DETAILED ACTION
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.
Claims 1 and 11 are rejected on the basis that it contains an improper Markush grouping of alternatives. See In re Harnisch, 631 F.2d 716, 721-22 (CCPA 1980) and Ex parte Hozumi, 3 USPQ2d 1059, 1060 (Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 1984). A Markush grouping is proper if the alternatives defined by the Markush group (i.e., alternatives from which a selection is to be made in the context of a combination or process, or alternative chemical compounds as a whole) share a “single structural similarity” and a common use. A Markush grouping meets these requirements in two situations. First, a Markush grouping is proper if the alternatives are all members of the same recognized physical or chemical class or the same art-recognized class, and are disclosed in the specification or known in the art to be functionally equivalent and have a common use. Second, where a Markush grouping describes alternative chemical compounds, whether by words or chemical formulas, and the alternatives do not belong to a recognized class as set forth above, the members of the Markush grouping may be considered to share a “single structural similarity” and common use where the alternatives share both a substantial structural feature and a common use that flows from the substantial structural feature. See MPEP § 2117.
The Markush grouping of “chroma ALF” and a “CCALF” is improper because the alternatives defined by the Markush grouping do not share both a single structural similarity and a common use for the following reasons: the claims recite the different structures of each. (1) Chroma ALF has multiple-source chroma samples or luma samples, but the CCALF has multiple-source luma samples (Claim 1); (2) chroma ALF has a first footprint and the CCALF has a second footprint (Claim 1); (3) the chroma ALF and the CCALF take different inputs, and there are different dependent claims for each (Claims 2-4 for chroma ALF; Claims 5-7 for CCALF).
To overcome this rejection, Applicant may set forth each alternative (or grouping of patentably indistinct alternatives) within an improper Markush grouping in a series of independent or dependent claims and/or present convincing arguments that the group members recited in the alternative within a single claim in fact share a single structural similarity as well as a common use.
Claim 9 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.
The claim recites “(N2-R2),” which the specification defines as “square difference.” Spec. at p. 14 ll. 25-30. The equation for square difference is incorrect.
Claim 10 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.
The claim recites “((sign (N-R))*(N-R)* (N-R))”. The specification does not specify what operation * is. It can be at least multiplication or convolution, leaving the claim indefinite.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-7, 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Yin (US PG Publication 2025/0184485).
Regarding Claim 1, Yin (US PG Publication 2025/0184485) discloses a method for Adaptive Loop Filter processing (ALF filter with at
least one extended tap may be applied to filter [0141]-[0145]) of reconstructed video (luma and chroma components: Y, Cb and Cr components [0141]-[0145]), the method comprising:
receiving reconstructed pixels (reconstruction unit 4412 adds the reconstructed residual video block to corresponding samples from predicted video blocks generated by the prediction unit 4402 to produce a reconstructed video block [0206], Fig. 51), wherein the reconstructed pixels comprise a current block (associated with the current block [0206], Fig. 51) and the current block comprises a luma block and one or more chroma blocks (luma and chroma components: Y, Cb and Cr components [0141]-[0145]);
deriving a filtered chroma output (after reconstruction unit 4412 reconstructs the video block, loop filtering is performed [0207]) from a chroma ALF or CCALF (ALF with spatial and extended tap applied on chroma [0141]-[0145]) for a current chroma (chroma components: Cb and Cr components [0141]-[0145]) sample (current sample, Fig. 12) in one of said one or more chroma blocks (after reconstruction unit 4412 reconstructs the video block [0207]), wherein the chroma ALF comprises one or more multiple-source (multiple input sources [0144] spatial neighbor samples [0142] and reconstructed samples before DBF [0144]) chroma samples or luma sample (ALF with spatial and extended tap applied on chroma [0141]-[0145]; current sample, Fig. 12) from the current block (current block [0206], Fig. 51) in a first footprint (one of spatial taps plus extended taps, Figs. 14-46) of the chroma ALF (ALF with spatial and extended tap applied on chroma [0141]-[0145]), or wherein the CCALF comprises one or more multiple-source luma samples from the luma block in a second footprint of the CCALF;
and providing a filtered-reconstructed first chroma block (Entropy encoding unit 4414 receives data [0208]), wherein the filtered reconstructed first chroma block comprises the filtered chroma output (after reconstruction unit 4412 reconstructs the video block, loop filtering is performed [0207]).
Regarding Claim 2, Yin (US PG Publication 2025/0184485) discloses the method of Claim 1, wherein for the chroma ALF, said one or more multiple-source chroma samples comprise one or more pre-DBF and/or pre-SAO chroma samples in said one of said one or more chroma blocks (multiple input sources [0144] spatial neighbor samples [0142] and reconstructed samples before DBF [0144]).
Regarding Claim 3, Yin (US PG Publication 2025/0184485) discloses the method of Claim 1, wherein for the chroma ALF, said one or more multiple-source chroma samples comprise one or more chroma samples of any before ALF type in another of said one or more chroma blocks (the spatial neighbor samples may come from reconstruction before ALF [0142]).
Regarding Claim 4, Yin (US PG Publication 2025/0184485) discloses the method of Claim 1, wherein for the chroma ALF, said one or more multiple-source luma samples comprise one or more pre-DBF and/or pre-SAO luma samples in the luma block (extended taps of an ALF filter may use multiple input sources, such as reconstructed samples before application of DBF and an intermediate filtering result of a pre-defined filter [0144]).
Regarding Claim 5, Yin (US PG Publication 2025/0184485) discloses the method of Claim 1, wherein for the CCALF (extended taps applied to CCALF [0172]), said one or more multiple-source luma samples comprise one or more luma output samples from one of fixed filters (extended taps of a filter use intermediate results from a pre-defined filter [0144]; the reconstruction before and/or after a SAO and/or a cross component SAO (CCSAO) of current and/or reference frame may be used to generate the intermediate filtering results. In one example, the reconstruction before and/or after bilateral filter (BIF) of current and/or reference frame may be used to generate the intermediate filtering results. In one example, the reconstruction before and/or after DBF of current/reference frame may be used to generate the intermediate filtering results [0166]).
Regarding Claim 6, Yin (US PG Publication 2025/0184485) discloses the method of Claim 1, wherein for the CCALF, said one or more multiple-source luma samples comprise one or more pre-DBF and/or pre-SAO luma samples in the luma block (extended taps of an ALF filter may use one input source, such as reconstructed samples before application of DBF [0144]).
Regarding Claim 7, Yin (US PG Publication 2025/0184485) discloses the method of Claim 1, wherein one or more luma samples from one of fixed filters (extended taps of a filter use intermediate results from a pre-defined filter [0144]) are added to a CCALF filter footprint (extended taps method may be applied to cross component ALF, CCALF [0172]) for the filtered chroma output (after reconstruction unit 4412 reconstructs the video block, loop filtering is performed [0207] chroma components: Cb and Cr components [0141]-[0145]).
Regarding Claim 11, the claims is rejected on the grounds provided in Claim 1.
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) 8-9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yin (US PG Publication 2025/0184485) in view of Zheng (NPL Zheng, "Directional Adaptive Loop Filter for Video Coding," IEEE 2011).
Regarding Claim 8, Yin (US PG Publication 2025/0184485) discloses the method of Claim 1.
Yin does not disclose, but Zheng (NPL Zheng, "Directional Adaptive Loop Filter for Video Coding," IEEE 2011) teaches wherein the chroma ALF or the CCALF comprises a high-degree input term (The ALF takes the deblocked picture F as its input. The output, ˆF is the restored picture of F by a Wiener filter. The Wiener filter is estimated at encoder by minimizing the MSE between the original picture F and the restored picture ˆF, Section 2.1, equation 1).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the application was filed would have been motivated to optimize the coefficients of the adaptive loop filter of Yin using the MSE, as disclosed by Zheng because minimizing the error between the reconstructed and original image is an optimization that results in the best image quality after filtering, improving video quality.
Regarding Claim 9, Yin (US PG Publication 2025/0184485) discloses the method of Claim 8.
Yin does not disclose, but Zheng (NPL Zheng, "Directional Adaptive Loop Filter for Video Coding," IEEE 2011) teaches wherein the high-degree input term corresponds to (N2 – R2) (MSE), and wherein R is a to-be-processed sample (ˆF) and N is a target sample (F).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the application was filed would have been motivated to optimize the coefficients of the adaptive loop filter of Yin using the MSE, as disclosed by Zheng because minimizing the error between the reconstructed and original image is an optimization that results in the best image quality after filtering, improving video quality.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20010008418 A1 - sum total of squares of pixel value differences to measure contrast
US 20260019619 A1 - contains a non-linear term, such as a quadratic term
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/SHADAN E HAGHANI/ Examiner, Art Unit 2485