DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to the Amendment filed on 11/20/2025 and is being filed as a Non-Final for the reasons given below.
In the filed response, Claims 14-15 have been amended.
Claims 1-15 and 17 are in condition for allowance. Please see below.
Accordingly, Claims 16 has been examined and is pending.
Terminal Disclaimer
1. The terminal disclaimer filed on 11/20/2025 disclaiming the terminal portion of any patent granted on this application which would extend beyond the expiration date of U.S. Patent No. 12,113,959 has been reviewed and is accepted. The terminal disclaimer has been recorded.
Response to Arguments
2. Applicant’s arguments, see pg. 11, filed 11/20/2025, with respect to the non-statutory double patenting rejections of claims 1-17 have been fully considered and are persuasive in light of the filed terminal disclaimer noted above. Therefore, the double patenting rejections have been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration of Claim 16 (please see below), a new ground of rejection is made in view of Li et al. US 9,756,337 B2 under 35 U.S.C. 102. For this reason, this office action is Non-Final.
3. After further considering Claim 16 (i.e. “A non-transitory storage medium storing an encoded bitstream for video signals, the encoded bitstream comprises…”), this is a product by process claim limitation where the product is a bitstream and the process is the method steps to generate the bitstream. MPEP §2113 recites “Product-by-Process claims are not limited to the manipulations of the recited steps, only the structure implied by the steps”. Thus, the scope of the claim is the storage medium storing the bitstream (with the structure implied by the method steps). The structure includes the information and samples manipulated by the steps. “To be given patentable weight, the printed matter and associated product must be in a functional relationship. A functional relationship can be found where the printed matter performs some function with respect to the product to which it is associated”. MPEP §2111.05(I)(A). When a claimed “computer-readable medium merely serves as a support for information or data, no functional relationship exists. MPEP §2111.05(III). The storage medium storing the claimed bitstream in claim 16 merely serves as a support for the storage of the bitstream and provides no functional relationship between the stored bitstream and storage medium. Therefore the structure bitstream, which scope is implied by the method steps, is non-functional descriptive material and given no patentable weight. MPEP §2111.05(III). Thus, the claim scope is just a storage medium storing data and is anticipated by any prior art which recites a storage medium storing a bitstream. Please see details below. The foregoing was briefly discussed with Applicant’s representative on 02/17/2026 (see attached interview summary).
4. Applicant’s response and amendments to the objected claims are acknowledged. Thus, the claim objection is withdrawn.
5. The Examiner is available to discuss the matters of this office action to help move the Instant Application forward. Please refer to the conclusion to this office action regarding scheduling interviews.
6. In light of the foregoing, Claim 16 has been examined and is pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
7. 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 –
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 16 is further rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Li et al. US 9,756,337 B2, hereinafter referred to as Li, since this is a product by process claim limitation where the product is a bitstream and the process is the method steps to generate the bitstream (MPEP §2113). For the reasons discussed above, the storage medium storing the claimed bitstream in claim 16 merely serves as a support for the storage of the bitstream and provides no functional relationship between the stored bitstream and storage medium. Thus, the claim scope is just a storage medium storing data and is anticipated by Li below which recites a storage medium storing a bitstream.
Regarding claim 16, Li teaches and/or suggests “A non-transitory storage medium storing an encoded bitstream for video signals, the encoded bitstream comprises [For the reasons given above, please see for e.g. col 41 lines 48-67 for storing an encoded video bitstream in a memory device] a syntax element and an identifier when a size of a current block satisfies a preset sample quantity, wherein the syntax element comprises at least an index of candidate motion information for a current block of the video and the identifier indicating to construct a list of motion information of the current block based on candidate motion information obtained through block-based prediction or candidate motion information obtained through subblock-based prediction, wherein the identifier is used to construct the list of motion information for the current block, wherein the list of motion information is a first list of motion information which is a block-based candidate motion information list of the current block, or a second list of motion information which is a subblock-based candidate motion information list of one or more subblocks of the current block, wherein the block-based candidate motion information list includes at least one of motion information of a spatially neighboring coded block of the current block or motion information of a temporally neighboring coded block of the current block, and the subblock-based candidate motion information list includes a candidate motion information that is constructed in a motion model based affine model merge mode (AMM), in a complex merge mode, in an advanced temporal motion vector prediction (ATMVP), or in a combination of one or more of the AMM, the complex merge mode or the ATMVP, wherein a first feature value of the identifier indicates to construct the first list for the current block, and a second feature value of the identifier indicates to construct the second list for the current block; wherein the index of the candidate motion information is used to determine motion information from the constructed list of motion information for the current block; wherein motion information is used to generate predicted samples for the current block; wherein the list of motion information is the second list of motion information and constructing the second list of motion information comprises: determining a collocated reference picture of the current block; splitting the current block into M*N subblocks, M being different from N; for each subblock of the M*N subblocks, obtaining motion information of a center point location sample of a subblock unit that corresponds to the subblock and that is in the collocated reference picture, and converting the motion information of the center point location sample into motion information of the subblock through scaling; and obtaining the second list of motion information based on the motion information of the M*N subblocks.” [The aforementioned limitation is not given patentable weight. See MPEP §2111.05(III)]
To help advance prosecution, it is recommended that “A non-transitory storage medium storing an encoded bitstream for video signals, the encoded bitstream comprises…” be rewritten to also include storing instructions that when executed by a processor, cause the processor to generate the encoded bitstream or something equivalent in order to show there is a functional relationship
between the stored data and the storage medium.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-15 and 17 are allowed.
The reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter is the same as presented in the Notice of Allowance (NOA) for the parent application no. 17/139,837, now U.S. Patent No. 12,113,959. Please refer to the NOA on 06/11/2024 for details.
Conclusion
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/RICHARD A HANSELL JR./Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2486