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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 18 March 2026 is being considered by the examiner.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 11 March 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
On pages 10-12 of the response the applicant argues that Han does not disclose or suggest the following limitations of claim 1: (i) “acquiring a target candidate viewing angle set corresponding to the current to-be-downloaded clip in response to detecting that a current head turning action in the head movement trajectory is an invalid action” and (ii) “performing correction processing on the current predicted viewing angle and determining a target predicted viewing angle corresponding to the current to-be-downloaded clip based on the target candidate viewing angle set.” Specifically, on page 11, the applicant argues limitation (i) stating that Han teaches a “video data set” not a “viewing angle set” and that the tiles in Han are not obtained after detecting an invalid action, but instead have already been downloaded. Further, on page 12, the applicant argues limitation (ii) by merely stating that since Han discloses a “video data set” that Han does not disclose the limitation. The office respectfully disagrees.
While the difference between the applicant’s invention and the Han reference are appreciated, the claims are broad and do not define over Han as alleged by applicant. As explained in the rejection, surrounding tiles are “fetched” based on the prediction of the viewing angle to allow for small errors in the prediction, i.e. more than one viewing angle, and thus since the OOS [out-of-sight] tiles, i.e. video data in each tile, correspond to different viewing angles and are fetched based on the predicted viewing angle then they constitute a “viewing angle set” as claimed. In other words, the claims do not actually say that any viewing angle is actually being used but rather just a “viewing angle set” and since the portions of the video correspond to different viewing angles then the set is a “viewing angle set” as claimed given the broadest reasonable interpretation. Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
Further, the claims do not recite that anything is “obtained after detecting an invalid action.” The applicant must be referring to the recitation of a “to-be-downloaded clip” however, the claims never recite when the clip is to-be-downloaded. Further, in the last sentence of paragraph [0067], Han recites “The larger e is, the more OSS tiles need to be fetched.” Further, it is clear from Han’s disclosure that bandwidth is an issue with the panoramic videos which are obtained [downloaded] from a server. Thus, all of the video clips are “to-be-downloaded.” See, for example, paragraph [0076] of Han and the abstract which recites “Wireless transmission of the subsegment of the entire immersive video frame to the immersive video viewer is facilitated for presentation at the immersive video viewer at the second time, without requiring transmission of the entire immersive video frame.” Thus, clearly Han does not already download their video clips when an invalid action is determined.
Since limitation (ii) is only argued by stating that Han doesn’t teach the limitation, then the rejection is maintained since Han does teach the limitation as explained in the rejection.
Thus, the rejection of claim 1 is maintained.
Since claims 10-11 recite the same features as those of claim 1, then the rejections of claims 10-11 are also maintained.
Claim Interpretation
Independent claims 1, 10 and 11 each recite the term “invalid action.” In the applicant’s specification, paragraph [0039], the invalid action is defined as “an action of turning the head with a large amplitude due to non-video factors.” This definition will be applied during examination of the claims.
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)(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 and 10-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Han et al. (US 2019/0104324).
Regarding claim 1, Han et al. disclose a viewing angle prediction method (Figures 2-4 and 7B), comprising:
determining a current predicted viewing angle corresponding to a current to-be- downloaded clip in a panoramic video based on a head movement trajectory of a user viewing the panoramic video (Figure 7B, steps 752-762, which comprise of determining a FoV, viewer orientation at a sample time, predicted viewer orientation at presentation time, predicted subspace and FoV at the presentation time, and then determining the actual viewer orientation at the update time. The predicted viewer orientation is the predicted viewing angle.);
acquiring a target candidate viewing angle set corresponding to the current to-be-downloaded clip (Paragraph [0067], the target is set for surrounding tiles 3,1 and 4,0 in Figure 4) in response to detecting that a current head turning action in the head movement trajectory is an invalid action (Paragraphs [0067] and [0069], the extra tiles are fetched in response to an “invalid action” which paragraph [0069] refers to as the user’s head movement being quick and exhibiting no trend [which is a non-video factor].); and
performing correction processing on the current predicted viewing angle and determining a target predicted viewing angle corresponding to the current to-be-downloaded clip based on the target candidate viewing angle set (Figure 7B, steps 772 and 774. The target predicted viewing angle is a wider viewing angle which means more tiles are downloaded, which is based on the current predicted viewing angle and determining a target predicted viewing angle corresponding to the current to-be-downloaded clip based on the target candidate viewing angle set.).
Regarding claim 10, please refer to the rejection of claim 1, and furthermore Han et al. also disclose an electronic device (Figure 12), comprising: one or more processors (Figure 12, 1202); and a storage apparatus (Figure 12, 1204) configured to store one or more programs (Figure 12, 1224) where the one or more programs, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the method of claim 1 (See Figure 7B, for example, and claim 1 above.).
Regarding claim 11, this claim is rejected under the same rationale as claim 10, where the storage apparatus of claim 10 is a non-transitory storage medium as claimed in claim 11.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-8 and 12-21 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The primary reasons for indicating allowable subject matter in claim 2 is the inclusion of the limitations reciting “…determining a viewing angle standard deviation, and a viewing angle change gradient between a current head position and a previous head position based on a head position in the head movement trajectory of the user viewing the panoramic video, wherein the head position corresponds to a viewing angle; determining a target viewing angle interval based on a current video buffer length and the viewing angle change gradient; and determining the current predicted viewing angle corresponding to the current to-be-downloaded clip based on a current viewing angle, the target viewing angle interval, and the viewing angle standard deviation” which, in combination with the other recited features, is not taught and/or suggested either singularly or in combination in the prior art.
Zhang et al. (CN 115103023 A) discloses generally of using a standard deviation measure for viewing angle prediction, however, even in combination, fails to teach and/or suggest the specifically claimed features as highlighted above.
Claim 3 is objected to due to its dependency from claim 2.
The primary reasons for indicating allowable subject matter in claim 4 is the inclusion of the limitations reciting “…determining a head turning amplitude corresponding to the current head turning action based on the current head position and a previous head position in the head movement trajectory; determining a number of significant changes in video content corresponding to the current head turning action when the head turning amplitude is greater than or equal to a preset amplitude threshold; and determining the current head turning action as an invalid action when the number of significant changes in the video content is greater than or equal to a preset number threshold” which, in combination with the other recited features, is not taught and/or suggested either singularly or in combination in the prior art.
The closest prior art (See cited references) generally discloses of an invalid action being a head turning action (See claim 1 above), however, even in combination, fails to teach and/or suggest the specifically claimed features as highlighted above.
Claim 5 is objected to due to its dependency from claim 4.
The primary reasons for indicating allowable subject matter in claim 6 is the inclusion of the limitations reciting “acquiring a panoramic video header file corresponding to the panoramic video, wherein the panoramic video header file comprises a candidate viewing angle set corresponding to each clip of the panoramic video, the candidate viewing angle set is determined based on a clip content feature corresponding to each clip, and/or an actual viewing angle of the user; and obtaining the target candidate viewing angle set corresponding to the current to-be-downloaded clip based on the panoramic video header file” which, in combination with the other recited features, is not taught and/or suggested either singularly or in combination in the prior art.
Wu et al. (US 2020/0169711) generally discloses in paragraph [0052] of a header filed having a viewing angle, however, fails to teach of the specifically claimed features as highlighted above.
Claim 7 is objected to due to its dependency from claim 6.
The primary reasons for indicating allowable subject matter in claim 8 is the inclusion of the limitations reciting “wherein performing correction processing on the current predicted viewing angle, and determining a target predicted viewing angle corresponding to the current to-be-downloaded clip, based on the target candidate viewing angle set comprises: determining a viewing angle difference between each target candidate viewing angle in the target candidate viewing angle set and the current predicted viewing angle; and determining a target candidate viewing angle with a minimum viewing angle difference as the target predicted viewing angle corresponding to the current to-be-downloaded clip” which, in combination with the other recited features, is not taught and/or suggested either singularly or in combination in the prior art.
The closest prior art (See cited references) generally discloses of performing correction processing on the current predicted viewing angle (See claim 1 above), however, even in combination, fails to teach and/or suggest the specifically claimed features as highlighted above.
Claim 12 is objected to for the same reasons as claim 2 above.
Claim 13 is objected to due to its dependency from claim 12.
Claim 14 is objected to for the same reasons as claim 4 above.
Claim 15 is objected to due to its dependency from claim 14.
Claim 16 is objected to for the same reasons as claim 6 above.
Claim 17 is objected to due to its dependency from claim 16.
Claim 18 is objected to for the same reasons as claim 8 above.
Claim 19 is objected to for the same reasons as claim 2 above.
Claim 20 is objected to for the same reasons as claim 4 above.
Claim 21 is objected to for the same reasons as claim 6 above.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/STEPHEN G SHERMAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2621
25 March 2026