CTNF 18/876,387 CTNF 93093 DETAILED ACTION Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. Election/Restrictions 08-25-01 AIA Applicant’s election without traverse of Group II (claims 12-19) in the reply filed on 05/17/2026 is acknowledged. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 07-07-aia AIA 07-07 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 – 07-12-aia AIA (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. 07-15-03-aia AIA Claim s 12 , 14-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Zhang et al., hereinafter referred to as Zhang (US 2021/0344969 A1) . As per claim 12 , Zhang discloses a method of video decoding, the method comprising: receiving coded data associated with a current block to be decoded at a decoder side (Zhang: Para. [0049] discloses “Each picture is split into block-shaped regions [includes claimed current block to be decoded], with the exact block partitioning being conveyed to the decoder. [claimed at a decoder side]”.) ; deriving motion information for the current block from the coded data according to multiple HMVP (History-based MVP) lookup tables (Zhang: Para. [0433] discloses “the look up tables [claimed lookup tables] indicate the coded information or information derived from coded information from previously coded blocks in a decoding order [claimed deriving motion information for the current block]”; Zhang: Para. [0436] discloses “A history-based MVP (HMVP) method is proposed wherein a HMVP candidate is defined as the motion information of a previously coded block. A table with multiple HMVP candidates is maintained during the encoding/decoding process”.) ; and updating the multiple HMVP lookup tables according to the motion information derived for the current block, and wherein the multiple HMVP lookup tables are updated according to different updating rules (Zhang: Para. [0436] discloses “Whenever there is an inter-coded block [claimed current block], the associated motion information is added to the last entry of the table as a new HMVP candidate [claimed updating the multiple HMVP lookup tables according to the motion information derived]”; Zhang: Para. [0038] discloses “FIGS. 28A and 28B show examples of updating a LUT with a new set of motion information”; Zhang: Para. [0438] discloses “a First-In-First-Out (FIFO) rule is applied so that the table always contains the latest previously coded L motion candidates [claimed updating rules]”; Zhang: Para. [0439] discloses “whenever adding a new motion candidate (such as the current block is inter-coded and non-affine mode), a redundancy checking process is applied firstly to identify whether there are identical or similar motion candidates in LUTs [claimed multiple HMVP lookup tables are updated according to different updating rules]”.) . As per claim 14 , Zhang discloses the method of Claim 12, wherein one of the multiple HMVP lookup tables is updated according quadtree depth, binary tree depth or a number of partitions associated with the current block (Zhang: Para. [0073] discloses “the binary tree depth reaches MaxBTDepth (i.e., 4)” and Zhang: Paras. [0504], [0507]-[0508] disclose updating the one or more lookup tables, “wherein the table comprises a History-based Motion Vector Prediction (HMVP) table” and “is based on a partitioning depth of the current block.”.) . As per claim 15 , Zhang discloses the method of Claim 12, wherein whether a motion vector is used to update one of the multiple HMVP lookup tables depends on motion vector differences between the motion vector and motion vector candidates in said one of the multiple HMVP lookup tables (Zhang: Para. [0439] discloses “whenever adding a new motion candidate [claimed whether a motion vector is used to update] … a redundancy checking process is applied firstly to identify whether there are identical or similar motion candidates in LUTs”.) . As per claim 16 , Zhang discloses the method of Claim 12, wherein whether a motion vector is used to update one of the multiple HMVP lookup tables depends on a position of a corresponding block associated with the motion vector (Zhang: Para. [0342] discloses “After coding a block with motion information [claimed motion vector] … one or multiple look up tables may be updated”; Para. Zhang: [0393] discloses “If one block is located at a picture/slice/tile border [claimed depends on a position of a corresponding block associated with the motion vector], updating of look up tables may be always disallowed [claimed whether a motion vector is used to update one of the multiple HMVP lookup tables]” and Zhang: Para. [0400] discloses updating a table when a left-top coordinate (x, y) of the coded/decoded block satisfies a certain condition.) . As per claim 17 , Zhang discloses the method of Claim 16, wherein the position of the corresponding block corresponds to a top-left position (Zhang: Para. [0131] discloses “the location (x0, y0) [claimed position] of the top-left luma sample [claimed top-left position] of the considered prediction block [claimed corresponding block]”.) . As per claim 18 , Zhang discloses the method of Claim 16, wherein if the position of the corresponding block is at a selected grid, the motion vector is used to update said one of the multiple HMVP lookup tables (Zhang: Para. [0400] discloses the table is updated when (x & M==0) && (y & M==0), where (x, y) is the left-top coordinate of the corresponding coded/decoded block and M is 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, or 64 [claimed is at a selected grid]) and Zhang: Para. [0436] discloses “A table with multiple HMVP candidates is maintained during the encoding/decoding process … Whenever there is an inter-coded block, the associated motion information [claimed motion vector] is added to the last entry of the table as a new HMVP candidate [claimed is used to update said one of the multiple HMVP lookup tables]”.) . As per claim 19 , Zhang discloses a method of video encoding (Zhang: Abstract.) , the method comprising: receiving pixel data associated with a current block at an encoder side (Zhang: Para. [0475] discloses “receiving video content. The video content may be received in a raw or uncompressed format, e.g., 8 or 10 bit multi-component pixel values [claimed receiving pixel data]”; Zhang: Para. [0049] discloses “An encoding algorithm [claimed encoder side] producing an HEVC compliant bitstream would typically proceed as follows. Each picture is split into block-shaped regions [claimed current block]”.) ; deriving motion information for the current block (Zhang: Para. [0153] discloses “At the first stage, MV for the whole WxH CU is derived. At the second stage, the CU is further split into MxM sub-CUs [claimed current block] … Then the MV [claimed motion information] for each sub-CU is derived”.) ; encoding the motion information for the current block using information comprising multiple HMVP (History-based MVP) lookup tables (Zhang: Para. [0049] discloses “The encoding process for inter-picture prediction consists of choosing motion data comprising the selected reference picture and motion vector (MV) to be applied for predicting the samples of each block [claimed encoding the motion information for the current block]”; Zhang: Para. [0436] discloses “A history-based MVP (HMVP) method is proposed wherein a HMVP candidate is defined as the motion information of a previously coded block. A table with multiple HMVP candidates is maintained”; Zhang: Para. [0439] discloses “whenever adding a new motion candidate (such as the current block is inter-coded and non-affine mode), a redundancy checking process is applied firstly to identify whether there are identical or similar motion candidates in LUTs [claimed using information comprising multiple HMVP (History-based MVP) lookup tables]”.) ; updating the multiple HMVP lookup tables according to the motion information derived for the current block, and wherein the multiple HMVP lookup tables are updated according to different updating rules (Zhang: Para. [0436] discloses “Whenever there is an inter-coded block [claimed current block], the associated motion information is added to the last entry of the table as a new HMVP candidate [claimed updating the multiple HMVP lookup tables according to the motion information derived]”; Zhang: Para. [0038] discloses “FIGS. 28A and 28B show examples of updating a LUT with a new set of motion information”; Zhang: Para. [0438] discloses “a First-In-First-Out (FIFO) rule is applied so that the table always contains the latest previously coded L motion candidates [claimed updating rules]”; Zhang: Para. [0439] discloses “whenever adding a new motion candidate (such as the current block is inter-coded and non-affine mode), a redundancy checking process is applied firstly to identify whether there are identical or similar motion candidates in LUTs [claimed multiple HMVP lookup tables are updated according to different updating rules]”.) . Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-20-aia AIA 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. 07-21-aia AIA Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang in view of Tourapis et al., hereinafter referred to as Tourapis (US 2022/0239956 A1) . As per claim 13 , Zhang discloses the method of Claim 12, wherein the multiple HMVP lookup tables have different updating frequencies (Zhang: Paras. [0507]-[0508] disclose the multiple HMVP lookup tables.) . However, Zhang does not explicitly disclose “… wherein the … lookup tables have different updating frequencies.”. Further, Tourapis is in the same field of endeavor and teaches wherein the lookup tables have different updating frequencies (Tourapis: Paras. [0129]-[0130] disclose an adaptive LUT is re-computed [updated] based on an update cycle, wherein the “updateCycle is initialized to a low number N0 (e.g. 16). [claimed different updating frequencies]”.) . Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, and having the teachings of Zhang and Tourapis before him or her, to modify the video coding HMVP LUT system of Zhang to include the lookup tables having different updating frequencies feature as described in Tourapis. The motivation for doing so would have been to improve compression efficiency by providing a configuration that reduce a number of bits required for encoding and decoding operations . Conclusion 07-96 AIA The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure and can be viewed in the list of references . Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PEET DHILLON whose telephone number is (571)270-5647. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 5am-1:30pm. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sath V. Perungavoor can be reached at 571-272-7455. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /PEET DHILLON/Primary Examiner Art Unit: 2488 Date: 06-13-2026 Application/Control Number: 18/876,387 Page 2 Art Unit: 2488 Application/Control Number: 18/876,387 Page 3 Art Unit: 2488 Application/Control Number: 18/876,387 Page 4 Art Unit: 2488 Application/Control Number: 18/876,387 Page 5 Art Unit: 2488 Application/Control Number: 18/876,387 Page 6 Art Unit: 2488 Application/Control Number: 18/876,387 Page 7 Art Unit: 2488
Prosecution Insights