DETAILED ACTION
1. This office action is in response to U.S. Patent Application No.: 18/923,665 filed on 10/22/2024
with effective filing date 6/25/2018. Claims 1-10 are pending.
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.
Claim(s) 1-5 & 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee US 2019/0238835 A1 in view of Sato US 2014/0376631 A1.
Per claims 1, 9 & 10, Lee discloses an image decoding method performed by an image decoding apparatus, comprising: determining a reference pixel line of a current block from a set of reference pixel line candidates (para: 94, e.g. the intra prediction module 235 may include an adaptive intra smoothing (AIS) filter, a reference pixel interpolation module, and a DC filter; the AIS filter performs filtering on the reference pixel of the current block; determining an intra prediction mode of the current block from a set of intra prediction mode candidates (para: 102 & 109, e.g. a current block may represent a target block to be encoded/decoded; the coding block may be a unit performing intra/inter prediction, transform, and quantization; a prediction mode (e.g., intra prediction mode or inter prediction mode) is determined in units of a coding block).
Lee fails to explicitly disclose the remaining claim limitation.
Sato however in the same field of endeavor teaches and predicting the current block based on the intra prediction mode and the reference pixel line of the current block (para: 115, e.g. the intra prediction unit 74 performs filtering professing on neighboring pixels which are pixels used for intra prediction of each current block, and neighboring the current block with a predetermined positional relation. This filtering processing uses a filter coefficient set by a neighboring pixel interpolation filter switching unit 75).
Therefore, in view of disclosures by Sato, 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 Lee and Sato in order to improve the bit rate of image and predictive efficiency.
Per claim 2, Lee further teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the set of reference pixel line candidates includes a first reference pixel line, a second reference pixel line, and a third reference pixel line, the first reference pixel line being immediately adjacent to the left or top of the current block, the second reference pixel line being adjacent to the left or top of the first reference pixel line, and the third reference pixel line being adjacent to the left or top of the second reference pixel line (para: 66, & 204 e.g. when the size of the prediction unit is the same as the size of the transform unit, intra prediction may be performed on the prediction unit based on pixels positioned at the left, the top left, and the top of the prediction unit; a reference sample set for a current block may be referred to as a ‘reference line’ (or ‘intra-reference line’ or ‘reference sample line’)).
Per claim 3, Lee further teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the reference pixel line of the current block is determined based on reference pixel line information indicating the reference pixel line from the set of reference pixel line candidates (para: 64 & 230, e.g. if a position of a reference sample is outside a picture or in a slice different from a current block when intra prediction is performed using an extended reference line or if a reference sample is included in a block encoded by inter prediction when intra prediction is performed using an extended reference line).
Per claim 4, Lee further teaches the method of claim 1, when the current block is a luma block, wherein the intra prediction mode of the current block is determined from a set of intra prediction mode candidates based on intra prediction information (para: 65, e.g. a mode for predicting luma information may be different from a mode for predicting chroma information, and in order to predict the chroma information, intra prediction mode information used to predict luma information or predicted luma signal information may be utilized).
Per claim 5, Lee further teaches the method of claim 4, wherein the set of intra prediction mode candidates includes at least one priority assignment mode and most probable modes (MPMs), and wherein the priority assignment mode is one of a planar mode, a DC mode, a vertical mode and a horizontal mode (para: 138, e.g. the pre-defined intra prediction modes for intra prediction may include non-directional prediction modes (e.g., a planar mode, a DC mode) and 33 directional prediction modes).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-8 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
5. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Li et al. US 2019/0141318 A1, e.g. intra-picture prediction for a current block uses a non-adjacent reference line of sample values to predict the sample values of the current block.
Kwak et al. US 2016/0080745 A1, e.g. a method for performing an intra prediction according to the present invention may comprise the steps of: generating predicted pixels by performing interpolation using N reference pixels including two adjacent reference pixels according to an intra prediction direction.
Lee US 2020/0077086 A1, e.g. the image decoding method according to the present invention comprises the steps of determining an intra prediction mode of a current block, dividing the
current block into a plurality of sub blocks.
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/Irfan Habib/Examiner, Art Unit 2485