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 § 102
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 1-12, 14, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Li, US 2024/0040141 A1.
Regarding claim 1, a method of video coding, the method comprising:
receiving input data associated with a current block, wherein the input data comprise pixel data for the current block to be encoded at an encoder side or coded data associated with the current block to be decoded at a decoder side, and the current block is coded in an affine mode (See [0022], noting, “The processing circuitry determines, based on decoded information from the coded video bitstream, that the current block in the current picture is coded in an affine bi-prediction mode.”);
determining two or more CPMVs (Control-Point Motion Vectors) or two or more corner-subblock motions for the current block (See [0189], where it Li discloses, for an Affine Motion Estimation (ME) process, first picking a set of control point motion vectors (CPMVs) as a base.);
refining said two or more CPMVs or said two or more corner-subblock motions independently to generate two or more refined CPMVs (See [385], where Li discloses determining an affine refinement offset for control point motion vectors.);
generating a merge list or an AMVP (Advanced Motion Vector Prediction) list comprising said one or more refined CPMVs ([0168] discloses “A size of an affine AMVP candidate list can be 2 and the affine AMVP candidate list can be generated by using four types of CPMV candidate”); and
encoding or decoding the current block using a motion candidate selected from the
merge list or the AMVP list ().
Regarding claim 2, Li discloses: the method of Claim 1, wherein said two or more CPMVs or said two or more corner-subblock motions are refined using a DMVR (decoder-side motion vector refinement) scheme or an MP-DMVR (multi-pass DMVR) scheme (See [0336], which discloses that adding a translational MV offset to all the CPMVs of a candidate in the affine merge list when the candidate meets the DMVR condition.).
Regarding claim 3, Li discloses: the method of Claim 2, wherein an NxN region associated with each of said two or more CPMVs or said two or more corner-subblock motions is used for bilateral matching, and wherein N is a positive integer ([0326] discloses using a 3 x 3 search pattern to derive a refined MV for a CPMV.)
Regarding claim 5, Li discloses: the method of Claim 3, wherein the NxN region has a same size as affine sub block size of the current block and the NxN region is aligned with a corresponding affine sub block of the current block (See [0035], “In another example, the subset of subblocks in the current block includes N by N affine subblocks (e.g., an affine subblock includes 4×4 luma samples) with a center of the N by N affine subblocks aligned with a center of the current block, N is a positive integer.”).
Regarding claim 6, Li discloses: the method of Claim 3, wherein the NxN region is centered at a location of a corresponding CPMV (See figure 13, and [0164]For CPMV.sub.1, B2->B3->A2 blocks can be checked and an MV of the first available block can be used. For CPMV.sub.2, B1->B0 blocks can be checked. For CPMV.sub.3, A1->A0 blocks can be checked. TMVP can be used as CPMV.sub.4 if CPM.sub.4 is not available.).
Regarding claim 7, the method of Claim 1, wherein said two or more CPMVs are used to derive said two or more corner-subblock motions (See [0341]: “A set of MV offset values with the lowest bilateral-matching cost is used as the final set of MV offset values to be applied on the CPMVs to obtain final CPMVs, and the final CPMVs are used for generating the affine bi-prediction signal for the current block.).
Regarding claim 8, Li discloses: the method of Claim 1, wherein said two or more CPMVs or said two or more corner subblock motions are refined using template matching (See [0299]).
Regarding claim 9, Li discloses: the method of Claim 8, wherein the template matching uses samples within an NxN region centered at each of corresponding CPMV s locations, excluding current samples in the current block and other un-decoded samples, as one or more templates (See figure 13, showing a search area about a CPMV, which includes neighboring blocks buts excluding samples of a current block 1302).
Regarding claim 10, Li discloses: the method of Claim 8, wherein the template matching uses samples from N bottom lines of one neighbouring sub block immediately above one corresponding corner sub block or right M lines of one neighbouring sub block immediately to a left side of one corresponding corner sub block, and wherein the N and M are positive integer (See figure 21, regions 2126 and 2127 are resepetive bottom and right sample regions of sub blocks immediately above and right of a corner sub block 2103.).
Apparatus claim 11 is directed to an apparatus for video coding comprising one or more electronic circuits or processors arranged to perform steps that correspond to the steps of video coding method claim 1. Therefore, apparatus claim 11 corresponds to method claim 1 and is rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as given above.
Regarding claim 12, Li discloses: a method of video coding, the method comprising:
receiving input data associated with a current block, wherein the input data comprise pixel data for the current block to be encoded at an encoder side or coded data associated with the current block to be decoded at a decoder side, and the current block is coded in an affine mode (See [0022], noting, “The processing circuitry determines, based on decoded information from the coded video bitstream, that the current block in the current picture is coded in an affine bi-prediction mode.);
applying an affine model determined for the current block to neighbouring reference sub blocks of the current block to derive affine-transformed reference blocks of neighbouring reference subblocks (See [0179]);
determining one or more templates based on the affine-transformed reference blocks (See [0291], “Subblock motion information (e.g., corresponding to affine motion vector) of the subblocks A-G in the first row and the first column of the current block (2402) can be used to derive reference samples of sub-templates”);
reordering a set of merge candidates, based on corresponding cost values measured using said one or more templates, to derive a set of reordered merge candidates (See [0285], “In some examples, using ARMC-TM, the merge candidates are adaptively reordered with template matching (TM).); and
encoding or decoding the current block using a motion candidate selected from a merge list comprising the set of reordered merge candidates.
Regarding claim 13, Li discloses: the method of Claim 12, wherein the neighbouring reference subblocks comprise above
neighbouring reference sub blocks and left neighbouring reference sub blocks of the current block (See figure 13, showing positions of neighboring reference sub-blocks left, above-left, and above-right of a current block.).
Regarding claim 14, Li discloses: wherein the template matching uses samples from N bottom lines of one neighbouring sub block immediately above one corresponding corner sub block or right M lines of one neighbouring sub block immediately to a left side of one corresponding corner sub block, and wherein the N and M are positive integer (See figure 21, regions 2126 and 2127 are respective bottom and right sample regions of sub blocks immediately above and right of a corner sub block 2103.).
Apparatus claim 16 is directed to an apparatus that implements video coding steps corresponding to the steps of method claim 12, and is rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as given above for method claim 12.
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.
Claims 4 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li in view of Chen, US 2024/0022757 A1.
Regarding claim 4, Li discloses the limitations of claim 3, upon which claim 4 depends. Li does not disclose explicitly: the method of Claim 3, wherein the N is dependent on block size of the current block or picture size.
However, basing the search block size for a refined CPMV based on a current block size is disclosed in an analogous art by Chen. See [0082]
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the Applicant’s effective filing date to incorporate the feature disclosed in Chen of changing a search area size based on the current block size, in order to improve the likelihood of finding a matching reference block for larger block sizes, or to reduce computational complexity at smaller block sizes. See Chen [0140].
Regarding claim 15, Li discloses the limitations of claim 14, upon which claim 15 depends. Li does not disclose: the method of Claim 14, wherein the N and M are dependent on block size of the current block or picture size.
However, basing the search block size for a refined CPMV based on a current block size is disclosed in an analogous art by Chen. See [0082]
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the Applicant’s effective filing date to incorporate the feature disclosed in Chen of changing a search area size based on the current block size, in order to improve the likelihood of finding a matching reference block for larger block sizes, or to reduce computational complexity at smaller block sizes. See Chen [0140].
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KYLE M LOTFI whose telephone number is (571)272-8762. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00-5:00.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Brian Pendleton can be reached at 571-272-7527. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/KYLE M LOTFI/ Examiner, Art Unit 2425
Prosecution Insights