DETAILED ACTION
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 .
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.
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 of this title, 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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Schwartz et al. (US 2013/0156098) in view of Gemini et al. (US 2025/0030936).
Regarding claim 1, Schwartz discloses a video processing method (see 10 in fig. 1), comprising: determining a scene change type of a first video frame sequence acquired by an acquisition module in a previous acquisition (see 12 in fig. 1; see 30 in fig. 2); determining a frame rate of a current acquisition (see 44 in fig. 3; e.g. see ¶ [0076]) according to the scene change type of the first video frame sequence (see 34 in fig. 2, e.g. see ¶ [0030]) and a frame rate of the previous acquisition (see 12 into 14 in fig. 1); controlling an acquisition module to acquire a second video frame sequence according to the frame rate of the current acquisition (see 54 in fig. 3; e.g. see ¶ [0076]); encoding the second video frame sequence to obtain an encoding result (see 14 in fig. 1); and transmitting the encoding result to a target device (see 20 in fig. 1).
Although Schwartz discloses the acquisition module, it is noted that Schwartz does not disclose wherein the acquisition module is a camera.
However, Gemini discloses a frame rate control method (see 920-930 in fig. 9) wherein the module is a camera (see 910 in fig. 9).
Given the teachings as a whole, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to incorporate Gemini teachings of variable acquisition frame rate as an added feature into Schwartz variable compression rate for the benefit to further reduce encoded transmission bitrate.
Regarding claims 2, 13 and 18, Schwartz further discloses wherein the determining a scene change type of a first video frame sequence of a previous acquisition comprises: determining a scene change feature between two adjacent video frames in the first video frame sequence (see 30 in fig. 2; e.g. see ¶ [0045]); determining a distribution of the scene change feature in value intervals corresponding to a plurality of scene change types (see 38 in fig. 2); and determining the scene change type of the first video frame sequence according to the distribution of the scene change feature in the value intervals corresponding to the plurality of scene change types (e.g. see ¶ [0033]).
Regarding claims 3, 14 and 19, Schwartz further discloses wherein the determining a scene change feature between two adjacent video frames in the first video frame sequence comprises: obtaining a complexity of each video frame in the first video frame sequence (see 28 in fig. 2); and determining the scene change feature between the two adjacent video frames according to the complexities of the two adjacent video frames in the first video frame sequence (see 30 in fig. 2; ).
Regarding 4, 15 and 20, Schwartz further discloses wherein the determining the scene change feature between the two adjacent video frames according to the complexities of the two adjacent video frames in the first video frame sequence comprises: taking a ratio of the complexity of a latter of the two adjacent video frames to the complexity of a former of the two adjacent video frames as the scene change feature between the two adjacent video frames (e.g. see ¶ [0045]-[0046]).
Regarding claim 5, Schwartz does not provide the detail wherein the complexity of each video frame is a sum of absolute difference of each video frame.
Although it is not explicitly recited, it is conventional in the art for determining complexity of a video frame by using a sum of absolute difference of video frames. The Examiner takes official notice that determining complexity of a video frame by using a sum of absolute difference of video frames is well known in the art. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to incorporate the well-known technique of determining complexity of a video frame by using a sum of absolute difference of video frames into Schwartz frame complexity determination for the benefit of reducing processing by utilizing well-known practices.
Regarding claim 6, Schwartz further discloses wherein the plurality of scene change types are N scene change types, N being an integer greater than 1 (e.g. see ¶ [0007]), and the determining the scene change type of the first video frame sequence according to the distribution of the scene change feature in the value intervals corresponding to the plurality of scene change types comprises: under a condition that a ratio (e.g. see set off prior and set of current/next pictures in ¶ [0045]) of the number of scene change features located in a value interval corresponding to an i-th scene change type to a total number of frames of the first video frame sequence is greater than a number ratio threshold (e.g. see ¶ [0046]), determining that the first video frame sequence is of the i-th scene change type, where i is an integer greater than or equal to 1 and less than N (e.g. see ¶ [0045]-[0046]), although not clearly shown, it is obvious that scene change detection would classify the complexity as low or high based on ¶ [0007]).
Regarding claim 7, Schwartz further discloses wherein the number ratio threshold is greater than or equal to 0.5 and less than 1 (e.g. see ¶ [0046]).
Regarding claim 8, Schwartz further discloses wherein the scene change type of the first video frame sequence is a first scene change type, a second scene change type, or a third scene change type (e.g. see ¶ [0071]), and the determining a frame rate of a current acquisition according to the scene change type of the first video frame sequence and a frame rate of the previous acquisition comprises: under a condition that the first video frame sequence is of the first scene change type, increasing the frame rate of the previous acquisition to obtain the frame rate of the current acquisition (e.g. see ¶ [0070]); under a condition that the first video frame sequence is of the second scene change type, decreasing the frame rate of the previous acquisition to obtain the frame rate of the current acquisition (see 54 in fig. 3; e.g. see ¶ [0070]); and under a condition that the first video frame sequence is of the third scene change type, taking the frame rate of the previous acquisition as the frame rate of the current acquisition (see 54 in fig. 3; e.g. see ¶ [0070]-[0071], although only two are shown, one of ordinary skill in the art would have no difficulty in implementing the same process for three types of scene change).
Regarding claims 9 and 16, Schwartz further discloses wherein the controlling an acquisition module to acquire a second video frame sequence according to the frame rate of the current acquisition is performed under a condition that the frame rate of the current acquisition is less than or equal to an acquisition frame rate threshold (56 in fig. 3, wherein it is implied that the condition “if” is not met means no previous frame rate is utilized thus, current frame rate is utilized).
Regarding claim 10, Schwartz further discloses comprising: under a condition that the frame rate of the current acquisition is greater than the acquisition frame rate threshold, controlling the acquisition module to acquire the second video frame sequence according to the frame rate of the previous acquisition (e.g. see adjusting target in ¶ [0070]-[0071]).
Regarding claim 11, Schwartz does not disclose wherein the video processing method is applied to a screen sharing scene in a video conference.
Although it is not explicitly recited, it is conventional in the art for utilizing video compression in sharing scene in a video conference. The Examiner takes official notice that utilizing video compression scheme in sharing scene in a video conference is well known in the art. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to utilizing video compression scheme in sharing scene in a video conference for the benefit of enabling remote communication.
Regarding claim 12, the claim(s) recite an apparatus with analogous limitations to claim 1, and is/are therefore rejected on the same premise.
Regarding claim 17, the claim(s) recite a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having thereon stored computer program instructions (e.g. see ¶ [0078]) with analogous limitations to claim 1, and is/are therefore rejected on the same premise.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to claims 1, 12 and 17 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
Citation of Pertinent Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
1. Pitts et al. (US 2017/0134639), discloses video encoding with scene analysis and types.
2. Fuerrero et al. (US 2017/0099485), discloses encoding of video stream based on scene type.
3. Van Veldhuisen et al. (US 2014/0112384), discloses coding with bitrate using scene change.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RICHARD T TORRENTE whose telephone number is (571)270-3702. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 6:45-3:15 pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jay Patel can be reached at (571) 272-2988. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/RICHARD T TORRENTE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2485
Prosecution Insights