DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-13 are pending for examination.
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 under US PRO 63/368509 filed on 7/15/2022.
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.
Claim(s) 1-6, 12, 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Du et al, US 2021/0250597 A1.
Regarding Claim 1, Du discloses a video coding method comprising: receiving data for a block of pixels to be encoded or decoded as a current block of a current picture of a video; receiving a current sample of the current block; applying a filter to the current sample to generate a correction value, wherein neighboring samples from two or more different sources are used as inputs to the filter, wherein when a first neighboring sample is within a virtual boundary, the first neighboring sample is used as an input to the filter, wherein when the first neighboring sample is beyond the virtual boundary, the first neighboring sample is precluded as an input to the filter; and adding the correction value to the current sample as a filtered sample of the current block (Du Fig.5 – Channel 531 into Encoder; [0140] – A virtual boundary filtering process can be used to reduce a line buffer requirement of the ALF. Accordingly, modified block classification and filtering can be employed for samples near CTU boundaries (e.g., a horizontal CTU boundary). A virtual boundary (1130) can be defined as a line by shifting a horizontal CTU boundary (1120); [0141] – for the 1D Laplacian gradient calculation of a 4×4 block (1110) above the virtual boundary (1130), only samples above the virtual boundary (1130) are used. Similarly, referring to FIG. 11B, for a 1D Laplacian gradient calculation of a 4×4 block (1111) below a virtual boundary (1131) that is shifted from a CTU boundary (1121), only samples below the virtual boundary (1131) are used; [0217]-[0219] – At (S2130), a filter is applied to at least the reconstructed samples in the temporal source frame to generate offsets. In an example, the filter is applied to luma component of the temporal source frame to generate the offsets. In another example, the filter is applied to chroma component of the temporal source frame to generate the offsets. In another example, the filter is applied to a weighted sum of the luma component and one or more chroma component(s) of the temporal source frame to generate the offsets. The filter can be any suitable filter, such as cross component filter (CCF), adaptive loop filter (ALF), loop restoration filter, in loop constrained directional enhanced filter (CDEF), and the like. In an example, the filter is a cross component filter, and the filter is applied to a first color component of the temporal source frame to generate the offsets, and the offsets are combined with a second color component of the first reconstructed samples).
Regarding Claim 2, Du discloses the video coding method of claim 1, wherein the filter is an adaptive loop filter (ALF) of a video coding system in which the filtered sample of the current block is provided for coding subsequent blocks of the current picture (Du [0140] – a virtual boundary filtering process can be used to reduce a line buffer requirement of the ALF; [0142] – For a filtering processing, a symmetric padding operation at virtual boundaries can be used for both a luma component and a chroma component. FIGS. 12A-12F illustrate examples of such modified ALF filtering for a luma component at virtual boundaries. When a sample being filtered is located below a virtual boundary, neighboring samples that are located above the virtual boundary can be padded. When a sample being filtered is located above a virtual boundary, neighboring samples that are located below the virtual boundary can be padded).
Regarding Claim 3, Du discloses the video coding method of claim 1, wherein the neighboring samples from the two or more different sources comprise a first sample that is filtered by a deblocking filter and a second sample that is not filtered by the deblocking filter.
Regarding Claim 4, Du discloses the video coding method of claim 1, wherein the neighboring samples from the two or more different sources comprise at least two of (i) a sample before applying sample adaptive offset (SAO), (ii) a filtered sample produced by a fixed filter, (iii) a reconstructed residual sample after inverse transform, (iv) a predicted sample generated by inter-prediction or intra-prediction, and (v) a sampled processed by a deblocking filter (DBF) and the SAO.
Regarding Claim 5, Du discloses the video coding method of claim 1, wherein the precluded first neighboring sample is replaced by a padded sample as an input to the filter (Du [0142] – When a sample being filtered is located below a virtual boundary, neighboring samples that are located above the virtual boundary can be padded. When a sample being filtered is located above a virtual boundary, neighboring samples that are located below the virtual boundary can be padded. Referring to FIG. 12A, a neighboring sample C0 can be padded with a sample C2 that is located below a virtual boundary (1210). Referring to FIG. 12B, a neighboring sample C0 can be padded with a sample C2 that is located above a virtual boundary (1220). Referring to FIG. 12C, neighboring samples C1-C3 can be padded with samples C5-C7, respectively, that are located below a virtual boundary (1230). Referring to FIG. 12D, neighboring samples C1-C3 can be padded with samples C5-C7, respectively, that are located above a virtual boundary (1240). Referring to FIG. 12E, neighboring samples C4-C8 can be padded with samples C10, C11, C12, C11, and C10, respectively, that are located below a virtual boundary (1250). Referring to FIG. 12F, neighboring samples C4-C8 can be padded with samples C10, C11, C12, C11, and C10, respectively, that are located above a virtual boundary (1260)).
Regarding Claim 6, Du discloses the video coding method of claim 5, wherein a second neighboring sample that is at a filter position that is symmetrical to the first neighboring sample is replaced by the padded sample as an input to the filter (Du [0048] – FIGS. 12A-12F show examples of symmetric padding operations at virtual boundaries according to embodiments of the disclosure; [0142] – a symmetric padding operation at virtual boundaries can be used for both a luma component and a chroma component).
With regard to claim 12, the claim limitations are essentially the same as claim 1 but in a different embodiment. Therefore, the rational used to reject claim 1 is applied to claim 12.
With regard to claim 13, the claim limitations are essentially the same as claim 1 but in a different embodiment. Therefore, the rational used to reject claim 1 is applied to claim 13.
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) 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Du, in view of Lai et al, US 2022/0272332 A1.
Regarding Claim 9, Du discloses the video coding method of claim 1, as outlined above.
However, Du does not explicitly disclose when the first neighboring sample is beyond the virtual boundary and the first neighboring sample is from a first source, a second neighboring sample from the first source that is within the virtual boundary is also precluded as an input to the filter
Lai teaches when the first neighboring sample is beyond the virtual boundary and the first neighboring sample is from a first source, a second neighboring sample from the first source that is within the virtual boundary is also precluded as an input to the filter (Lai [0078] – Second ALF is applied to the related reconstructed luma samples to generate a second filtered chroma sample for the target reconstructed chroma sample in step 820, wherein a virtual boundary is determined and one set of the related reconstructed luma samples are located on an other side of the virtual boundary from the target reconstructed chroma sample, said one set of the related reconstructed luma samples are excluded from inputs to the second ALF).
Therefore, it 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 to modify Du such that when the first neighboring sample is beyond the virtual boundary and the first neighboring sample is from a first source, a second neighboring sample from the first source that is within the virtual boundary is also precluded as an input to the filter, as taught by Lai. One would be motivated as the conditions used for a sample to be excluded from an input to the filter decreases the amount of data used to process a filter.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7, 8, 10, 11 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The various claimed limitations mentioned in the claims are not taught or suggested by the prior art taken either singly or in combination, with emphasize that it is each claim, taken as a whole, including the interrelationships and interconnections between various claimed elements make them allowable over the prior art of record. The various claimed limitations mentioned including the interrelationships and all of the limitations of the base claim and the elements with respect to:
when the first neighboring sample is beyond the virtual boundary, a first difference between the first neighboring sample and the current sample is set to zero
wherein the second neighboring sample is used as an input to the filter if the second neighboring sample is at a position of the current sample
wherein all samples from the first source are excluded from being used as an input to the filter
Conclusion
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/AMIR SHAHNAMI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2483