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 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 (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 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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 13, 18, 25, 30 and 61 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Oh (US 2022/0368751 A1, referred to herein as “Oh).
Regarding claim 13, Oh discloses: A method of encoding point cloud data (Oh: paragraphs [0089] – [0090], disclosing encoding of point cloud data), comprising:
encoding a geometry information of a point cloud data (Oh: paragraphs [0103] – [0104], disclosing encoding of geometry information associated with the point cloud data); and
encoding an attribute information of the point cloud data based on the geometry information (Oh: paragraphs [0103] – [0104], disclosing encoding of attribute information associated with the point cloud data),
wherein a first parameter associated with the attribute information is encoded with a Logarithmic format minus a fixed integer, or at least one value associated with the attribute information is specified (Oh: paragraph [0103], disclosing that the attribute information includes information about parameters—such as texture, color, reflectance, transparency, etc.—of each point; paragraph [0128], disclosing that attribute parameters—such as color/texture—may be specified by values).
As a note on claim interpretation, although Oh does not explicitly disclose: wherein a first parameter associated with the attribute information is encoded with a Logarithmic format minus a fixed integer, the claim recites this term in the disjunctive, meaning that the limitation is alternatively disclosed by: or at least one value associated with the attribute information is specified. As stated above, Oh teaches this alternative and thus discloses all the limitations of the claim.
Regarding claim 18, Oh discloses: The method of encoding point cloud data of claim 13, wherein the at least one value associated with the attribute information comprises an allowed value of a second parameter and/or a third parameter associated with the attribute information, and the allowed value is not larger than a specified number (Oh: paragraph [0103], disclosing that the attribute information include information about parameters—including a second parameter—such as texture, color, reflectance, transparency, etc.; paragraph [0128], disclosing that attribute parameters—such as color/texture—may be specified by values).
Regarding claim 25, Oh discloses: A method of decoding point cloud data (Oh: paragraphs [0030] – [0032], disclosing encoding/decoding of point cloud data), comprising:
decoding a geometry information of a point cloud data (Oh: paragraphs [0103] – [0104], disclosing encoding of geometry information associated with the point cloud data; Fig. 10, paragraph [0183], disclosing decoding of the geometry information); and
decoding an attribute information of the point cloud data based on the geometry information (Oh: paragraphs [0103] – [0104], disclosing encoding of attribute information associated with the point cloud data; Fig. 10, paragraph [0183], disclosing decoding of the attribute information),
wherein a first parameter associated with the attribute information is decoded with a Logarithmic format plus a fixed integer, or at least one value associated with the attribute information is specified (Oh: paragraph [0103], disclosing that the attribute information includes information about parameters—such as texture, color, reflectance, transparency, etc.—of each point; paragraph [0128], disclosing that attribute parameters—such as color/texture—may be specified by values).
As a note on claim interpretation, although Oh does not explicitly disclose: wherein a first parameter associated with the attribute information is encoded with a Logarithmic format plus a fixed integer, the claim recites this term in the disjunctive, meaning that the limitation is alternatively disclosed by: or at least one value associated with the attribute information is specified. As stated above, Oh teaches this alternative and thus discloses all the limitations of the claim.
Regarding claim 30, Oh discloses: The method of decoding point cloud data of claim 25, wherein the at least one value associated with the attribute information comprises an allowed value of a second parameter and/or a third parameter associated with the attribute information, and the allowed value is not larger than a specified number (Oh: paragraph [0103], disclosing that the attribute information include information about parameters—including a second parameter—such as texture, color, reflectance, transparency, etc.; paragraph [0128], disclosing that attribute parameters—such as color/texture—may be specified by values).
Regarding claim 61, Oh discloses: A point cloud decoder (Oh: paragraphs [0030] – [0032], disclosing encoding/decoding of point cloud data), comprising:
a decoder (Oh: paragraphs [0023] and [0107], disclosing a decoder to decode point cloud data) configured to:
decode a geometry information of a point cloud data (Oh: paragraphs [0103] – [0104], disclosing encoding of geometry information associated with the point cloud data; Fig. 10, paragraph [0183], disclosing decoding of the geometry information); and
decode an attribute information of the point cloud data based on the geometry information (Oh: paragraphs [0103] – [0104], disclosing encoding of attribute information associated with the point cloud data; Fig. 10, paragraph [0183], disclosing decoding of the attribute information),
wherein a first parameter associated with the attribute information is decoded with a Logarithmic format plus a fixed integer, or at least one value associated with the attribute information is specified (Oh: paragraph [0103], disclosing that the attribute information includes information about parameters—such as texture, color, reflectance, transparency, etc.—of each point; paragraph [0128], disclosing that attribute parameters—such as color/texture—may be specified by values).
As a note on claim interpretation, although Oh does not explicitly disclose: wherein a first parameter associated with the attribute information is encoded with a Logarithmic format plus a fixed integer, the claim recites this term in the disjunctive, meaning that the limitation is alternatively disclosed by: or at least one value associated with the attribute information is specified. As stated above, Oh teaches this alternative and thus discloses all the limitations of the claim.
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.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 14 and 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oh in view of Lim et al. (US 2007/0115156 A1, referred to herein as “Lim”).
Regarding claim 14, Oh discloses: The method of encoding point cloud data of claim 13, as discussed above.
Oh does not explicitly disclose: wherein the first parameter comprises maxNumofCoeff used to control a maximum buffer size to hold a number of transform coefficients.
However, Lim discloses: wherein the first parameter comprises maxNumofCoeff used to control a maximum buffer size to hold a number of transform coefficients (Lim: paragraph [0094], disclosing use of a maxNumofCoeff parameter to control a maximum of transform coefficients).
At the time the application was effectively filed, it would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art to use the parameter of Lim in the point cloud encoding method of Oh.
One would have been motivated to modify Oh in this manner in order to better eliminate redundant information in variable length coding (Lim: paragraphs [0003] – [0015]).
Regarding claim 26, the claim recites similar limitations to claim 14, above, and is therefore rejected on the same premise.
Claims 15 and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oh in view of Lim as applied to claim 14 above, and further in view of Asma et al. (“A low-cost Exp_Golomb hardware architecture for H.261/AVC entropy coder,” 2018 30th International Conference on Microelectronics (ICM), Dec. 16, 2018, already of record, referred to herein as “Asma”).
Regarding claim 15, Oh and Lim discloses: The method of encoding point cloud data of claim 14, wherein… maxNumofCoeffMinusX is encoded in a bitstream (Lim: paragraph [0094], disclosing use of a maxNumofCoeff parameter to control a maximum of transform coefficients). The motivation to combine Oh and Lim has been discussed in claim 14 above.
Oh and Lim do not explicitly disclose log2 of a value where X is an integer number, and the ue(v) format is 0-order exponential Golomb (EG) encoding.
However, Asma discloses log2 of a value where X is an integer number, and the ue(v) format is 0-order exponential Golomb (EG) encoding (Asma: page 2, section II(B), disclosing 0-order unsigned Exponential-Golomb coding in the ue(v) format including log2 of an integer value minus 1).
At the time the application was effectively filed, it would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art to use the Exponential-Golomb coding of Asma in the point cloud encoding method of Oh and Lim.
One would have been motivated to modify Oh and Lim in this manner in order to reduce the area cost of hardware architecture (Asma: page 1, section I).
Regarding claim 27, the claim recites similar limitations to claim 15, above, and is therefore rejected on the same premise.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 16, 17, 19, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35 and 36 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 Christopher Braniff whose telephone number is (571) 270-5009. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7AM to 4PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Thai Tran can be reached at (571) 272-7382. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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CHRISTOPHER T. BRANIFF
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2484
/CHRISTOPHER BRANIFF/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2484