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 § 112
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.
Claim 11 is 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 11 is directed to a method of transmitting a bitstream. However, there is no transmission step in the limitations of claim 11.
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, 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.
Claim(s) 1, 3-4, 10, and 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xiu et al. (US 2020/0336738) in view of Chen et al. (“Non-EE2: Template matching based reordering for GPM split modes”, Joint Video Experts Team (JVET) of ITU-T SG 16 WP 3 and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29, 25th Meeting, by teleconference, 12-21 January 2022, Document: JVET-Y0135-v2).
Regarding claim 1 Xiu discloses an image decoding method performed by an image decoding apparatus, the image decoding method comprising:
obtaining information about illumination compensation of a current block; deriving illumination compensation parameters for each of two or more illumination compensation candidate modes for the illumination compensation; obtaining an illumination-compensated first adjacent area by applying illumination compensation to a predetermined first adjacent area adjacent to a reference block of the current block based on the illumination compensation parameters, obtaining a final error value for each of the illumination compensation candidate modes based on an error between a sample value in the illumination-compensated first adjacent area and a sample value in a predetermined second adjacent area adjacent to the current block, wherein the first adjacent area and the second adjacent area are at corresponding locations (determining whether the current CU is bi-predicted; based on a determination that the current CU is bi-predicted, identifying a first set of reference template samples neighboring a first temporal reference CU and a second set of reference template samples neighboring a second temporal reference CU, the first set of reference template samples and the second set of reference template samples corresponding to a set of template samples neighboring the current CU; obtaining a set of bi-predicted reference template samples based on the identified first set of reference template samples and the identified second set of reference template samples; obtaining a local illumination compensation (LIC) scaling factor based on the obtained set of bi-predicted reference template samples and the set of template samples for the current CU; and obtaining an adjusted sample within the current CU based on the obtained LIC scaling factor – claim 1).
However, fails to explicitly disclose reordering the illumination compensation candidate modes based on the final error value; and determining an illumination compensation candidate mode for the current block based on the reordered illumination compensation candidate modes and the information about illumination compensation.
In his disclosure Chen teaches reordering the illumination compensation candidate modes based on the final error value ; and determining an illumination compensation candidate mode for the current block based on the reordered illumination compensation candidate modes and the information about illumination compensation (reordering method for GPM split modes using template matching costs; computing the TM cost of each GPM split mode with the GPM motion information of the current block – abstract).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the reordering of candidate modes based on error values and the determination of the candidate mode of Chen into the teachings of Xiu because such incorporation improves the coding performance (page 2, Conclusion).
Regarding claim 3 Xiu discloses the image decoding method of claim 1, wherein the illumination compensation candidate mode includes at least one of a first mode that uses both a left adjacent area and a top adjacent area of the current block and the reference block, a second mode that uses only the left adjacent area of the current block and the reference block, or a third mode that uses only the top adjacent area of the current block and the reference block (Figure 3).
Regarding claim 4 Xiu discloses the image decoding method of claim 1. However, fails to explicitly disclose wherein the reordering means sorting the final error value in ascending order.
In his disclosure Chen teaches the reordering means sorting the final error value in ascending order (reordering all GPM split modes in ascending order through their respective TM costs – abstract).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the reordering of candidate modes based on error values and the determination of the candidate mode of Chen into the teachings of Xiu because such incorporation improves the coding performance (page 2, Conclusion).
In regard to claim 10, any decoder technology except the parsing/entropy decoding that is present in a decoder also necessarily needs to be present, in substantially identical form in a corresponding encoder. The description of encoder technologies can be abbreviated as they are the inverse of the comprehensively described decoder technologies. Claim 10 is being rejected on the same basis as claim 1.
Claim 11 is being rejected on the same basis as claim 10. Xiu further discloses the transmission of signals (par. 109).
Claim(s) 2 and 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xiu et al. (US 2020/0336738) in view of Chen et al. (“Non-EE2: Template matching based reordering for GPM split modes”, Joint Video Experts Team (JVET) of ITU-T SG 16 WP 3 and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29, 25th Meeting, by teleconference, 12-21 January 2022, Document: JVET-Y0135-v2) further in view of Han et al. (US 2021/0076029).
Regarding claim 2 Xiu discloses the image decoding method of claim 1. Xiu discloses performing/calculating local illumination compensation (abstract). However, fails to explicitly disclose the information about the illumination compensation includes at least one of information indicating whether illumination compensation is capable of being performed on the current block, information indicating whether illumination compensation is applied to the current block, or an index indicating one of the illumination compensation candidate modes.
Han teaches it is known in the art for information about the illumination compensation to include at least one of information indicating whether illumination compensation is capable of being performed on the current block, information indicating whether illumination compensation is applied to the current block, or an index indicating one of the illumination compensation candidate modes (setting a local illumination compensation flag – abstract).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the teachings of Han into the teachings of Xiu because including information indicating whether a type of compensation is performed on a block, such as a flag, is a well-known technique in the field of video coding that produces expected results.
Regarding claim 5 Xiu discloses the image decoding method of claim 2. However, fails to explicitly disclose wherein based on a prediction mode of the current block being a merge mode, the information about the illumination compensation is obtained from information about illumination compensation of a selected merge candidate of the current block.
In his disclosure Han teaches based on a prediction mode of the current block being a merge mode, the information about the illumination compensation is obtained from information about illumination compensation of a selected merge candidate of the current block (if a CU is coded (that is, encoded and decoded) according to merge mode, then video encoder 20 and video decoder 30 may copy the LIC flag for the CU from neighboring blocks, in a way similar to motion information copying in merge mode – [0104]).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the teachings of Han into the teachings of Xiu because such incorporation improves coding performance (par.125).
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xiu et al. (US 2020/0336738) in view of Chen et al. (“Non-EE2: Template matching based reordering for GPM split modes”, Joint Video Experts Team (JVET) of ITU-T SG 16 WP 3 and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29, 25th Meeting, by teleconference, 12-21 January 2022, Document: JVET-Y0135-v2) further in view of Han et al. (US 2021/0076029) further in view of Park et al. (US 2015/0350642).
Regarding claim 6 Xiu discloses the image decoding method of claim 5. However, fails to explicitly disclose wherein the information about illumination compensation of the selected merge candidate of the current block is obtained based on at least one of the size, prediction type, partition type, or transform type of the current block.
In his disclosure Park teaches the information about illumination compensation of the selected merge candidate of the current block is obtained based on at least one of the size, prediction type, partition type, or transform type of the current block (the illumination compensation determiner 14 may determine illumination compensation information for a block that indicates a skip mode or is determined to be in a 2N×2N merge mode, based on partition type information and prediction mode information – [0100]).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the teachings of Park into the teachings of Xiu because with such incorporation an increase in a calculation load may be decreased, and coding efficiency may be improved due to the illumination compensation (par. 29).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7-9 are 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARIA E VAZQUEZ COLON whose telephone number is (571)270-1103. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:30 AM-3:30 PM.
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/MARIA E VAZQUEZ COLON/Examiner, Art Unit 2482
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