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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Claims 10-13 in the reply filed on 1/25/2026 is acknowledged.
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) 10-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee-2025 (US 12,231,672) in view of Lee-2022 (US PG Publication 2022/0070468).
Regarding Claim 10, Lee-2025 (US 12,231,672) discloses a method of video decoding (device for decoding video, Fig. 2; Column 9 lines 20-end), the method comprising:
receiving coded data (input bitstream will be decoded, Column 9 lines 20-35) associated with a current block (current block, Column 9 lines 55 – Column 10 lines 21) to be decoded at a decoder side (decoded, Column 9 lines 30);
deriving one or more first non-adjacent MVP candidates (spatial merge candidate may be derived from spatial non-neighboring blocks that are not adjacent to a current block, Column 18 lines 33-35) based on previously decoded motion information (generate a prediction block based on information on prediction block generation received from the entropy decoding module 210 and previously decoded block or picture information received from the memory 245, Column 10 lines 5-10) in a first region comprising a current CTU of the current block (the first region is the CTU: when a current block and a non-adjacent sample are not included in the same CTU, Column 19 lines 10-25), wherein the first region is limited to be within one or more pre-define distances in a vertical direction, a horizontal direction or both from the current CTU (1 pixel from the current CTU, e.g., see Fig. 12: replacing a non-adjacent sample with a sample adjacent to the CTU, Column 19 lines 10-25), and wherein if a to-be-referenced position is not inside the first region (when a current block and a non-adjacent sample are not included in the same CTU, Column 19 lines 10-25), the to-be-referenced position is mapped to a mapped position of the first region (merge candidate may be derived by using a sample adjacent to a CTU Boundary, Column 19 lines 10-20) before referencing corresponding motion (candidate may be derived, Column 19 lines 10-20)
…
generating a merge candidate list (a merge candidate list including the spatial merge candidate and the temporal merge candidate may be generated S930, Column 22 lines 14-20) comprising said one or more first non-adjacent MVP candidates (including the spatial merge candidate and the temporal merge candidate, Column 22 lines 14-20);
and deriving current motion information for the current block (Motion information of the first block may be derived, Column 30 lines 5-10) from the coded data according to the merge candidate list (merge candidate specified by the merge index, Column 30 lines 5-10).
Lee-2025 does not disclose, but Lee-2022 (US PG Publication 2022/0070468) teaches if the mapped position of the first region has no motion (when a non-adjacent merge candidate is unavailable [0182]), a predefined default motion or neighbouring motion at a neighbouring position is used as the corresponding motion (a non-adjacent merge offset is applied to an x-coordinate or y-coordinate of the merge candidate [01820]-[0183]).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the application was filed would have been motivated to replace unavailable predictor candidates with available predictor candidates in Lee-2025 because Lee-2022 suggests that improved motion vector accuracy and coding efficiency can be expected [0019]-[0022].
Regarding Claim 11, Lee-2025 (US 12,231,672) discloses the method of Claim 10, wherein the neighbouring position corresponds to a … 4x4 block (the x-coordinate is shifted by 4; x/y coordinate is increased by the size of the block, called the “grid,” size of the block is 4x4, Column 18 lines 35 – end) ….
Lee-2025 does not disclose, but Lee-2022 (US PG Publication 2022/0070468) teaches wherein the neighbouring position corresponds to a left [] block, a right [] block, a top [] block, or a bottom [] block of the mapped position (the non-adjacent merge offset is applied to the x-coordinate, which means the neighbor is on the left or right, or the y-coordinate, which means the neighbor is on the top or bottom [0182]-[0183]), or a first left or right 4x4 block of the mapped position having motion information.
One of ordinary skill in the art before the application was filed would have been motivated to replace unavailable predictor candidates with available predictor candidates in Lee-2025 because Lee-2022 suggests that improved motion vector accuracy and coding efficiency can be expected [0019]-[0022].
Regarding Claim 12, the claim is rejected on the grounds provided in Claim 10.
Regarding Claim 13, claim 13 is rejected on the grounds provided in Claim 11.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20200195960 A1 - non-adjacent blocks coded in intra for merge candidate list replaced by a MV in an LUT
US 20120263235 A1 - since the neighbor block C is intra predicted, it is considered as unavailable as a candidate
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/SHADAN E HAGHANI/Examiner, Art Unit 2485
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