DETAILED ACTION
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements submitted on 12/17/2025, 09/23/2025, 06/05/2025, 01/23/2025 and 10/03/2024 have been considered by the Examiner and made of record in the application file.
Claim Objections
In claim 1, “coverts” should be corrected to --converts--.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
a) Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 12,464,148. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because both sets of claims are directed to video coding using a machine learning model to generate multi resolution feature sets, upsample feature information, generate a modified frame and transmit, store and display the modified frame.
18/895,188 12,464,148 B2
1
1, 10, 12
2
1, 12
3
1, 4, 15
4, 7
4, 10, 12
5, 6, 8, 13, 14
4, 12
9, 11, 12
4, 15
10
12
15
10, 12, 15
16, 17
12, 15
18, 19, 20
15
b) Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of App. No. 19/320,625 (US 2026/0006231 A1). Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because both sets of claims are directed multi-scale machine learning video filtering workflow by generating first resolution features, upsampling the lower resolution features, generating a modified frame and transmitting the frame.
18/895,188 19/320,625 (US 2026/0006231 A1)
1, 12
1, 4, 10, 12
2
1, 10, 12
3, 11, 13, 14
1, 4, 12
4, 5, 8
4, 10, 12
6
4, 12
7
4, 10, 11
9
1, 4, 15
10
12
15
15, 18, 19
16, 17
12, 15
18, 19, 20
15, 18
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claims 1-5, 10-12, 15-16 and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jung (US 2025/0238964 A1) in view of Huang (US 2018/0249158 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 4 and 15, Jung discloses a computer-implemented method comprising: (paragraphs 37-41)
receiving a video at a content delivery service; (paragraphs 37-41; Jung discloses receiving and inputting video image data, including an input image to a head portion of the LMSDA network and a video coding system configured for encoding and decoding)
downsampling a source frame of the video to generate a frame; (paragraphs 43 and 53; Jung discloses in super-resolution encoding, encoder down samples current frame to reduce the complexity and the reduced resolution frame is later restored to its original resolution)
performing an encode on the frame of the video by the content delivery service that coverts the frame from a pixel domain to a transform domain and back to the pixel domain to(paragraphs 28-29 and 41-43; Jung discloses encoding and decoding of a video can be performed by the unit of block. For example, an encoding/decoding process such as transform, quantization, prediction, in-loop filtering, reconstruction, downsample encoding or the like may be performed on a coding block, a transform block, or a prediction block. In resampling-based video coding, the video is first down-sampled before encoding, and then the decoded video is up-sampled to the same resolution as the original video.)
generating a first set of features at the first resolution, by a machine learning model of the content delivery service, for a first input at the first resolution, (paragraphs 47-48; Jung discloses a machine learning LMSDA network whose head portion generates first features from the input image)
upsampling the first set of features to a target resolution to generate an upsampled first set of features; (paragraphs 49-51, 55, 78; Jung discloses that the reconstruction portion upsamples the first set of features, including through convolution and pixel shuffle, to produce the enhanced output image)
generating a second set of features at a second lower resolution than the first resolution, by the machine learning model of the content delivery service, (paragraphs 76-77, 80-84; Jung dislcoses that the LMSDA backbone generates second features at multiple scales through LMSDABs and multi-scale feature extraction.)
upsampling the second set of features to the target resolution to generate an upsampled second set of features; (paragraph 78; At 1110, the apparatus may upsample, by a reconstruction portion of the LMSDA network, the second set of features to generate an enhanced output image.)
generating a modified version of the frame based on the upsampled first set of features and the upsampled second set of features; and (paragraphs 78, 88 95; enhanced output image)
transmitting the modified version of the frame (paragraph 39; transmitting information with other external network elements);
Jung fails to specifically disclose using the first pixel values and first residual of the block as inputs to the machine learning model and transmitting the modified version of the frame to a frame buffer.
In related art, Huang discloses the first pixel values and first residual of the block as inputs to the machine learning model (paragraphs 15 and 29-31; Huang teaches that the DNN input may include the reconstructed residual and prediction signal with the DNN output being DNN filtered reconstructed pixels.) and transmitting the modified version of the frame to a frame buffer. (paragraph 31; Huang teaches that when the DNN output is used at signal point A, the DNN output is stored in the frame buffer.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to incorporate the teachings of Huang into the teachings of Jung to effectively improve the quality and coding efficiency.
Regarding claims 2, 5 and 16, Jung, as modified by Huang, discloses the claimed invention wherein the upsampling of the first set of features comprises selecting a super-resolution spatial resampling scale factor from a set of super-resolution spatial resampling scale factors. (paragraphs 29-32)
Regarding claims 3, 11 and 19, Jung, as modified by Huang, discloses the claimed invention wherein the upsampling of the first set of features and the upsampling of the second set of features are in a feature domain. (paragraphs 44, 57-63)
Regarding claim 10, Jung, as modified by Huang, discloses the claimed invention wherein the upsampling comprises interleaving a plurality of channels into one channel. (paragraphs 49-50)
Regarding claims 12 and 20, Jung, as modified by Huang, discloses the claimed invention wherein the performing the video coding for the frame comprises a pixel domain upsampling of the frame to the target resolution, and the generating the modified version of the frame comprises modifying an output from the pixel domain upsampling. (paragraphs 29, 43-44, 49-50)
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BOBBAK SAFAIPOUR whose telephone number is (571)270-1092. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8:00am - 5:00pm.
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/BOBBAK SAFAIPOUR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2665
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