DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the application filed on December 20, 2014. Claims 1 – 33 are pending.
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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. EP22306020.3 filed on July 7, 2022.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) was submitted on December 20, 2024. The submission 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 § 112(b)
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 3, 4, 13, 14, 26 and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Regarding Claims 3, 4, 13, 14, 26 and 27, they recite the limitation “wherein each chain of the additional vertex chains”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. For examining purposes, the Examiner has interpreted “wherein each chain of the additional vertex chains” to mean “wherein each chain of [[the]] an additional vertex chains”. Unless there is a typographical error and the dependent claims are intended to refer back to another dependent claim, instead of the independent claim. If that is the case, then, for example, Claims 3 and 4 would depend on claim 2, instead of independent claim 1.
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 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 - 4, 11 - 14 and 21 - 33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Touma et al., (US 6,167,159 A) referred to as Touma hereinafter.
Regarding Claim 1, Touma discloses a method for encoding a mesh topology (Fig. 3, Col. 2:13-16 a compression procedure includes arranging the vertices of the mesh in a consecutive order. Preferably, two lists, a topology list and a coordinate list, are generated including, respectively, the topology and coordinate data of the mesh), comprising:
generating a vertex chain data record (Col. 13:33-36 a topology list (TL) (i.e. vertex chain data record), which represents the topology of the mesh, is generated, as indicated in block 46 of FIG. 3), containing information representative of a topology of mesh patches that constitute partitions of a mesh (Fig. 2, Col. 13:6-25 Mesh 30 comprises a plurality of triangles 32 (i.e. patches), which are defined by their vertices 34 (i.e. partition), indicated by letters A-K. Edges 36 connect vertices 34 and form triangles 32. A non-compressed representation of mesh 30 in arbitrary coordinates may be as in table 1);
encoding the generated vertex chain data record into a vertex chain symbol stream (Col. 13:36-39, The topology list (TL) is packed to binary form, as indicated in block 48. A coordinate list (CL) (i.e. vertex chain data record) corresponding to the topology list (TL) is also generated and compressed, as indicated in block 50); and
encoding the vertex chain symbol stream into a coded mesh (Col. 13:41-42, After these steps are completed, the mesh is transmitted and/or stored in compressed form (i.e. coded mesh), as indicated in block 52).
Regarding Claim 2, Touma discloses Claim 1. Touma further discloses wherein the generating of the vertex chain data record comprises:
for each mesh patch of the mesh patches, deriving vertex chains (Col. 13:8-11, a plurality of triangles 32, which are defined by their vertices 34, indicated by letters A-K. Edges 36 connect vertices 34 and form triangles 32. Table 1), including:
determining a reference vertex chain from the mesh patch (Col. 13:59-63 FIG. 5, a beginning triangle 58 is chosen (i.e. reference vertex chain), as shown in FIG. 6A, and its vertices (D,E,H) are entered, preferably in a counter-clockwise order, into a list of vertices and edges currently being processed, referred to as an active-list (AL)); and
determining additional vertex chains from the mesh patch relative to the reference vertex chain (Table 1, list of additional vertex chains, for example, IJH, KHJ, KGH… etc.)), wherein each of the derived vertex chains links one or more vertices of the mesh patch (Col. 13:8-11, a plurality of triangles 32, which are defined by their vertices 34, indicated by letters A-K. Edges 36 connect vertices 34 and form triangles 32. Table 1).
Regarding Claim 3, Touma discloses Claim 1. Touma further discloses wherein each chain of the additional vertex chains includes vertices (Table 1, list of additional vertex chains, for example, IJH, KHJ, KGH… etc.) that are separated by the same number of mesh edges (all have 3 mesh edges) from a respective closest vertex from the reference vertex chain (Fig. 2, the reference vertex chain is EDH, and the remaining additional vertex chain are connected to this center triangular patch, EDH (i.e. closest vertex)), and wherein the chain is associated with a level value, indicating the number of mesh edges (Col. 13:8-11, a plurality of triangles 32, which are defined by their vertices 34, indicated by letters A-K. Edges 36 connect vertices 34 and form triangles 32. Table 1, Col. 14:15-17 the degrees, i.e., the number of edges incident on a vertex, of the vertices of the triangle are added to the topology list).
Regarding Claim 4, Touma discloses Claim 1. Touma further discloses wherein each chain of the additional vertex chains is associated with a relative position indicator (Col. 13:11-12, A non-compressed representation of mesh 30 in arbitrary coordinates may be as in table 1, for example the first patch in the list is IJH, where vertex I is at positions (0,0,0), vertex J is at position (8,0,0), and vertex H is at position (8,4,0)), indicating whether the chain is positioned above or below the reference vertex chain (In Table 1, EDH (10,8,0), (6,8,0), (8,4,0) is the reference vertex chain, if a value is larger, then the position of the vertex is above the reference vertex, if a value is smaller, then the position of the vertex is below the reference vertex, See Fig. 2).
Regarding Claims 11 - 14, the limitations are similar to those treated in the above rejection(s), and are met by the reference as discussed above. Claims 11 - 14 however recite a decoding method, rather than an encoding method, which is similar in structure expect in reverse operation. Therefore, Claims 11 - 14 are rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as used above.
Regarding Claim 21, Touma discloses Claim 11. Touma further discloses wherein the reconstructing of the mesh comprises: for each of the mesh patches, connecting the decoded vertices of the vertex chains of a mesh patch from the vertex chain data record to obtain the topology of the mesh patch, the connecting forms triangles using respective segments of vertex chains, wherein a segment connects two successive vertices of a vertex chain (Fig. 2, Col. 13:6-25 Mesh 30 comprises a plurality of triangles 32 (i.e. patches), which are defined by their vertices 34 (i.e. each patch), indicated by letters A-K. Edges 36 (i.e. segments) connect vertices 34 and form triangles 32. A non-compressed representation of mesh 30 in arbitrary coordinates may be as in table 1, for example EDH).
Regarding Claim 22, Touma discloses Claim 21. Touma further discloses wherein the connecting further comprises connecting a segment from a vertex chain to the closest vertex from a neighboring vertex chain to form a triangle (Fig. 2, the vertex chain is EDH, and the remaining additional vertex chain are connected to this center triangular patch, EDH (i.e. closest vertex) Table 1, list of additional vertex chains, for example, IJH, KHJ, KGH… etc.).
Regarding Claim 23, Touma discloses Claim 21. Touma further discloses wherein the connecting (referring to Fig. 2) further comprises connecting a first segment from a first vertex chain (the first vertex chain is EDH has a first segment ED) with a second segment from a second vertex chain (the second segment DH is part of a second vertex chain, IHD), forming a first triangle (Col. 13:6-25 Edges 36 connect vertices 34 and form triangles 32, where EDH is a first triangle) based on the first segment (segment ED) and a first vertex of the second segment (where vertex D is the first vertex of segment DH) and forming a second triangle (IHD is the second triangle) based on the second segment (DH is the second segment which is part of the second triangle IHD) and a second vertex of the first segment (where vertex D is the second vertex of the segment ED).
Claims 24 - 27 are drawn to the corresponding method claimed in Claims 1 - 4. Therefore apparatus Claims 24 - 27 correspond to method Claims 1 - 4 and are rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as used above. Claim 24 further recites at least one processor (See Touma, Fig. 1. Col. 12:63-66 and memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor) and memory storing instructions (Col. 9:62-63 the apparatus includes a memory in which the stream of signals is stored).
Regarding Claim 28, the limitations are similar to those treated in the above rejection(s), and are met by the reference as discussed above. Claim 28 however recite a decoding apparatus, rather than an encoding apparatus, which is similar in structure expect in reverse operation. Therefore, Claim 28 is rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as used above.
Claims 29 - 31 are drawn to the corresponding method claimed in Claims 21 - 23. Therefore apparatus Claims 29 - 31 correspond to method Claims 21 - 23 and are rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as used above.
Claim 32 is drawn to a non-transitory computer-readable medium of using the corresponding method claimed in Claim 1. Therefore Claim 32 corresponds to method Claim 1 and is rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as used above.
Claim 33 is drawn to a non-transitory computer-readable medium of using the corresponding method claimed in Claim 11. Therefore Claim 33 corresponds to method Claim 11 and is rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as used above.
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.
Claims 5 - 10 and 15 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Touma (US 6,167,159 A) in view of Kim et al., (US 6,668,091 B1) referred to as Kim hereinafter.
Regarding Claim 5, Touma discloses Claim 1. Touma further discloses wherein the encoding of the generated vertex chain data record into the vertex chain symbol stream comprises: signaling (Col 5:57-64, a method for compressing a mesh having a plurality of vertices, each vertex characterized by a degree equal to the number of edges incident thereon, including arranging substantially all of the vertices in a consecutive order, generating a topology list including the degrees of the vertices in the consecutive order and providing a coded stream of signals including the topology list).
Touma does not specifically teach signaling a number of the mesh patches.
Therefore, Touma fails to explicitly teach signaling a number of the mesh patches.
However, Kim teaches signaling a number of the mesh patches (Col. 18:16-20 FIG. 28 is a diagram of a syntax in a partition according to the present invention, in which reference character `sc` denotes a start code, `id` denotes an identifier of a data partition, `#tri` denotes the number of triangles contained in a data partition. Col. 20:55-57 the syntax of coding (i.e. signaling) utilizing a variable partitioning method will be described. Here, nTrianglesPerMOC is the number of target triangles (i.e. patches) at a partition MOC).
References Touma and Kim are considered to be analogous art because they relate to mesh coding systems. Therefore, it would be obvious to one possessing ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to specify signaling a number of mesh patches as taught by Kim in the invention of Touma in order to provide syntax stream for coding the mesh object component (See Kim, Col. 20:55-57).
Regarding Claim 6, Touma discloses Claim 1. Touma further discloses wherein the encoding of the generated vertex chain data record into the vertex chain symbol stream comprises: signaling (Col 5:57-64, a method for compressing a mesh having a plurality of vertices, each vertex characterized by a degree equal to the number of edges incident thereon, including arranging substantially all of the vertices in a consecutive order, generating a topology list including the degrees of the vertices in the consecutive order and providing a coded stream of signals including the topology list).
Touma does not specifically teach signaling a number of vertex chains in the mesh patch.
Therefore, Touma fails to explicitly teach for each of the mesh patches, signaling a number of the vertex chains in the mesh patch.
However, Kim teaches for each of the mesh patches, signaling a number of the vertex chains in the mesh patch (Col. 13:60-64 In FIGS. 20B through 20D, reference character `tr` denotes a triangle run, `tl` denotes tleaf information, `to` denotes orientation information, `tm` denotes marching information, and `id` denotes the identifier of a partition, showing the arrangement of orientation information in triangle data. Col. 19:37-45 The triangle tree record contains the structure of a triangle spanning tree which links all the triangles (i.e. number of vertex chains) of the corresponding connected components forming a simple polygon. The vertex graph record contains the information necessary to stitch pairs of boundary edges of the simple polygon to reconstruct the original connected component connectivity. The connectivity is partitioned into global information (per connected component) and local information (per triangle)) .
References Touma and Kim are considered to be analogous art because they relate to mesh coding systems. Therefore, it would be obvious to one possessing ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to specify signaling a number of vertex chains as taught by Kim in the invention of Touma in order to provide syntax stream for coding the mesh object component (See Kim, Col. 20:55-57).
Regarding Claim 7, Touma discloses Claim 1. Touma further discloses wherein the encoding of the generated vertex chain data record into the vertex chain symbol stream comprises: signaling (Col 5:57-64, a method for compressing a mesh having a plurality of vertices, each vertex characterized by a degree equal to the number of edges incident thereon, including arranging substantially all of the vertices in a consecutive order, generating a topology list including the degrees of the vertices in the consecutive order and providing a coded stream of signals including the topology list).
Touma does not specifically teach signaling a number of vertices in the vertex chain.
Therefore, Touma fails to explicitly teach for each of the vertex chains derived for each of the mesh patches, signaling a number of vertices in the vertex chain (Col. 31:44-45 N-Vertices is the number of vertices in the current resolution of the 3D mesh).
References Touma and Kim are considered to be analogous art because they relate to mesh coding systems. Therefore, it would be obvious to one possessing ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to specify signaling a number of vertices as taught by Kim in the invention of Touma in order to provide syntax stream for coding the mesh object component (See Kim, Col. 20:55-57).
Regarding Claim 8, Touma discloses Claim 1. Touma further discloses wherein the encoding of the generated vertex chain data record into the vertex chain symbol stream comprises: signaling (Col 5:57-64, a method for compressing a mesh having a plurality of vertices, each vertex characterized by a degree equal to the number of edges incident thereon, including arranging substantially all of the vertices in a consecutive order, generating a topology list including the degrees of the vertices in the consecutive order and providing a coded stream of signals including the topology list).
Touma does not specifically teach signaling a depth change.
However, Kim teaches for each of the vertex chains derived for each of the mesh patches, signaling a depth change, indicating a change in the level value associated with the vertex chain (Col. 25 Triangle_tree if depth = 0… if (depth <0… else depth ++, and Triangle_data, if (depth <0 && I <ntriangles, provides indications of changes in level value signaling a depth change)).
References Touma and Kim are considered to be analogous art because they relate to mesh coding systems. Therefore, it would be obvious to one possessing ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to specify signaling a depth change as taught by Kim in the invention of Touma in order to provide syntax stream for coding the mesh object component (See Kim, Col. 20:55-57).
Regarding Claim 9, Touma discloses Claim 1. Touma further discloses wherein the encoding of the generated vertex chain data record into the vertex chain symbol stream comprises: signaling (Col 5:57-64, a method for compressing a mesh having a plurality of vertices, each vertex characterized by a degree equal to the number of edges incident thereon, including arranging substantially all of the vertices in a consecutive order, generating a topology list including the degrees of the vertices in the consecutive order and providing a coded stream of signals including the topology list).
Touma does not specifically teach signaling a relative position.
Therefore, Touma fails to explicitly teach for each of the vertex chains derived for each of the mesh patches, signaling a relative position, indicating the relative position indicator associated with the vertex chain.
However, Kim teaches for each of the vertex chains derived for each of the mesh patches, signaling a relative position, indicating the relative position indicator associated with the vertex chain (Col. 36:14-15 vg_moc_id: This unsigned integer indicates the identifier of vertex graph (i.e. relative position) MOC).
References Touma and Kim are considered to be analogous art because they relate to mesh coding systems. Therefore, it would be obvious to one possessing ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to specify signaling a relative position as taught by Kim in the invention of Touma in order to provide syntax stream for coding the mesh object component (See Kim, Col. 20:55-57).
Regarding Claim 10, Touma discloses Claim 1. Touma further discloses wherein the encoding of the generated vertex chain data record into the vertex chain symbol stream comprises: signaling (Col 5:57-64, a method for compressing a mesh having a plurality of vertices, each vertex characterized by a degree equal to the number of edges incident thereon, including arranging substantially all of the vertices in a consecutive order, generating a topology list including the degrees of the vertices in the consecutive order and providing a coded stream of signals including the topology list).
Touma does not specifically teach signaling vertices of the vertex chain.
Therefore, Touma fails to explicitly teach for each of the vertex chains derived for each of the mesh patches, signaling vertices of the vertex chain, including signaling of global coordinates of the vertices, delta coordinates of the vertices, or a combination thereof.
However, Kim teaches for each of the vertex chains derived for each of the mesh patches, signaling vertices of the vertex chain, including signaling of global coordinates of the vertices, delta coordinates of the vertices, or a combination thereof (Col. 19:9-14, The compressed bitstream for a 3D polygonal mesh is composed of a header data block with global information, followed by a sequence of connected component data blocks, each one associated with one connected component of the mesh, Col. 19:47-48 The global information is stored in the Vertex Graph (i.e. global coordinates) and Triangle Tree records).
References Touma and Kim are considered to be analogous art because they relate to mesh coding systems. Therefore, it would be obvious to one possessing ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to specify signaling a global or delta coordinates of the vertices as taught by Kim in the invention of Touma in order to provide syntax stream for coding the mesh object component (See Kim, Col. 20:55-57).
Regarding Claims 15 - 20, the limitations are similar to those treated in the above rejection(s), and are met by the reference as discussed above. Claims 15 - 20 however recite a decoding method, rather than an encoding method, which is similar in structure expect in reverse operation. Therefore, Claims 15 - 20 are rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used above.
Conclusion
The prior art references made of record are not relied upon but are considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. XU et al. (US 2023/0388544 A1) teaches dynamic mesh compression using inter and intra prediction. van Beek et al. (US 6,047,088 A) teaches 2D mesh geometry and motion vector compression.
Any inquiry concerning this communication should be directed to SUSAN E HODGES whose telephone number is (571)270-0498. The Examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Friday from 8:00 am (EST) to 4:00 pm (EST).
If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner's supervisor, Brian T. Pendleton, can be reached on (571) 272-7527. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Susan E. Hodges/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2425
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