DETAILED ACTION
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 § 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.
Claim 20 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 claimed limitation references “the updated remining number”, which is not a limitation referenced previously in the claimed invention, nor in the claims which claim 20 depends on. At best, the examiner can see that the claims are related to the previously referred to “an updated remaining number”, but has misspelt the “remaining”. Until this issue is resolved, the limitation is considered indefinite since it lacks antecedent basis. For the purposes of examination, “the updated remining number” will be interpreted as “the updated remaining
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 32 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the limitations of the claimed invention relate to a computer readable recording medium, which could include a transitory computer readable recording medium. Review of the specification for clarity on what the limitation would relate to does not further specify what is intended by the claim language when it refers to a computer readable recording medium, i.e., if it relates to a signal or some form of non-transitory computer readable medium. Because the specification does not address what is particularly claimed, the claimed transitory computer readable recording medium could be considered a signal, which would not fall within one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter. For this reason, claim 32 is rejected for being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
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.
In regard to claim 32, claim 32 is directed to a non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored therein a bitstream generated by acts. Significantly, the claimed non-transitory computer readable medium is NOT implementing any actual method; no instructions/steps are being executed. Instead, the claimed storage medium merely stores the data output from and/or generated by a series of acts. In other words, these claims are directed to a mere machine-readable medium storing data content (a bitstream generated by a method).
Applicant therefore seeks to patent the storage of a bitstream in the abstract. In other words, the claim seeks to patent the content of the information (bitstream comprising video information) and not the process itself. Moreover, this stored bitstream does not impose any definitive physical organization on the data as there is no functional relationship between the bitstream and the storage medium. In conclusion, claim 32 and any claims depending therefrom are directed to mere data content (bitstream generated by a series of acts) stored as a bitstream on a computer-readable storage medium. Under MPEP 2111.05(III), such claims are merely machine-readable media. Furthermore, the Examiner found and continues to find that there is no disclosed or claimed functional relationship between the stored data and medium. Instead, the medium is merely a support or carrier for the data being stored. Therefore, the data stored and the way such data is generated should not be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.05 applying In re Lowry, 32 F.3d 1579, 1583-84, 32 USPQ2d 1031, 1035 (Fed. Cir. 1994) and In re Ngai, 367 F.3d 1336, 70 USPQ2d 1862 (Fed. Cir. 2004). As such, this claim is subject to a prior art rejection based on any non-transitory computer readable medium known before the earliest effective filing date of the present application. Therefore, claim 32 is anticipated by LIU; Hongbin et al. (US 20160330479 A1), which discloses the following:
A computer readable recoding medium (¶9 and 258, “memory” such as “computer-readable media” corresponding to “tangible computer-readable storage media which is non-transitory”) storing a bitstream encoded by a video encoding method, (¶9 and 258, “memory storing a coded video bitstream” implemented “as one or more instructions or code, a computer-readable medium and executed by a hardware-based processing unit”) the video encoding method (¶8-9, “video coding device” configured to code in the “method for video encoding”) comprising:
determining whether a transform is skipped for a current block;
quantizing transform coefficients, obtained by skipping the transform, of the current block; and
encoding residual coefficients output resulting from the quantization,
wherein in response to the transform being skipped for the current block, the residual coefficients are encoded based on a pre-defined scanning order,
wherein in response to a remining number of CCB (Context Coded Bin) is equal to or greater than a threshold value, at least one context-coded syntax in a first pass is encoded into a bitstream for a residual coefficient of the current block,
wherein in response to the remaining number of CCB is less than the threshold value, remaining level information is encoded into the bitstream for the residual coefficient of the current block without encoding the at least one context-coded syntax in the first pass, and
wherein the remaining number of CCB is decreased by 1 from a maximum number of CCB each time a context-coded syntax is encoded.
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) 14-15,26-27,32 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LIU; Hongbin et al. (US 20160330479 A1) in view of TSUKUBA; Takeshi (US 20200280740 A1) in view of KAO; I-pieng Peter et al. (US 20130044810 A1)
Regarding claim 14, Liu teaches,
A video decoding (¶58, fig. 2 and 6, “video decoder 30” depicted in fig. 2 and 6) method comprising:
determining whether an inverse-transform is skipped for a current block; (¶177-179, 150,147, and fig. 6, “Entropy decoding unit 150”, that is part of decoder 30 depicted in fig. 6, parses data encoded using “SDC” coding techniques that does “not apply transforms to a transform block” when performing “Segment-wise DC coding (SDC)”)
in response to the inverse-transform for the current block, (¶177-179,150,147, and fig. 6, “Entropy decoding unit 150”, that is part of decoder 30 depicted in fig. 6, parses data encoded using “SDC” coding techniques) obtaining residual coefficients of the current block (¶177-179,89, and fig. 6, Prediction processing unit 152, of decoder 30 depicted in fig. 6, obtains “residual data from the encoded video bitstream” in a “serialized vector that can be entropy encoded”) based on a pre-defined scanning order; (¶177-179,89, and fig. 6, obtains residual data from the encoded video bitstream in a “serialized vector that can be entropy encoded” in a “predefined scan order”)
performing an inverse-quantization on the current block; (¶182 and fig. 6, “inverse quantization unit 154 may inverse quantize” as part of performing reconstruction operation on a TU of a CU “coefficient blocks associated with the TU”) and
obtaining residual samples (¶182 and fig. 6, “reconstruct blocks of the CU”) of the current block (¶182 and fig. 6, reconstruct blocks of “each TU of the CU”) based on inverse-quantized residual coefficients of the current block, (¶182 and fig. 6, “inverse quantization unit 154 may inverse quantize, i.e., de-quantize, coefficient blocks associated with the TU” as part of performed “reconstruction operation for each TU of the CU”)
wherein in response to a remining number of CCB (Context Coded Bin) is equal to or greater than a threshold value, (¶249, video decoder 30 decodes “no more than N leading bins for the syntax element”) at least one context-coded syntax in a first pass is decoded from a bitstream to obtain a residual coefficient of the current block, (¶249 and fig. 8, video decoder 30 decodes “N leading bins for the syntax element using one or more context models” at (222) depicted in fig. 8)
wherein in response to the remaining number of CCB is less than the threshold value, (¶249, video decoder 30 “any remaining bins for the syntax element” more than “N leading bins”) the residual coefficient of the current block is obtained by decoding remaining level information from the bitstream (¶249 and fig. 8, video decoder 30 “bypass decode any remaining bins for the syntax element” at (224) depicted in fig. 8) without decoding the at least one context-coded syntax in the first pass, (¶249 and fig. 8, video decoder 30 bypass decode any remaining bins for the syntax element “not decoded using one or more context models” at (224))
But does not explicitly teach,
in response to the inverse-transform being skipped for the current block, obtaining residual coefficients of the current block
wherein the remaining number of CCB is decreased by 1 from a maximum number of CCB each time a context-coded syntax is decoded.
However, Tsukuba teaches additionally,
determining whether an inverse-transform is skipped for a current block; (¶429-430,416-422, and fig. 17-18, “inverse orthogonal transform processing” determines “whether or not “transform skip flag ts_flag is 2D_TS” is “1 (true)” depicted in fig. 18)
in response to the inverse-transform being skipped for the current block, (¶429-430,416-422, and fig. 17-18, “it is determined that the transform skip identifier ts_idx is 2D_TS” is 1 (true) indicating inverse orthogonal transform processing is “omitted”) obtaining residual coefficients of the current block (¶429-430,416-422, and fig. 17-18, in the case inverse orthogonal transform processing is omitted, “transform coefficient Coeff_IQ is adopted as the prediction residual D′”)
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the residual coding of that skips both quantization and transforming Liu with the transform processing of Tsukuba which responds to skipping only transforming particularly. An increase in the memory capacity specifically required for the orthogonal transform/inverse orthogonal transform can be suppressed.
Kao teaches additionally,
wherein the remaining number of CCB is decreased by 1 (¶52-56, “context number and the counter is incremented”) from a maximum number of CCB (¶52-56, context number and the counter is incremented that “starts at 0 and saturates 3”) each time a context-coded syntax is decoded. (¶52-56, “context number (counter) is incremented depending on first bin value decoding”)
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the residual coding of that skips both quantization and transforming Liu with the transform processing of Tsukuba with the counter incrementing of Kao which increments depending on bin value decoding. This allows for reduced complexity.
Regarding claim 15, Liu with Tsukuba with Kao teaches the limitations of claim 14,
Tsukuba teaches additionally,
one context-coded syntax in the first pass (¶349-360, “residual information” includes the following “syntaxes”) comprises:
at least one of a significant flag (¶355, “sig_coeff_flag”) indicating whether the residual coefficient is not zero, (¶355, “sig_coeff_flag: a nonzero coefficient presence/absence flag”)
a greater than 1 flag (¶355, “gr1_flag”) indicating whether an absolute value of the residual coefficient is greater than 1, (¶356, “gr1_flag: a flag indicating whether or not the level of the nonzero coefficient is greater than 1 (also called a GR1 flag)”)
a sign flag (¶358, “sign_flag”) indicating whether the residual coefficient has a positive value or a negative value, (¶358, “sign_flag: a sign indicating positive/negative of the nonzero coefficient (also called a sign code)”)
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the residual coding of that skips both quantization and transforming Liu with the residual information of Tsukuba with the counter incrementing of Kao has a series of particular flags. Coding of this helps in providing information for deriving quantized transform coefficients in a transformation block.
Kao teaches additionally,
a parity flag (¶42-43, decoded “syntax element becomes the pair” corresponding to “significant_coeff_flag” and “last_significant_coefficient_flag”) indicating whether the absolute value of the residual coefficient is an odd number or an even number. (¶42-43, decoded “syntax element becomes the pair” corresponding to “significant_coeff_flag (even pointer values) and last_significant_coefficient_flag (odd pointer values)”)
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the residual coding of that skips both quantization and transforming Liu with the residual information of Tsukuba with the syntax elements of Kao which indicate even pointer values or odd pointer values for coded coefficients. This information is organized in a way that multiple bins can be evaluated at a time to help reduce complexity.
Regarding claim 26, Liu teaches,
A video encoding (¶58, fig. 2 and 5, “video encoder 20” depicted in fig. 2 and 5) method comprising:
determining whether a transform is skipped for a current block; (¶167,150,147, and fig. 5, “transform processing unit 104”, that is part of encoder 20 depicted in fig. 5, does “not apply transforms to a transform block” when performing “Segment-wise DC coding (SDC)”)
quantizing transform coefficients (¶168-167,150,147, and fig. 5, “Quantization unit 106”, part of encoder 20 depicted in fig. 5, “may quantize the transform coefficients in a coefficient block” for each TU of a CU) of the current block; (¶168-167,150,147, and fig. 5, “transform coefficient blocks for each TU of a CU”) and
encoding residual coefficients resulting from the quantization, (¶173,168-167, and fig. 5, “Entropy encoding unit 118” performs entropy encoding operations on the “coefficient blocks from quantization unit 106” to generate “entropy-encoded data”)
wherein in response to the transform, (¶167-168 and 173, “transform coefficient blocks for each TU of a CU” with transforms applied to “transform coefficients” in transform blocks of the TU from “quantization unit 106”) the residual coefficients are encoded based on a pre-defined scanning order, (¶89, “video encoder 20 may utilize a predefined scan order to scan the quantized transform coefficients” to produce serialized vector that is “entropy encoded”)
wherein in response to a remining number of CCB (Context Coded Bin) is equal to or greater than a threshold value, (¶238, entropy encoding unit 118 encodes “no more than N leading bins of the bin string of the binarized syntax element” using “one or more context models”) at least one context-coded syntax in a first pass is encoded into a bitstream for a residual coefficient of the current block, (¶238 and fig. 7, “Entropy encoding unit 118 encodes no more than N leading bins of the bin string of the binarized syntax element using one or more context models (208)” depicted in fig. 7)
wherein in response to the remaining number of CCB is less than the threshold value, (¶238, entropy encoding unit 118 encodes “remaining bins of the binarized syntax element” more than “N leading bins”) remaining level information is encoded into the bitstream for the residual coefficient of the current block (¶238 and fig. 7, “bypass encodes any remaining bins of the binarized syntax element (210)” more than “N leading bins” depicted in fig. 7) without encoding the at least one context-coded syntax in the first pass, (¶238 and fig. 7, “bypass encode any remaining bins” 210 occurring after N leading bins are encoded at step 208 as depicted in fig. 7)
But does not explicitly teach,
quantizing transform coefficients, derived by skipping the transform, of the current block; and
wherein in response to the transform being skipped for the current block, the residual coefficients are encoded
wherein the remaining number of CCB is decreased by 1 from a maximum number of CCB each time a context-coded syntax is encoded.
However, Tsukuba teaches additionally,
determining whether a transform is skipped for a current block; (¶297-298,308-310, and fig. 13-14, “orthogonal transform processing” at step S106 determines the “transform skip flag ts_flag is 2D_TS” is “1 (true)” as depicted in fig. 14 related to flowchart depicted in fig. 14)
quantizing transform coefficients, (¶297-298,308-310 and fig. 13-14, “quantization unit 114” at step s107 “quantizes the transform coefficient Coeff”) derived by skipping the transform, (¶297-298,308-310 and fig. 13-14, “orthogonal transform processing (primary transform and secondary transform) is omitted” at step S106) of the current block; (¶297-298,308-310 and fig. 13-14, “transform coefficient Coeff”) and
wherein in response to the transform being skipped for the current block, (¶297-298,308-310, and fig. 13-14, “orthogonal transform processing” at step S106 determines the “transform skip flag ts_flag is 2D_TS” is “1 (true)” as depicted in fig. 14 related to flowchart depicted in fig. 14) the residual coefficients are encoded (¶297-298,308-310, and fig. 13-14, “input prediction residual D is used as the transform coefficient Coeff” in a case where it is determined that the “transform skip flag ts_flag is 2D_TS” is 1 (true))
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the residual coding of that skips both quantization and transforming Liu with the transform processing of Tsukuba which responds to skipping only transforming particularly. An increase in the memory capacity specifically required for the orthogonal transform/inverse orthogonal transform can be suppressed.
Kao teaches additionally,
wherein the remaining number of CCB is decreased by 1 (¶52-56, “context number and the counter is incremented”) from a maximum number of CCB (¶52-56, context number and the counter is incremented that “starts at 0 and saturates 3”) each time a context-coded syntax is encoded. (¶52-56, “context number (counter) is incremented depending on first bin value” coding)
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the residual coding of that skips both quantization and transforming Liu with the transform processing of Tsukuba with the counter incrementing of Kao which increments depending on bin value decoding. This allows for reduced complexity.
Regarding claim 27, dependent on claim 26, it is the encoding method claim of decoding method claim 15, dependent on claim 14. Refer to rejection of claim 15 to teach the limitations of claim 27.
Regarding claim 32, it is the computer readable claim of method claim 26.
Liu teaches additionally,
A computer readable recoding medium (¶9 and 258, “memory” such as “computer-readable media” corresponding to “tangible computer-readable storage media which is non-transitory”) storing a bitstream encoded by a video encoding (¶9, “memory storing a coded video bitstream”) method,
Claim(s) 17,29 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LIU; Hongbin et al. (US 20160330479 A1) in view of TSUKUBA; Takeshi (US 20200280740 A1) in view of KAO; I-pieng Peter et al. (US 20130044810 A1) in view of LASSERRE; Sebastien et al. (US 20200314430 A1)
Regarding claim 17, Liu with Tsukuba with Kao teaches the limitations of claim 15,
But does not explicitly teach the additional limitations of claim 17,
However, Lasserre teaches additionally,
the greater than 1 flag (¶132, “greater 1 flag”) is decoded from the bitstream (¶132, context-adaptive binary arithmetic coding a binary symbol s when the “binary symbol represents the so-called “greater than one” flag” representing “greater 1 flag”) only when the significant flag indicates that the residual coefficient is not zero. (¶132, greater1 flag representing “greater than one” flag which “applies only to a significant coefficient (i.e. signaled as non-zero by the significance flag)”)
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the residual coding of that skips both quantization and transforming Liu with the transform processing of Tsukuba with the counter incrementing of Kao with the binary symbol of Lasserre which relates a greater than one flag to a significance flag. This expected relationship allows for reducing the number of context that are maintained in memory compared to prior art.
Regarding claim 29, dependent on claim 27, it is the encoding method claim of decoding method claim 17, dependent on claim 15. Refer to rejection of claim 17 to teach the limitations of claim 29.
Claim(s) 18,30 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LIU; Hongbin et al. (US 20160330479 A1) in view of TSUKUBA; Takeshi (US 20200280740 A1) in view of KAO; I-pieng Peter et al. (US 20130044810 A1) in view of HSIANG; Shih-Ta et al. (US 20180205951 A1)
Regarding claim 18, Liu with Tsukuba with Kao teaches the limitations of claim 14,
But does not explicitly teach the additional limitations of claim 18,
However, Hsiang teaches additionally,
threshold value is 4. (¶29, “coding the bins with index values greater than a threshold Tr” that can be “equal to 4”)
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the residual coding of that skips both quantization and transforming Liu with the transform processing of Tsukuba with the counter incrementing of Kao with the context-adaptive coding of Hsiang which relates to signaling a specific threshold. Setting the threshold this way allows for adjusting the threshold according to consumption of the coded CABAC bins.
Regarding claim 30, dependent on claim 26, it is the encoding method claim of decoding method claim 18, dependent on claim 14. Refer to rejection of claim 18 to teach the limitations of claim 30.
Claim(s) 19,31 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LIU; Hongbin et al. (US 20160330479 A1) in view of TSUKUBA; Takeshi (US 20200280740 A1) in view of KAO; I-pieng Peter et al. (US 20130044810 A1) in view of Zhang; Li et al. (US 20180063553 A1)
Regarding claim 19, Liu with Tsukuba with Kao teaches the limitations of claim 14,
But does not explicitly teach the additional limitations of claim 19,
However, Zhang teaches additionally,
maximum number of CCB (¶170, video encoder 20 and video decoder 30 may “make the number of coded bins”) is determined based on a size of the current block. (¶170, “make the number of context coded bins” dependent on “one or more of CU, PU, or TU size”)
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the residual coding of that skips both quantization and transforming Liu with the transform processing of Tsukuba with the counter incrementing of Kao with the context coded bins of Zhang which are dependent on the size of the coding unit, prediction unit, or transform unit. This implementation incorporates aspects of CABAC, providing relatively accurate probability estimation in order to achieve high-efficiency coding.
Regarding claim 31, dependent on claim 26, it is the encoding method claim of decoding method claim 19, dependent on claim 14. Refer to rejection of claim 19 to teach the limitations of claim 31.
Claim(s) 24 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LIU; Hongbin et al. (US 20160330479 A1) in view of TSUKUBA; Takeshi (US 20200280740 A1) in view of KAO; I-pieng Peter et al. (US 20130044810 A1) in view of Karczewicz; Marta et al. (US 20170142448 A1)
Regarding claim 24, Liu with Tsukuba with Kao teaches the limitations of claim 14,
Liu teaches additionally,
in response that the remaining level information for the residual coefficient is decoded (¶249 and fig. 8, video decoder 30 “bypass decode any remaining bins for the syntax element” at (224) depicted in fig. 8) without decoding the at least one context-coded syntax in the first pass, (¶249 and fig. 8, video decoder 30 “bypass decode any remaining bins for the syntax element” at (224) depicted in fig. 8) the current block is derived to be the same as a value (¶249 and 36, bypass decode any remaining bins “coded with a fixed probability model” without the use of context models)
But does not explicitly teach,
the absolute value of the current block is derived to be the same as a value of the remaining level information.
However, Karczewicz teaches additionally,
in response that the remaining level information for the residual coefficient is decoded (¶96-98, “not processing all the coefficients in a CG” in second pass) without decoding the at least one context-coded syntax in the first pass, (¶98, “the values are left” after the first eight coeff_abs_level_greater1_flags in a CG are coded in regular mode “to be coded in bypass mode”) the absolute value of the current block (¶98, “syntax coeff_abs_level_remaining”) is derived to be the same as a value of the remaining level information. (¶98 and 101-102, “the values are left to be coded in bypass mode” by the “syntax coeff_abs_level_remaining” indicating the “remaining value for the absolute value of a coefficient level”)
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the residual coding of that skips both quantization and transforming Liu with the transform processing of Tsukuba with the counter incrementing of Kao with the bypass coding of Karczewicz which uses an absolute value of a coefficient level to code the values that are left. The syntax is coded in this way in order to increase throughput.
Claim(s) 25 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LIU; Hongbin et al. (US 20160330479 A1) in view of TSUKUBA; Takeshi (US 20200280740 A1) in view of KAO; I-pieng Peter et al. (US 20130044810 A1) in view of KIRCHHOFFER; Heiner et al. (US 20130051459 A1)
Regarding claim 25, Liu with Tsukuba with Kao teaches the limitations of claim 14,
But does not explicitly teach the additional limitations of claim 25,
However, Kirchhoffer teaches additionally,
the pre-defined scanning order is a diagonal scan (¶110 and fig. 11, “zig-zag scan 320 is employed for scanning” depicted in fig. 11) from a top-left position of the current block (¶110 and fig. 8, scanning “sub-blocks 322 of a transform block 256” starting from the top-left most sub-block 322 as depicted in fig. 8) to a top-right position of the current block. (¶110 and fig. 8, scanning “sub-blocks 322 of a transform block 256” scanning to the top-right most sub-block 322 following the top-left most sub-block 322 as depicted in fig. 8)
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the residual coding of that skips both quantization and transforming Liu with the transform processing of Tsukuba with the counter incrementing of Kao with the adaptively switched scanning of Kirchhoffer that uses a zig-zag scan. This allows for swapping between patterns that can be switched depending on the values of the already coded significance map syntax elements that results in a reduced bit rate.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 16,21-23, and 28 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.
Claim 20 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
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/JOSEPH G USTARIS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2483
/JIMMY S LEE/Examiner, Art Unit 2483