes the following reference character(s) not mentioned in the description:
Fig. 4B, Items 457 - 459
Fig. 5, Item 516
Fig. 8, Item 835
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d), or amendment to the specification to add the reference character(s) in the description in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(b) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
In addition to Replacement Sheets containing the corrected drawing figure(s), applicant is required to submit a marked-up copy of each Replacement Sheet including annotations indicating the changes made to the previous version. The marked-up copy must be clearly labeled as “Annotated Sheets” and must be presented in the amendment or remarks section that explains the change(s) to the drawings. See 37 CFR 1.121(d)(1). Failure to timely submit the proposed drawing and marked-up copy will result in the abandonment of the application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 3 - 7 and 10 - 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Chun-Chia CHEN et al., (US 2020/0068218 A1) referred to as CHEN hereinafter.
Regarding Claim 1, CHEN discloses a video coding method (Fig. 16 Par. [0147], flowchart of a video coding system), comprising:
receiving data for a block of pixels to be encoded or decoded as a current block of a current picture of a video (Par. [0147], input data related to a current block in a current picture at a video encoder side or a video bitstream corresponding to compressed data including the current block at a video decoder side are received, where the current block consists of a set of pixels of video data);
generating a list of merge candidates for the current block (Fig. 7, Par. [0087], a candidate list (i.e., a set) of predictors is generated by inheriting neighbouring information or refining neighbouring information and a merge index is used to indicate the selected candidate in the candidate list and/or some side information related to the merge index is sent for a decoder to identify the selected candidate);
modifying the list of merge candidates (Par. [0087], The candidates may be processed or refined (i.e. modifying) to derive new candidates 720) by changing a motion attribute of a first merge candidate from a first value to a second value (Fig. 8, Par. [0091], The costs (i.e. motion attribute) of the selected candidates 820 are determined, where the cost for candidate 1 (i.e. first merge candidate) is 100 (i.e. first value) and the cost for candidate 3 is 50 (i.e. second value) in this example, where a lower cost means a better candidate. The reordering (i.e. modifying) is then performed for the selected candidate by moving the lower-cost candidate of the selected candidates toward the front of the candidate list. Candidate 3 has a lower cost than candidate 1. Accordingly, candidate 3 is moved (i.e. changing) in front of candidate 1 as shown in the reordered list 830);
signaling or receiving a selection of a merge candidate from the modified list of merge candidates (Par. [0096], a flag can be signaled (i.e. signaling) to switch on or off for Merge Candidate Reorder. For example, a flag (e.g. “merge_cand_rdr_en”) may be signaled to indicate whether “Merge Candidate Reorder” is enabled (i.e. selected) (e.g. value 1: enabled, value 0: disabled)); and
encoding or decoding the current block by using the selected merge candidate (Par. [0147], the current block is encoded at the video encoder side or decoded at the video decoder sider using the reordered MVP candidate list).
Regarding Claim 3, CHEN discloses claim 1. CHEN further discloses wherein the list of merge candidates is modified when changing the motion attribute of the first merge candidate improves an estimated cost of using the first merge candidate to encode or decode the current block by more than a threshold (Par. [0091], the candidate order within a candidate list is rearranged to achieve better coding efficiency. The costs of the selected candidates 820 are determined (i.e. estimated cost), where the cost for candidate 1 is 100 (i.e. improve first merge candidate) and the cost for candidate 3 is 50 in this example. The cost is referred as the guessing-cost (i.e., estimated cost) of the candidate, where a lower cost means a better candidate (i.e. threshold). The reordering is then performed for the selected candidate by moving the lower-cost candidate of the selected candidates toward the front of the candidate list).
Regarding Claim 4, CHEN discloses claim 3. CHEN further discloses wherein the estimated cost is computed by determining a difference between a current template region neighboring the current block and a reference template region neighboring a reference block that is identified by the first merge candidate (Par. [0112] 2.4 L-Shape Matching Step, in this step, it retrieves the L-shape template for the current block from the current picture and the L-shape template for the reference block from the reference picture. The template of the current block and the template of the reference block are compared (i.e., matched) to estimate the cost associated with a candidate. There are two parts in this step: part 1 to get the selected pixels from the L-shape template for the current block in the current picture and the selected pixels from L-shape template for the reference block of the reference picture; and part 2 to compute the difference).
Regarding Claim 5, CHEN discloses claim 1. CHEN further discloses wherein the list of merge candidates is modified (Fig. 8, Fig. 9, Par. [0091], the candidate order within a candidate list is rearranged (i.e. modified)) by adding a second merge candidate having the modified motion attribute (Par. [0006], If after removing redundancy (pruning) (i.e. modified motion attribute), the number of available MV candidates is smaller than five, three types of additional candidates (i.e. a second merge candidate) are derived and are added to the candidate set (candidate list). The encoder selects one final candidate within the candidate set for Skip or Merge mode based on the rate-distortion optimization (RDO) decision, and transmits the index to the decoder).
Regarding Claim 6, CHEN discloses claim 1. CHEN further discloses wherein the list of merge candidates is modified by replacing the first merge candidate with a second merge candidate having the modified motion attribute (Par. [0091], The reordering is then performed for the selected candidate by moving the lower-cost candidate of the selected candidates toward the front of the candidate list. As illustrated in FIG. 8, candidate 3 has a lower cost than candidate 1. Accordingly, candidate 3 (i.e. second merge candidate) is moved (i.e. replaced) in front of candidate 1 (i.e. first merge candidate) as shown in the reordered list 830).
Regarding Claim 7, CHEN discloses claim 1. CHEN further discloses wherein changing the motion attribute of the first merge candidate (Par. [0091], The costs (i.e. motion attribute) of the selected candidates 820 are determined, where the cost for candidate 1 is 100 and the cost for candidate 3 is 50 in this example. The reordering is then performed for the selected candidate by moving the lower-cost candidate of the selected candidates toward the front of the candidate list. Candidate 3 has a lower cost than candidate 1. Accordingly, candidate 3 is moved (i.e. changing the motion attribute) in front of candidate 1 as shown in the reordered list 830) comprises changing a reference index (Fig. 7, Par. [0087], a merge index (i.e. reference index) is used to indicate the selected candidate in the candidate list and/or some side information related to the merge index is sent for a decoder to identify the selected candidate. Accordingly, the decoder is able to inherit the motion information of the “merged” neighbouring block as identified by the merge index. The candidate list includes multiple candidates 710 corresponding to neighbouring blocks, that the motion information to be inherited. The candidates may be processed or refined (i.e. changed) to derive new candidates 720) from identifying a first reference picture to identifying a second reference picture (Fig. 8, Par. [0091], candidate 3 (i.e. second reference picture) is moved (i.e. changing reference index) in front of candidate 1 (i.e. first reference picture) as shown in the reordered list 830).
Regarding Claim 10, CHEN discloses claim 1. CHEN further discloses wherein the motion attribute of the first merge candidate being changed is one of an inter prediction direction (Par. [0008], the Inter prediction direction to specify the prediction directions among bi-prediction and uni-prediction (i.e., list 0 (L0) and/or list 1 (L1)) associated with the reference frame index for each list should also be encoded and transmitted), a reference index (Par. [0087], a merge index (i.e. reference index) is used to indicate the selected candidate in the candidate list and/or some side information related to the merge index is sent for a decoder to identify the selected candidate), a Bi-prediction with CU-level weight (BCW) index, a Local Illumination Compensation (LIC) flag (Par. [0023], Local Illumination Compensation (LIC) is a method to perform Inter prediction using neighbour samples of the current block and a reference block. The LIC process can be enabled or disabled (i.e. flag) adaptively for each CU), a half-pel filter used, and a Multi-Hypothesis Prediction (MHP) weight index.
Regarding Claim 11, the limitations are similar to those treated in the above rejection(s) of Claim 1, and are met by the reference as discussed above. Claim 11 however specifically recites a decoding method, rather than coding method, as claimed in Claim 1. Therefore, claim 11 is rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as used above.
Regarding Claim 12, the limitations are similar to those treated in the above rejection(s) of Claim 1, and are met by the reference as discussed above. Claim 12 however specifically recites an encoding method, rather than coding methods, as claimed in Claim 1. Therefore, claim 12 is rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as used above.
Apparatus claim 13 is drawn to the apparatus corresponding to the method of using same as claimed in claim 1. Therefore apparatus claim 13 corresponds to method claim 1, and is rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as used above. Claim 13 further recites a video coder circuit (See CHEN, Par. [0147], the current block is encoded at the video encoder side or decoded at the video decoder sider using the reordered MVP candidate list and Par. [0150], the present invention can be one or more circuit circuits integrated into a video compression chip or program code integrated into video compression software to perform the processing).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 of this title, 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.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHEN et al., (US 2020/0068218 A1) in view of Naeri PARK et al., (US 2021/0037238 A1) referred to as PARK hereinafter.
Regarding Claim 2, CHEN discloses claim 1. CHEN further discloses further comprising computing a template matching cost for candidate in the list of merge candidates (Fig. 9, Par. [0095], In step 920, the costs for the selected candidates are estimated, Par. [0103] For estimating the cost of the selected candidates, template matching is used) and reordering the list according to the computed template matching costs of the merge candidates in the list (Par. [0095], In step 940, the selected candidates are reordered according to the estimated cost), wherein the selection of the merge candidate is based on the reordered list (Par. [0096], a flag can be signaled to switch on or off for Merge Candidate Reorder. For example, a flag (e.g. “merge_cand_rdr_en”) may be signaled to indicate whether “Merge Candidate Reorder” is enabled (i.e. selection) (e.g. value 1: enabled, value 0: disabled).
While CHEN teaches in Par. [0099] that all candidates with merge_index<=threshold can be selected to estimate costs, CHEN fails to explicitly teach computing a template matching cost of each merge candidate in the list of merge candidates.
However, PARK teaches computing a template matching cost of each merge candidate in the list of merge candidates (Fig. 21, Fig. 23, Par. [0215], The cost for each of the merge candidates may be derived based on the template of the current block and the template of the reference block for the corresponding merge candidate (template matching method)).
References CHEN and PARK are considered to be analogous art because they relate to video coding using merge candidate lists. Therefore, it would be obvious to one possessing ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to specifying computing the cost of each merge candidate in the list as taught by Park in the invention of CHEN. This modification would allow the selection of a genre-wise music in order that the merge candidates may be reordered based on the costs (See PARK, Par. [0215]).
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHEN et al., (US 2020/0068218 A1), in view of Ha Hyun LEE et al., (US 2020/0267408 A1) referred to as LEE hereinafter.
Regarding Claim 8, CHEN discloses claim 7. CHEN further discloses a motion vector based on picture order count (POC) distances of the first reference picture and the second reference picture (Par. [0016] the motion vectors MV0 associated with Ref0 and MV1 associated with Ref1 pointing to the two reference blocks shall be proportional to the temporal distances, i.e., TD0 and TD1, between the current picture (i.e., Cur pic) and the two reference pictures Ref0 and Ref1).
CHEN does not specifically teach scaling a motion vector. Therefore, CHEN fails to explicitly teach wherein changing the motion attribute of the first merge candidate further comprises scaling a motion vector based on picture order count (POC) distances of the first reference picture and the second reference picture.
However, LEE teaches changing the motion attribute of the first merge candidate further comprises scaling a motion vector based on picture order count (POC) distances of the first reference picture and the second reference picture (Fig. 13, Par. [0282], reference picture index information of the merge candidate of the merge candidate list is different from reference picture index information of the initial motion vector list, a motion vector scaled in consideration of the temporal distance (or the P0C difference) may be used as the initial motion vector).
References CHEN and LEE are considered to be analogous art because they relate to video coding using merge candidate lists. Therefore, it would be obvious to one possessing ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to specifying scaling a motion vector as taught by LEE in the invention of CHEN in order to derive the motion vector of the temporal merge candidate of the current block (See LEE, Par. [0176]).
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CHEN et al., (US 2020/0068218 A1) in view of Lien-Fei CHEN et al., (US 2023/0135378 A1) referred to as CHEN II hereinafter.
Regarding Claim 9, CHEN discloses claim 1. CHEN further discloses wherein changing the motion attribute of the first merge candidate comprises a bi-prediction (Par. [0034], two corresponding reference blocks are used for estimating costs of the target candidates when the current block is bi-predicted).
CHEN does not specifically teach changing a bi-prediction weighting index. Therefore, CHEN fails to explicitly discloses changing the motion attribute of the first merge candidate comprises changing a bi-prediction weighting index to select a different weighting for combining a first inter-prediction and a second inter-prediction.
However, CHEN II teaches changing the motion attribute of the first merge candidate comprises changing a bi-prediction weighting index (Fig. 20A-20D, Par. [0174] FIG. 19 shows template-matching based BCW index reordering process (1900), Par. [0023], [0172] the processing circuitry reorders (i.e. changing) the bi-prediction with coding unit (CU)-level weights (BCW) candidate weights based on the respectively determined TM costs (i.e. motion attribute)) to select a different weighting for combining a first inter-prediction and a second inter-prediction (Par. [0023] selects the BCW candidate weight from the reordered BCW candidate weights to be the BCW weight).
References CHEN and CHEN II are considered to be analogous art because they relate to video coding using merge candidate lists. Therefore, it would be obvious to one possessing ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to specifying changing a bi-prediction weighting index as taught by CHEN II in the invention of CHEN in order to coded (e.g., encoded or reconstructed) the current block or the current CU based on the selected BCW weight (e.g., w) (See CHEN II, Par. [0170]).
Conclusion
The prior art references made of record are not relied upon but are considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. SU et al. (US 2021/0211644 A1) teaches video coding using bi-direction CU weight. PARK et al. (US 2022/0007008 A1) teaches video coding for inducing weight index information for bi-prediction. Huang et al. (US 2022/0417500 A1) teaches merge candidate reordering in video coding. ZHANG et al. (US 2022/0239899 A1) teaches adaptive merge candidate list reordering.
Any inquiry concerning this communication should be directed to SUSAN E HODGES whose telephone number is (571)270-0498. The Examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Friday from 8:00 am (EST) to 4:00 pm (EST).
If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner's supervisor, Brian T. Pendleton, can be reached on (571) . The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Susan E. Hodges/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2425