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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 15 September 2026 has been entered.
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.
(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, 3, 5, 7, 8, 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by He (US PG Publication 2019/0215532).
Regarding Claim 1, He (US PG Publication 2019/0215532) discloses a method of video coding (block-based video decoder Fig. 7 [0109], encoder Fig. 6 [0107]), the method comprising:
receiving input data (video bit stream 202 received [0109]) associated with a current block (input video block, current video block [0107] temporally predicted [0107]) located at or near a picture boundary (reference samples outside of a picture for inter prediction [0121], [0136]; outside the face the current block belongs to [0122]; neighboring samples outside a picture boundary/face [0136]), wherein the input data comprise prediction data (prediction block formed at/by the temporal prediction unit 262 [0109]; picture for inter prediction [0121], [0136], intra prediction [0122], [0136]) and reconstructed residual data (reconstruct the residual block [0109]) related to the current block (prediction block and residual block are added at 226 [0109]);
during a reconstruction stage of the current block (prediction block 626 [0108], Fig. 6, and equivalent part in decoder Fig. 7, [0109]; to generate the prediction block [0142], in intra or inter prediction [0136]) and prior to in-loop filtering (in-loop filter such as a de-blocking filter and/or an adaptive loop filter may be applied to the reconstructed video block [0108], Fig. 6, which is after reconstruction), generating an extended (geometry padding to derive the neighboring sample value [0137] for neighbors outside the picture boundary or face [0137]) motion-compensated (temporal prediction [0108]) reconstructed block for the current block (reconstructed video block [0108]) based on the prediction data (The reconstructed residuals may be added back to the prediction block at 626 to form a reconstructed video block [0108]) and the reconstructed residual data (The quantized residual coefficients may be inverse quantized at 610 and inverse transformed at 612 to form reconstructed residuals [0108]), wherein the extended (geometry padding for reference samples outside the picture boundary in inter-motion compensated prediction [0121]) motion-compensated reconstructed block for the current block (inter-motion compensated prediction [0121]; prediction block formed at/by the temporal prediction unit 262 and the residual block are added at 226 [0109]) comprises a padded area (geometry padding may be used to derive the neighboring sample value [0121]) located outside the picture boundary (the value of point pin sub-blocks PO, Pl, and/or P2 as shown in FIG. 11 may be derived via geometry mapping, geometry padding for reference samples outside the picture boundary [0121]) and a reconstructed portion of the current block located inside the picture boundary (P3 is inside the picture area, Fig. 11);
after said generating the extended (geometry padding to derive the neighboring sample value [0137] for neighbors outside the picture boundary or face [0137]) motion-compensated reconstructed block (temporal prediction, reconstructed video block [0108]), applying at least one in-loop filter (reconstructed block goes through in-loop filtering 266 [0109]) to generate a filtered-reconstructed block (output of in-loop filter 266 [0109]).
Regarding Claim 3, He (US PG Publication 2019/0215532) discloses the method of Claim 1, wherein the current block corresponds to a WxH block (block based video coding [0107], [0109]) at or near the picture boundary (neighboring sample is outside a picture boundary [0137]) and the extended (geometry padding to derive the neighboring sample value [0137]) motion-compensated reconstructed block (temporal prediction, reconstructed video block [0108]) comprises M padded lines beyond a horizontal picture boundary if the current block is at or near the horizontal picture boundary or beyond a vertical picture boundary if the current block is at or near the vertical picture boundary (padded region is a few samples wide [0133] on all sides of the iamge, Fig. 14(b)), wherein M, W and H are positive integers (inherent).
Regarding Claim 5, He (US PG Publication 2019/0215532) discloses the method of Claim 1, wherein a same interpolation filter (interpolation filter [0132]), associated with a motion compensation process (used for padding [0132] geometry padding using for temporal prediction [0122], Fig. 16), is used for generating the padded area and an area inside the reconstructed portion of the current block (geometry padding using for temporal prediction [0122], Fig. 16).
Regarding Claim 7, He (US PG Publication 2019/0215532) discloses the method of Claim 1, wherein a same interpolation filter, associated with a motion compensation process, is used for generating all padded samples outside the picture boundary (nearest neighbor is used [0132]).
Regarding Claim 8, He (US PG Publication 2019/0215532) discloses the method of Claim 7, wherein said same interpolation filter corresponds to a predetermined interpolation filter (bilinear, bicubic, lanczos, spline interpolation filters, and/or discrete cosine transform based interpolation filter (DCT-IF) may be used. A nearest neighbor interpolation [0132]) having a filter tap length selected from an integer motion compensation filter, a 2-tap filter, a 4-tap filter, a 6-tap filter, or an 8-tap filter (a bilinear filter has 4 taps - definition).
Regarding Claim 13, the claim 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) 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over He (US PG Publication 2019/0215532) in view of Zhang (Jvet-K0363).
Regarding Claim 2, He (US PG Publication 2019/0215532) discloses the method of Claim 1, wherein the current block corresponds to a [] block at or near the picture boundary (neighboring sample is outside a picture boundary [0137]) and the extended motion-compensated reconstructed block comprises M padded lines beyond the picture boundary, wherein M is a positive integer (padded region is a few samples wide [0133]).
He does not disclose, but Zhang (Jvet-K0363) teaches 4x4 block (boundary 4x4 block, Section 2).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the application was filed would have used a 4x4 boundary block in the coder of Sun because Zhang teaches that using the 4x4 block resulted in coding gain, which is a measure of quality and efficiency, indicating that coding improvements can be expected by using a 4x4 boundary block (Abstract, Conclusion).
Claim(s) 4, 9-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over He (US PG Publication 2019/0215532) in view of Sun (US PG Publication 2019/0082193).
Regarding Claim 4, He (US PG Publication 2019/0215532) discloses the method of Claim 1, wherein the current block comprises a wxh []block (block based video coding [0107], [0109]) at or near the picture boundary (neighboring sample is outside a picture boundary [0137]) and the extended motion-compensated reconstructed block comprises an extended (geometry padding to derive the neighboring sample value [0137]) motion-compensated reconstructed wxh []block (temporal prediction, reconstructed video block [0108]), and wherein the extended motion-compensated reconstructed wxh []block comprises M padded lines beyond a horizontal picture boundary if the wxh subblock is at or near the horizontal picture boundary or beyond a vertical picture boundary if the wxh subblock is at or near the vertical picture boundary (padded region is a few samples wide [0133] on all sides of the iamge, Fig. 14(b)), wherein M, w and h are positive integers (inherent).
He does not disclose, but Sun (US PG Publication 2019/0082193) teaches wxh subblock (block may be partitioned into subblocks [0088]).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the application was filed would have been motivated to use pad the boundary blocks of He using pixels from a reference picture, as in Sun, because Sun teaches that samples from the reference picture will result in more accurate padded samples, improving the padding process and resulting in improved video compression [0029].
Regarding Claim 9, He (US PG Publication 2019/0215532) discloses the method of Claim 1.
He does not disclose, but Sun (US PG Publication 2019/0082193) teaches wherein a prediction mode associated with a motion compensation process, for generating padded samples outside the picture boundary is set to a pre-defined value (a motion vector is used, Fig. 5).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the application was filed would have been motivated to use pad the boundary blocks of He using pixels from a reference picture, as in Sun, because Sun teaches that samples from the reference picture will result in more accurate padded samples, improving the padding process and resulting in improved video compression [0029].
Regarding Claim 10, He (US PG Publication 2019/0215532) discloses the method of Claim 9.
He does not disclose, but Sun (US PG Publication 2019/0082193) teaches wherein the pre-defined value corresponds to LIC, BDOF, BCW, filter type, multi-hypothesis, or inter prediction direction (a motion vector is used, Fig. 5).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the application was filed would have been motivated to use pad the boundary blocks of He using pixels from a reference picture, as in Sun, because Sun teaches that samples from the reference picture will result in more accurate padded samples, improving the padding process and resulting in improved video compression [0029].
Regarding Claim 11, He (US PG Publication 2019/0215532) discloses the method of Claim 1.
He does not disclose, but Sun (US PG Publication 2019/0082193) teaches wherein a same prediction mode, associated with a motion compensation process, is used for generating the padded area and an area inside the reconstructed portion of the current block (assuming boundary block 508 has a motion vector 510, the video coder may use motion vector 510 to identify a position 512 in reference frame 502. The video coder may then determine a sample block 514 in reference frame 502 having the same dimensions as the current block [0085], Fig. 5).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the application was filed would have been motivated to use pad the boundary blocks of He using pixels from a reference picture, as in Sun, because Sun teaches that samples from the reference picture will result in more accurate padded samples, improving the padding process and resulting in improved video compression [0029].
Claim(s) 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over He (US PG Publication 2019/0215532) in view of Tourapis (US PG Publication 2021/0051320).
Regarding Claim 6, He (US PG Publication 2019/0215532) discloses the method of Claim 1.
He does not disclose, but Tourapis (US PG Publication 2021/0051320) teaches wherein a first interpolation filter, associated with a motion compensation process (sub-pixel interpolation for prediction block [0083]), for generating the padded area (boundary samples [0083]) has a shorter number of taps than a second interpolation filter (M nearest columns/N nearest rows, with M or N being smaller, different number of samples could also be considered from the left versus the right side or from the top versus the bottom [0083]), associated with the motion compensation process (sub-pixel interpolation for prediction block [0083]), for generating an area inside the reconstructed portion of the current block (center positions of the prediction block [0083]).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the application was filed would have been motivated to modify the filtering of the boundary samples of He using an asymmetric number of taps for boundary samples because Tourapis teaches that this can reduce filtering complexity [0083], which enables the process to complete faster with fewer resources, reducing the cost of the coding process.
Claim(s) 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sun (US PG Publication 2019/0082193) in view of Sun (US PG Publication 2019/0082193) and Li (US PG Publication 2020/0304805).
Regarding Claim 12, He (US PG Publication 2019/0215532) discloses the method of Claim 11.
He does not disclose, but Li (US PG Publication 2020/0304805) teaches wherein said same prediction mode corresponds to LIC, BDOF, BCW, filter type, or multi-hypothesis ([0199]-[0206] Local Illumination Compensation (LIC); [0219]-[0229] Predication Refinement Based on Bi-Directional Optical Flow (BDOF)).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the application was filed would have been motivated to use the LIC and BDOF inter prediction modes in the coder of He because these prediction modes are known, established inter-prediction techniques already used in the art.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s remarks filed 9/15/2026 have been considered but are unpersuasive.
Applicant argues that He does not generate an extended motion-compensated reconstructed block during the reconstruction stage of the current block (Remarks at 9) because paragraph [0137] of He applies to “filtering” and not for prediction (Remarks at 10); and He’s description of the encoder/decoder at [0108] does not mention boundary padding. Remarks at 9.
This argument is not persuasive. While paragraph [0137] expressly mentions boundary padding for filtering, this does not mean that He excludes teachings of boundary padding for prediction (a part of reconstruction). The current office action cites sections of He that recite boundary padding for prediction, such as He [0121]-[0122], [0136], and [0142].
While paragraph [0108] does not mention boundary padding, paragraph [0108] describes the flow and process of the encoder. He’s discussion of geometry padding for prediction, as in paragraphs [0121]-[0122], [0136], and [0142], is understood to be implemented in the encoder/decoder of Figs. 6-7 described in paragraphs [0108]-[0109]. I.e., He discloses an encoder/decoder with geometry padding in it.
Applicant next argues that He does not disclose a “Motion-Compensated Extended Reconstructed Block” because He uses “repetitive padding.” Remarks at 11. This argument is not persuasive because there is no link between “repetitive padding” and “motion-compensated extended reconstructed block.” No where does the claim require that the prediction block not be formed by repetitive padding. This disconnect is possibly caused by the inconsistency between Applicant’s and Examiner’s claim construction. The claim construction will be explained below. “Motion-Compensated Extended Reconstructed Block” will be broken into the elements of “reconstructed bock,” “motion compensated reconstructed block,” and finally, “motion compensated extended reconstructed block.”
A “reconstructed block” is the output of adder 626, which adds the inverse-transformed residual to the prediction block to generate the reconstructed block, annotated with an “x,” below.
PNG
media_image1.png
535
847
media_image1.png
Greyscale
A “motion compensated … reconstructed block” is a reconstructed block, as described above, whose prediction block is based on motion compensation, the output of temporal prediction unit 662, annotated with an “x,” below.
PNG
media_image2.png
532
850
media_image2.png
Greyscale
A “motion compensated extended reconstructed block” is a reconstructed block, as described above, whose prediction block is based on motion compensation, as described above, whose prediction block is “extended,” in this case by geometry padding, as in paragraphs of He [0121]-[0122], [0136], and [0142].
No where does the claim require non-repetitive padding. If repetitive padding is inconsistent with Applicant’s intended claim construction, it is likely that Applicant meant to claim a “motion compensated extended prediction block.” If such an interpretation is desired, Applicant must amend the claim to state so.
Applicant next argues that He operates at the macro boundary of an entire projection face, it is not performed on a current coding bock during the sample reconstruction stage. This argument does not appear to pertain to Applicant’s invention. Applicant’s invention pads pixels outside the reference frame at a picture boundary. In Figs. 4-5 show that the padding area is outside of the picture area. That’s also a macro boundary of an entire picture. Therefore, Applicant has not made clear how this argument pertains to the claim. If this argument relates to the timing of when the padding occurred, then this argument is arguing limitations that are not claimed. The timing of the claim is this: “during a reconstruction stage… generating … a reconstructed block….” There is no limitation on when the padding occurs in this claim language.
Applicant has the prerogative to amend the claims for clarity and specificity and may do so if desired.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20210297672 A1 - intra interpolation across block boundary
US 20250203101 A1 - shorter tap for initial samples at the boundary of the subblockAny inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHADAN E HAGHANI whose telephone number is (571)270-5631. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9AM - 5PM.
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, Jay Patel can be reached at 571-272-2988. 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.
/SHADAN E HAGHANI/Examiner, Art Unit 2485
