DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is a response to an application filed on 10/03/2024, in which claims 1-20 are pending and ready for examination.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 10/03/2024 and 12/04/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed in China on 04/04/2023. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the PCTCN2022085217 application as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim interpretation
Claim 20’s recitation of a non-transitory computer readable recording medium storing a bitstream of a video which is generated by a method performed by an apparatus for video processing, wherein the method comprises…” is a product by process claim limitation where the product is the 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 computer readable recording medium storing the bitstream (with the structure implied by the method steps). The structure includes the sign of a block vector difference of a video unit and other information manipulated by the steps.
To be given patentable weight, the computer readable recording medium (a storage medium) and the bitstream (i.e. descriptive material) must be in a functional relationship. A functional relationship can be found where the descriptive material performs some function with respect to the storage medium to which it is associated. See 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 20 merely services as a support for the storage of the bitstream and provides no functional relationship between the stored bitstream and storage medium. Therefor the structure of the 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.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Nien (US 2023/0217013 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Nien Discloses: A method of video processing, comprising:
determining, for a conversion between a video unit of a video and a bitstream of the video (see Nien, Fig. 8, converting the input video data into a bitstream), a sign of a block vector difference of the video unit (see Nien, paragraph 86-87), wherein the sign is predictive coded (see Nien, paragraph 87, bvd_sign_flag syntax included in the bitstream) and the video unit is coded with an intra block copy (IBC) mode (see Nien, paragraph 87, calculation of BVD (block vector difference) for IBC AMVP mode); and
performing the conversion (see Nien, Fig. 8) based on the sign and a value of the block vector difference (see Nien, paragraph 87, bvd_sign_flag and abs_bvd_minus2 syntax elements included in the bitstream).
Regarding claim 2, Nien Discloses: The method of claim 1, wherein the block vector difference comprises a horizontal component and a vertical component (see Nien, paragraph 87), and
the sign of at least one of: the horizontal component or the vertical component is predictive coded (see Nien, paragraph 87 and 89).
Regarding claim 3, Nien Discloses: The method of claim 1, wherein the block vector difference comprises a horizontal component and a vertical component (see Nien, paragraph 87 and 89), and
the sign of at least one of: the horizontal component or the vertical component is represented by an index from a look-up table, wherein the look-up table comprises a set of sign candidates (see Nien, paragraph 89).
Regarding claim 4, Nien Discloses: The method of claim 3, wherein the set of sign candidates in the look-up-tables is predefined and used for both encoder and decoder (see Nien, paragraph 88), or
wherein the set of sign candidates is dynamically generated (see Nien, paragraph 87), or
wherein at least two kinds of look-up tables are allowed for coding IBC block vector differences (see Nien, paragraph 88 and 101), or
wherein the set of sign candidates is generated based on at least one of: a cost, an error, or a difference obtained from a template matching method (see Nien, paragraph 79), or
wherein the block vector difference comprises a horizontal component and a vertical component (see Nien, paragraph 87 and 89), and
the sign of at least one of: the horizontal component or the vertical component is context coded (see Nien, paragraph 47, 87, and 89).
Regarding claim 5, Nien Discloses: The method of claim 4, wherein the look-up table is per block basis (see Nien, paragraph 87).
Regarding claim 6, Nien Discloses: The method of claim 4, wherein a first order of sign candidates in a first look-up table and a second order of sign candidates in a second look-up table are different (see Nien, paragraph 101).
Regarding claim 7, Nien Discloses: The method of claim 4, wherein the set of sign candidates is reordered based on the template matching method (see Nien, paragraph 101).
Regarding claim 8, Nien Discloses: The method of claim 4, wherein the template matching method comprises matching a first predefined group of reconstructed samples neighboring to a first block and a second predefined group of reconstructed samples neighboring to a second block (see Nien, Fig. 5 and paragraph 95-96).
Regarding claim 9, Nien Discloses: The method of claim 4, wherein the block vector difference comprises at least one of: a motion vector difference (MVD) (see Nien, paragraph 141), or a block vector difference (BVD) (see Nien, paragraph 89).
Regarding claim 10, Nien Discloses: The method of claim 1, wherein a context initialization probability of a first slice of the video unit is determined based on information of a second slice of the video unit (see Nien, paragraph 53).
Regarding claim 11, Nien Discloses: The method of claim 10, wherein the context initialization probability of the first slice is dependent on a further context initialization probability that is obtained from the second slice based on quantization parameters (QP) (see Nien, paragraph 47), or
wherein if the first slice derives a further context initialization probability from the second slice, a temporal layer of the second slice is required to be no greater than a temporal layer of the first slice (see Nien, paragraph 53).
Regarding claim 12, Nien Discloses: The method of claim 11, wherein an approach of deriving the further context initialization probability from the second slice is based on whether a QP difference between the first slice and the second slice is less than a threshold (see Nien, paragraph 104 and 176).
Regarding claim 13, Nien Discloses: The method of claim 11, wherein if the first slice derives the further context initialization probability from the second slice, the temporal layer of the second slice equals to the temporal layer of the first slice (see Nien, paragraph 84-85).
Regarding claim 14, Nien Discloses: The method of claim 1, wherein a block vector of the video unit is out of a reference region (see Nien, paragraph 92), and wherein the video unit is coded with an intra block copy (IBC) mode (see Nien, paragraph 88), and a value of the block vector is changed (see Nien, paragraph 101).
Regarding claim 15, Nien Discloses: The method of claim 14, wherein an operation is applied to the block vector candidate and to change the block vector to a valid block vector within the reference region (see Nien, paragraph 92-93), or
wherein a clipping operation is applied to the block vector to clip to the block vector within the reference region (see Nien, paragraph 92), or
wherein another block vector is used to replace the block vector (see Nien, paragraph 92-93).
Regarding claim 16, Nien Discloses: The method of claim 14, wherein the operation is based on a clipping process (see Nien, paragraph 92), or
wherein the operation is based on a scaling process, or
wherein the clipping operation clips nearest boundary of the reference region (see Nien, paragraph 92).
Regarding claim 17, Nien Discloses: The method of claim 1, wherein the conversion includes encoding the video unit into the bitstream (see Nien, Fig. 8), or
wherein the conversion includes decoding the video unit from the bitstream (see Nien, Fig. 2).
Regarding claim 18, 19, and 20, claims 18, 19, and 20 are drawn to an apparatus and computer readable medium having limitations similar to the methods claimed in claim 1 treated in the above rejections. Therefore, apparatus and CRM claims 18, 19, and 20 correspond to method claim 1 and are rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as used above. Furthermore, see Fig. 2 and 8, and paragraph 35 of Nien showing a decoding and an encoding module including a processor and memory capable of storing computer-readable instructions.
Conclusion
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/MARYAM A NASRI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2483