DETAILED ACTION
1. This office action is in response to U.S. Patent Application No.: 18/886,277 filed on 9/16/2024 with effective filing date 5/23/2018. Claims 16-26 are pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
2. 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.
3. The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
4. Claim(s) 16-21, & 25-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hsu et al. US 2017/0310990 A1 in view of Park et al. US 2021/0037238 A1
Per claims 16 & 25-26, Hsu et al. discloses a method of decoding a video, comprising: deriving merge candidates of a current block from neighboring blocks adjacent to the current block (para: 39, e.g. merge mode motion refinement is used to illustrate an example of explicitly coding partial motion information from a neighboring block and inheriting the remaining motion information); constructing a merge candidate list including the merge candidates of the current block (para: 37, e.g. FIG. 8 illustrates an exemplary flowchart of a decoder incorporating bi-prediction based on a uni-prediction motion vector pointing to one direction and a second motion vector associated with a Merge candidate pointing to the other direction); deriving motion information of the current block based on the merge candidate list (para: 37, e.g. a Merge candidate according to a Merge index pointing to the Merge candidate in a Merge candidate set is determined from the coded bitstream in step 840. From the coded bitstream, a first motion vector is derived according to coded motion information with respect to a motion vector predictor in a motion-vector-prediction (MVP) candidate set in step 850).
Hsu et al. fails to disclose the remaining claim limitations.
Park et al. however in the same field of endeavor teaches performing inter-prediction on the current block based on the motion information (para: 80, e.g. motion information required for inter-prediction of the current block provided by the video encoding device, for example, a motion vector and information on a reference picture index may be obtained or derived based on the information on prediction), wherein the merge candidate list further includes an average merge candidate derived based on two or more of the merge candidates in the merge candidate list (para: 126-127, e.g. the merge candidate is the bi-prediction motion information, the cost of the merge candidate may be calculated as an average of the costL0 and the costL1).
Therefore, in view of disclosures by Park et al., it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to combine Hsu et al. and Park et al. in order to enable re-arranging the merge candidate list based on the costs and merge index so as to reduce value of optimal merge candidate about the current block and amount of prediction bits so as to improve overall coding efficiency.
Per claim 17, Park et al. further teaches the method of claim 16, wherein the two or more of the merge candidates include a first merge candidate and a second merge candidate, wherein a motion vector of the average merge candidate is derived as an average value between a motion vector of the first merge candidate and a motion vector of the second merge candidate (para: 126-127, e.g. in a case where the merge candidate includes the L0 motion information and the L1 motion information, that is, the merge candidate is the bi-prediction motion information, the cost of the merge candidate may be calculated as an average of the costL0 and the costL).
Per claim 18, Park et al. further teaches the method of claim 17, wherein a reference index of the average merge candidate is set equal to a reference index of a merge candidate having a smaller index among the first merge candidate and the second merge candidate (para: 107, e.g. motion information including a refine motion vector derived by performing refinement based on an optimal candidate, that is, a merge candidates reordered from small to large merge index values, may be added as a merge candidate, through which a new candidate with a high accuracy may be used in the prediction of the current block).
Per claim 19, Park et al. further teaches the method of claim 18, wherein a maximum number of merge candidates in the merge candidate list available for the current block is adaptively determined based on whether a merge mode with a motion vector difference (MVD) is used for the current block (para: 86, e.g. the predictor of the encoding device may obtain a motion vector difference (MVD) between the motion vector of the current block and a motion vector predictor, encode the MVD and output the encoded MVD in the form of a bitstream).
Per claim 20, Park et al. further teaches the method of claim 19, wherein, in response to a case where the merge mode with the motion vector difference (MVD) is used for the current block, the maximum number of merge candidates in the merge candidate list available for the current block is two (Para: 170 & 187, e.g. n a case where the maximum number of the merge candidates in the merge candidate list is seven, the number of merge candidates may be eight due to the derived refine merge candidate; in a case where the merge candidate is removed through the pruning check process, the number of the merge candidates of the modified merge candidate list may be less than the maximum number).
Per claim 21, Park et al. further teaches the method of claim 18, wherein, the current block is divided into two partitions, and wherein at least one of the two partitions has a triangular shape (para: 196, e.g. although FIG. 15 illustrates the modification of a diamond shape of the motion vector, other modification to any shape may be possible).
Allowable Subject Matter
5. Claims 22-24 are 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.
Conclusion
6. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Sugio et al. US 2012/0328021 e.g. a moving picture coding apparatus includes: a motion vector predictor candidate calculation unit which calculates one or more motion vector predictor
candidates and the number of available predictor candidates.
Bang et al. US 2017/0127041, e.g. inserting a first candidate block into a merge candidate list; when view synthesis prediction (VSP) has been used in the first candidate block, generating information indicating that the VSP has been used.
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/Irfan Habib/Examiner, Art Unit 2485