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.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Kadono et al. (Pub. No. US 2004/0076237 A1).
Regarding claim 7, Kadono discloses One or more non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon a program ([0247] recording a program implementing the steps of … method to a floppy disk or other computer-readable data recording medium; [0251]; [0257] The software for … can be stored to any computer-readable data recording medium (such as a CD-ROM disc, floppy disk, or hard disk drive)).
See MPEP 2111.05 (III), when determining the scope of the claims, “encoded data in a bitstream” is not given patentable weight, because “encoded data in a bitstream” is non-functional descriptive material. It is merely static data that imparts no function (unlike an executable computer program which performs a function). It does not have any functional relationship with the intended computer system. Thus, the computer-readable data recording medium disclosed in Kadono meets claim 7.
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 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hannuksela (US 20050185719 A1) in view of THOUKYDIDES et al. (US 20170185474 A1).
Regarding claim 1. Hannuksela discloses A method for encoding data defining an image (abstract, A method of video encoding), the method including the step of providing metadata associated with the image (abstract, the picture header for the frame; [0008] the most vital information is gathered in the picture header), encoding the metadata into binary code to form a metadata string ([0018] The coded parameter data is arranged in a so-called picture header; [0022] picture headers in video bitstreams), and repeating the metadata string (abstract, repeating part, but not all, of the data. The repeated part including the picture header for the frame; [0023] a repeat of the picture header for at least INTRA-frames; [0058] the encoder is arranged to send repeats of the picture header).
However, Hannuksela doesn’t explicitly disclose repeating the metadata string a number of times.
THOUKYDIDES discloses repeating a frame a number of times ([0057] if at least three probe response frames have been received from a particular BSS then it is possible to implement N-modular redundancy (majority logic) decoding as a simple form of forward error correction (FEC), to recover portions of the original frame; figure 11, [0075] Multiple probe response frames from the AP are collected using a wireless sniffer. FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating the initial 65 octets of seven frames. Partial packet recovery is performed across these received frames using 7-modular redundancy).
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 invention of Hannuksela according to the invention of THOUKYDIDES, to repeat the metadata string a number of times, in order to correctly receive the data (THOUKYDIDES [0039]).
Regarding claim 2. Hannuksela discloses The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:
segmenting the image into image blocks, each image block in a portion having a uniform block size ([0012] Picture data is coded on a block-by-block basis, each block representing 8.times.8 pixels of luminance or chrominance);
applying a frequency-based transform to each of the image blocks, thereby providing transformed image data in which the image data is represented as coefficients defining a linear combination of predetermined basis functions having different spatial frequencies (figure 4, unit 103 DCT, [0055] In INTRA-mode, the video signal from the input 101 is input directly to a DCT transformer 103 which transforms the pixel data into DCT coefficients; [0056] In INTER mode, The prediction error is DCT transformed);
quantising the coefficients ([0055] The DCT coefficients are then passed to a quantiser 104 which quantises the coefficients; [0056] The prediction error is DCT transformed and quantised); and
converting the quantised coefficients into binary code ([0057] The video coder 100 produces header information (e.g. a temporal reference flag TR 112a to indicate the number of the frame being coded, an INTRA/INTER flag 112b to indicate the mode of coding performed (I or P/B), a quantising index 112c (i.e. the details of the quantiser used), the quantised DCT coefficients 112d and the motion vectors 112e for the picture being coded. These are coded and multiplexed together by the variable length coder (VLC) 113).
Regarding claim 3. Hannuksela in view of THOUKYDIDES discloses The method according to claim 2, wherein the metadata string is repeated at least three times (Hannuksela [0058] the encoder is arranged to send repeats of the picture header; THOUKYDIDES figure 11, [0075] Multiple probe response frames from the AP are collected using a wireless sniffer. FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating the initial 65 octets of seven frames. Partial packet recovery is performed across these received frames using 7-modular redundancy).
The same motivation has been stated in claim 1.
Regarding claim 4. Hannuksela in view of THOUKYDIDES discloses The method according to claim 2, wherein the metadata string is repeated at least five times (Hannuksela [0058] the encoder is arranged to send repeats of the picture header; THOUKYDIDES figure 11, [0075] Multiple probe response frames from the AP are collected using a wireless sniffer. FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating the initial 65 octets of seven frames. Partial packet recovery is performed across these received frames using 7-modular redundancy).
The same motivation has been stated in claim 1.
Regarding claim 5. Hannuksela discloses A method of decoding a bitstream to reconstruct an image (abstract, A method of decoding an encoded video signal), the method comprising the steps of identifying, in the bitstream, a metadata string containing bits relating to metadata associated with the image (abstract, receiving coded data representing frames of a video signal; examining the coded data to detect header data); determining the metadata string that is repeated (abstract, detecting a repeat of the header data).
However, Hannuksela doesn’t explicitly disclose determining a number of times the metadata string is repeated; and, for each bit in the metadata string, applying a voting procedure to determine a value of each said bit.
THOUKYDIDES discloses determining a number of times a frame is repeated ([0057] if at least three probe response frames have been received from a particular BSS then it is possible to implement N-modular redundancy (majority logic) decoding as a simple form of forward error correction (FEC), to recover portions of the original frame; figure 11, [0075] Multiple probe response frames from the AP are collected using a wireless sniffer. FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating the initial 65 octets of seven frames. Partial packet recovery is performed across these received frames using 7-modular redundancy; [0059]); and, for each bit in the frame, applying a voting procedure to determine a value of each said bit ([0067] The N-modular redundancy decoding can be applied to arbitrary groupings of bits. The corresponding bits in each of the received versions of the frame are compared, and the value for each group that occurs in the most versions is selected; [0068] Use of a smaller group size, down to individual bits, will increase the probability of being able to recover the frame from a certain number of received versions).
The same motivation has been stated in claim 1.
Regarding claim 6. The same analysis has been stated in claim 1.
Furthermore, Hannuksela discloses A method of encoding a series of image frames including at least a current frame and a preceding frame (abstract, A method of video encoding), each of the frames being encoded according to the method of claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1).
Regarding claim 7. The same analysis has been stated in claim 1.
Regarding claim 8. The same analysis has been stated in claim 1.
Regarding claim 9. The same analysis has been stated in claim 1.
Regarding claim 10. Hannuksela in view of THOUKYDIDES discloses The method according to claim 2, wherein the metadata string is repeated at least seven times (Hannuksela [0058] the encoder is arranged to send repeats of the picture header; THOUKYDIDES figure 11, [0075] Multiple probe response frames from the AP are collected using a wireless sniffer. FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating the initial 65 octets of seven frames. Partial packet recovery is performed across these received frames using 7-modular redundancy).
The same motivation has been stated in claim 1.
Regarding claim 11. The same analysis has been stated in claim 5.
Regarding claim 12. The same analysis has been stated in claim 5.
Regarding claim 13. The same analysis has been stated in claim 6.
Regarding claim 14. The same analysis has been stated in claim 6.
Conclusion
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/XIAOLAN XU/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2488