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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, filed May 14, 2026, with respect to the rejection of claims 1-3 under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Specifically, the examiner agrees that neither Deng, US 2024/0137571 A1, nor Ikai, US 2012/0281749 A1, discloses or makes obvious the specific set of cross-filter coefficients now claimed. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground of rejection is made in view of the newly found prior art, Zhang, US 2024/0064298 A1.
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.
Claims 1-2, and 5-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Deng, US 2024/0137571 A1, in view of Ikai, US 2012/0281749 A1, in further view of Zhang, US 2024/0064298 A1.
Regarding claim 1, Deng discloses: a device comprising one or more processors configured to:
parse a syntax element specifying a number of cross-component filters for a chroma component signaled in a current filter data syntax structure (See [0096], where Deng discloses: “alf_cc_cb_filters_signalled_minusl plus 1 specifies the number of cross-component filters for the Cb colour component signalled in the current ALF APS. The value of alf_cc_cb_filters_signalled_minusl shall be in the range of 0 to 3, inclusive.” See also draft VVC excerpt in [0092].); and
Deng does not disclose: parse a continuous bit string and calculate filter coefficient values for filter coefficients for each of the number of cross-component filters by applying a Huffman decoding process.
However, Ikai discloses in an analogous art directed to filter entropy coding, that a filter coefficient encoding section can use Huffman coding. See [0209], which discloses applying Huffman decoding at a filter coefficient decoding section 2352 in figure 14.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the Applicant’s effective filing date to incorporate Huffman coding for the filter coefficient entropy coding of the cross-component filters, as disclosed in Ikai. While Deng, only discloses performing entropy coding in general, Huffman coding was known in the video coding art as a type of lossless variable-length entropy coding, and one of ordinary skill in the art could have applied Huffman coding to a cross-component filter of the kind disclosed in Deng, with Deng performing the same function of cross-component filter signaling, and with predictable results for one of ordinary skill in the art. MPEP 2143.I.(A).
The combination of Deng in view of Ikai does not disclose: wherein applying a Huffman decoding process includes determining whether a filter coefficient value is one of {-64, -32, -16, -8, -4, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64} based on an assigned value according to a Huffman tree.
However, this limitation is made obvious by the teaching of Zhang, which discloses in [0075] a cross-component filter adaptive loop filter whose coefficient absolute values are restricted to powers of 2.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the time of the applicant’s effective filing date to incorporate the limitation, found in Zhang, of limiting the filter coefficients in the cross-component filter disclosed in Deng in view of Ikai to be powers of 2, in order to reduce computational complexity by permitting a shift operation to be used instead of a multiplication operation to adjust filter coefficients. See Zhang [0075].
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Chen in view of Ikai, in view of Zhang, discloses the limitations of claim 1, upon which depends claim 2. This combination, specifically Chen, further discloses: the device of claim 1, wherein the device includes a video decoder (See [0370] and figure 4, “Video decoder 124 may decode the encoded video data.).
Device claims 5 and 6 are rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as given above for device claims 1 and 2, respectively.
Non-transitory computer-readable storage medium claim 7 is directed to a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions stored thereon that, when executed, cause one or more processors of a device to perform steps analogous to those performed by device claim 1. Therefore, non-transitory computer-readable storage medium claim 7 corresponds to device claim 1 and is rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as given above with respect to claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 4 is 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter. The prior art does not disclose or suggest, “the device of claim 1, wherein a length of a bit string for each respective coefficient is as follows {8, 8, 6, 5, 4, 4, 3, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7}” The closest prior art, Zhang, US 2024/0064298 A1, discloses filter coefficient values of {-64, -32, -16, -8, -4, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64}, as claimed in claim 1, while Ikai, discloses in an analogous art directed to filter entropy coding, that a filter coefficient encoding section can use Huffman coding. See [0209], which discloses applying Huffman decoding at a filter coefficient decoding section 2352 in figure 14. However, none of the prior art discloses or makes obvious the particular set of Huffman coding bit code lengths for the respective filter coefficients claimed in claim 4.
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 KYLE M LOTFI whose telephone number is (571)272-8762. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00-5:00.
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, Brian Pendleton can be reached at 571-272-7527. 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.
/KYLE M LOTFI/Examiner, Art Unit 2425
Prosecution Insights