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 . 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. There are a total of 8 claims and claims 1-8 are pending.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 10/17/2024, 03/06/2025, 05/19/2025 and 05/19/2025 is 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 under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d) which papers have been placed of record in the file.
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.
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.
Claims 1-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rodriguez et al. (US 2007/0009048 A1) in view of Xu et al.( US 2022/0400293 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Rodriguez discloses a method comprising, for at least one block of at least one image of a video([abstract]-methods for signaling chroma information for a picture in compressed video stream): encoding the block and corresponding signaling information, the signaling information([abstract]-methods for signaling chroma information for a picture in compressed video stream) comprising at least an information representative of a presence of chroma offset values for a deblocking filter inserted in a picture parameter set, wherein([para 0108]-the video compression stream can serve as vehicle to carry the Chroma information or the minimum sufficient information required to signal to the decompression engine that is required to implement an optimized chroma up conversion operation, such as a particular chroma offset):
However, Rodriguez does not explicitly discloses when chroma is present, the information representative of the presence of chroma offset values is set to a first value and the signaling information further comprises information representative of the chroma offset values for a deblocking filter; and when chroma is not present, the information representative of the presence of chroma offset values is set to a second value and no information representative of chroma offset values for a deblocking filter is further signaled.
In an analogous art, Xu disclose when chroma is present, the information representative of the presence of chroma offset values is set to a first value and the signaling information further comprises information representative of the chroma offset values for a deblocking filter([0174]- Whether to signal/parse the chroma deblocking offsets at slice level and/or higher level (i.e., region size is larger than a slice) (e.g., in PPS or picture header) may depend on the colour format and/or separate plane coding enabling flag and/or ChromaArrayType and/or a flag that indicates whether chroma deblocking offsets are present and/or a flag that indicates whether chroma deblocking offsets or some other chroma tool parameters are present); and when chroma is not present, the information representative of the presence of chroma offset values is set to a second value and no information representative of chroma offset values for a deblocking filter is further signaled([0175]- signalling/parsing of chroma deblocking offsets at slice level and/or higher level (i.e., region size is larger than a slice) may be always skipped when ChromaArrayType is equal to 0 or colour format is 4:0:0 or separate plane coding is applied or a flag indicating that chroma deblocking offsets are not present; see also [0176-0177]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide the technique of Xu to the modified system of Rodriguez performing a conversion between a block of a video and a bitstream of the video according to a rule that specifies that whether a syntax element identifying a deblocking offset for a chroma component of the video is included in a video region level is determined based on a colour format of the video that improves the worst case hardware processing [Xu, abstract].
Regarding claim 2, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 1. Hence; all limitations for claim 2 have been met in method claim 1.
Regarding claim 3, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 1. Hence; all limitations for apparatus claim 3 have been met in method claim 1.
Regarding claim 4, Xu discloses wherein the apparatus is a mobile device, a communication device, a game device, a tablet, a tablet computer, a computer device, a still image camera, a video camera, an encoding chip, a still image server, a video server, a broadcast server, a video-on-demand server, or a web server.
Regarding claim 5, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 1. Hence; all limitations for method claim 5 have been met in method claim 1.
Regarding claim 6, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 1. Hence; all limitations for claim 6 have been met in method claim 1.
Regarding claim 7, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 1. Hence; all limitations for apparatus claim 7 have been met in method claim 1.
Regarding claim 8, Xu discloses wherein the apparatus is a mobile device, a communication device, a game device, a set top box, a TV set, a television, a tablet, a tablet computer, a computer device, a laptop, a display, a head-mounted display, or a decoding chip([0249]- mobile phones, laptops, smartphones or other devices that are capable of performing digital data processing and/or video display).
Citation of Pertinent Prior Art
The prior art are made of record and not relied upon but considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure:
1. Baird et al., US 2013/0272431 A1, discloses methods for signaling chroma information for a picture in a compressed video stream.
2. LIM et. al., US 2021/0368172 A1, discloses method and apparatus for encoding/decoding an image using various block splitting structures to improve image encoding/decoding efficiency.
3. Guo et al., US 2013/0266074 A1, discloses techniques for signaling the presence of significant coefficient blocks.
4. CHONO, US. 2017/0318293 A1, discloses a video coding device and a video decoding device using an adaptive color transform in residual domain and a chroma (color difference) quantization offset.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MD NAZMUL HAQUE whose telephone number is (571)272-5328. The examiner can normally be reached IFW.
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/MD N HAQUE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487
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