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
This communication is a non-Final office action in merits. Claims 1-8, 10-11, 14-23, after preliminary amendment, are presently pending and have been elected and considered below.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 1/17/2025, 7/14/2025, and 6/23/2026 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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 1-8, 10-11, 14-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2022/0237400 A1, Zhang et al. (hereinafter Zhang) in view of US 2022/0027634 A1, Wang et al. (hereinafter Wang).
CN 111107392 B, Zhang et al. (hereinafter Zhang), an IDS submission, see google translate for citation.
As to claim 1, Zhang discloses a video processing method, comprising:
acquiring a first video, wherein the first video comprises a plurality of material videos (Figs 2-3; pars 0005-0007, collecting a video with a plurality of video clips or frame sequences containing scenes);
determining a fusion video feature corresponding to adjacent material videos, wherein the fusion video feature is used to indicate image features and audio features of adjacent material videos (Figs 2-5, identifying scene classification (e.g. a video feature) in video frame sequence (e.g. adjacent video stream or frames); pars 0053-0055, 0058, 0073, 0079, performing fusion processing);
acquiring a plurality of transition effect features corresponding to a plurality of video transition effects (Fig 5, determining whether there is scene switching (e.g. transition effect); pars 0005-0006, 0009, 0050, 0052, 0056, 0067, 0112, the video frame sequence being transitioned naturally and smoothly during scene switching);
determining a target video transition effect between the adjacent material videos from the plurality of video transition effects according to the fusion video feature and the plurality of transition effect features (Figs 5-7; pars 0005-0006, 0009, 0050, 0052, 0056, 0067, 0112, the video frame being processed and smoothed based on the scene classification identification result (e.g. the switched scene and the classification probability vector)); and
determining a second video according to the plurality of material videos and the target video transition effect (Figs 2-3, 5-7; pars 0033-0034, 0039-044, a processed video being generated/determined based on original video frames classification and video frames smoothing process upon the video scene switching).
Zhang does not expressly disclose the fusion video feature is used to indicate image features and audio features of adjacent material video.
Wang, in the same or similar field of endeavor, further teaches the fusion video feature also includes audio features (Fig 3; pars 0031, 0038, 0043, 0054, video and audio features); determining a target video transition effect between the adjacent material videos from the plurality of video transition effects according to the fusion video feature and the plurality of transition effect features (Figs 2-3; pars 0032-0033, 0037, 0041, 0074, multi-shot continuous transformations and/or color transformation in some scenes with frequent shot switching in a target video and/or a plurality of second video frames); and
determining a second video according to the plurality of material videos and the target video transition effect (Figs 2-3; pars 0032-0033, 0037, 0041, 0074).
Therefore, consider Zhang and Wang’s teachings as a whole, it would have been obvious to one of skill in the art before the filing date of invention to incorporate Wang’s teachings in Zhang’s method to provide complete multimedia features including image and audio components.
As to claim 2, Zhang as modified discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the determining the fusion video feature corresponding to the adjacent material videos comprises: determining image features and audio features corresponding to the adjacent material videos to obtain a plurality of image features and a plurality of audio features (Wang: Figs 2-4, features including text, audio, RGB (color), object, action, etc. and features encoding; pars 0007-0008, 0011, 0033, 0038-0039, 0043-0044, 0058-0059); and determining the fusion video feature corresponding to the adjacent material videos according to the plurality of image features and the plurality of audio features (Wang: Figs 2-3; pars 0007-0008, 0012, 0038-0039, 0043-0044, 0058-0059, obtaining feature fusion information for characterizing fusion of the multi-mode information and target video according to a result of the similarity matching).
As to claim 3, Zhang as modified discloses the method according to claim 2, wherein for any adjacent first material video and second material video, determining image features and audio features corresponding to the first material video and the second material video comprises: acquiring a first video segment in the first material video and a second video segment in the second material video (Wang: Figs 3, 6; pars 0041, 0047, 0049, acquiring a plurality of video segments in a sequence of video frames); and determining the image features and the audio features corresponding to the first material video and the second material video according to the first video segment and the second video segment (Wang: Figs 3, 6; pars 0041, 0047, 0049, features associated witha plurality of adjacent segments).
As to claim 4, Zhang as modified discloses the method according to claim 3, wherein the determining the image features and the audio features corresponding to the first material video and the second material video according to the first video segment and the second video segment, comprises: acquiring a first image feature and a first audio feature corresponding to the first video segment (Wang: Figs 1-3, 5-6; pars 0038, 0043, 0055, image and audio features extraction from video frames/segments); acquiring a second image feature and a second audio feature corresponding to the second video segment (Wang: Figs 1-3, 5-6; pars 0038, 0043, 0055, image and audio features extraction from one or more video frames/segments); and determining the first image feature and the second image feature as the image features corresponding to the first material video and the second material video, and determining the first audio feature and the second audio feature as the audio features corresponding to the first material video and the second material video (Wang: Figs 1-3, 5-6; pars 0038, 0043, 0055).
As to claim 5, Zhang as modified discloses the method according to claim 2, wherein the determining the fusion video feature corresponding to the adjacent material videos according to the plurality of image features and the plurality of audio features, comprises: acquiring a first position code of each image feature in the first video and a second position code of each audio feature in the first video (Wang: Fig 4; pars 0052-0058, note the T sequence representing individual time offsets or time stamps corresponding to l video sequence with respective video and audio features, i.e. position codes in the video stream); and determining the fusion video feature corresponding to the adjacent material videos according to the plurality of image features, the plurality of audio features, the first position code, and the second position code (Wang: Fig 4; pars 0052-0058).
As to claim 6, Zhang as modified discloses the method according to claim 3, wherein the first material video is earlier than the second material video, the first video segment is a video segment at the end of the first material video, and the second video segment is a video segment at the beginning of the second material video (Wang: Figs 1, 6, a sequence of video frames in time or temporal position).
As to claim 7, Zhang as modified discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the determining the target video transition effect between the adjacent material videos from the plurality of video transition effects according to the fusion video feature and the plurality of transition effect features, comprises: acquiring a first similarity between the fusion video feature and each transition effect feature to obtain a plurality of first similarities (Zhang: Figs 8A-8B; pars 0061, 0101-0108; Wang: Figs 2-3, 5; pars 0008, 0012, 0033, 0036); acquiring a maximum first similarity from the plurality of first similarities (Zhang: par 0047); and determining a video transition effect corresponding to the maximum first similarity as the target video transition effect between the adjacent material videos corresponding to the fusion video feature (Zhang: par 0047; Wang: Figs 2-3, 5 ; pars 0008, 0012, 0033, 0036).
As to claim 8, Zhang as modified discloses the method according to claim 1,wherein the acquiring the plurality of transition effect features corresponding to the plurality of video transition effects comprises: acquiring an effect classification model corresponding to the plurality of video transition effects, wherein the effect classification model is configured to classify the plurality of video transition effects (Zhang: Figs 2-4, feature classification model/process; pars 0005-0006, 0009, 0027); and acquiring feature vectors corresponding to the video transition effects by the effect classification model and determining the feature vectors as the transition effect features (Zhang: Figs 2-4, feature classification model/process; pars 0005-0006, 0009, 0027).
9. (Canceled)
As to claim 10, it is a device claim encompassed claim 1. Rejection of claim 1 is therefore incorporated herein.
As to claim 11, it recites a non-transitory CRM storing instructions executed to perform functions and features of claim 1. Rejection of claim 1 is therefore incorporated herein.
12. (Canceled)
13. (Canceled)
As to claim 14, it is rejected with the same reason as set forth in claim 5.
As to claim 15, it is rejected with the same reason as set forth in claim 5.
As to claim 16, it is rejected with the same reason as set forth in claim 6.
As to claim 17, it is rejected with the same reason as set forth in claim 7.
As to claim 18, it is rejected with the same reason as set forth in claim 7.
As to claim 19, it is rejected with the same reason as set forth in claim 7.
As to claim 20, it is rejected with the same reason as set forth in claim 7.
As to claim 21, it is rejected with the same reason as set forth in claim 7.
As to claim 22, it is rejected with the same reason as set forth in claim 8.
As to claim 23, it is rejected with the same reason as set forth in claim 8.
Examiner’s Note
Examiner has cited particular column, line number, paragraphs and/or figure(s) in the reference(s) as applied to the claims for the convenience of the Applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the reference(s) in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to QUN SHEN whose telephone number is (571)270-7927. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri 8:30-5:50 PT.
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/QUN SHEN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2662
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