DETAILED ACTION
1. This communication is being filed in response to the submission having a mailing date of (10/30/2024) in which a (3) month Shortened Statutory Period for Response has been set.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
2. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Acknowledgements
3. Upon entry, claims (1 -12) appear pending for examination, of which (1, 7 and 12) being the three (3) parallel running independent claims on record.
Information Disclosure Statement
4. The Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) that was/were submitted on (11/04/2024; four (4) papers) are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97, being considered by the Examiner.
4.1. However, multiple entries from the cited above IDS have been discarded, for failure to cite the relevant pages in the publication associated with the case. Each of the submitted publications must comply with provisions of 37 CFR 1.98 in order evaluate the corresponded information listed in the IDS to be considered by the Office. Proper correction is required.
See also MPEP [37 CFR 1.98(b). Each publication must be identified by publisher, author (if any), title, relevant pages of the publication, and date and place of publication.]
Specifications
5. The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant's cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Drawings
6. The submitted Drawings on date (11/08/2024) have been accepted and considered under the 37 CFR 1.121 (d).
Claim rejection section
Double Patent
7. The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); and In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
7.1. A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the conflicting application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with this application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. Effective January 1, 1994, a registered attorney or agent of record may sign a terminal disclaimer. A terminal disclaimer signed by the assignee must fully comply with 37 CFR 3.73(b).
7.2. Individuals associated with the filing and prosecution of the instant patent application have a duty to disclose information within their knowledge as to other copending United States applications which are "material to patentability" of the application in question. See MPEP §2001.06(b) for more details.
7.3. Independent Claims (1 and 7) and the associated dependencies, in the instant Application 18/932,589, are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obvious-type double patenting as being unpatentable over the analogous independent claims of the parent Appls 18/207,134 (US 12,166,981 B2).
Instant Appl. 18/932,589
Reference. 18/207,134 (US 12,166,981 B2)
Claim 1. A method of decoding a video, the method comprising:
partitioning a picture into a plurality of tile columns;
partitioning the picture into a plurality of tile rows; and in response to a plurality of tiles is included in the picture, decoding, from a bitstream, slice type flag of 1-bit indicating one of a raster scan slice definition method and a rectangular slice definition method, wherein when the slice type flag indicates the rectangular slice definition method, the method further comprises:
determining, based on slice number information, a number of slices included in the picture; and in response to the number of slices being greater than 1, decoding width information and height information for slices in the picture, wherein the width information for a slice has a value subtracting 1 from a number of tile columns included in the slice, wherein the height information for the slice has a value subtracting 1 from a number of tile rows included in the slice, wherein whether to decode the width information of the slice from the bitstream or not is determined based on whether a tile located at top-left of the slice is included in rightmost one among the plurality of tile columns, and wherein when the tile located at top-left of the slice is included in the rightmost tile column, decoding the width information of the slice from the bitstream is omitted, and a value thereof is inferred to be 0.
Claim 7. A method of encoding a video, the method comprising: partitioning a picture into a plurality of tile columns; partitioning the picture into a plurality of tile rows; and in response to a plurality of tiles is included in the picture encoding, into a bitstream, slice type flag of 1-bit indicates one of a raster scan slice definition method and a rectangular slice definition method, wherein when the slice type flag indicates the rectangular slice definition method, the method further comprises: encoding, into the bitstream, slice number information specifying a number of slices included in the picture; and encoding width information and height information for slices in response to the number of slices being greater than 1, wherein the width information for a slice has a value subtracting 1 from a number of tile columns included in the slice, wherein the height information for the slice has a value subtracting 1 from a number of tile rows included in the slice, wherein whether to encode the width information of the slice into the bitstream or not is determined based on whether a tile located at top-left of the slice is included in rightmost one among the plurality of tile columns, and wherein when the tile located at top-left of the slice is included in the rightmost tile column, encoding the width information of the slice into the bitstream is omitted.
Claim 1. A method of decoding a video, the method comprising:
partitioning a picture into a plurality of tile columns;
partitioning the picture into a plurality of tile rows; and in response to a plurality of tiles is included in the picture, decoding, from a bitstream, slice type flag of 1-bit indicating one of a raster scan slice definition method and a rectangular slice definition method, wherein when the slice type flag indicates the rectangular slice definition method, the method further comprises:
determining, based on slice number information, a number of slices included in the picture; determining, based on width information of a slice, a number of tile columns included in the slice; and determining, based on height information of the slice, a number of tile rows included in the slice, wherein the width information has a value subtracting 1 from the number of tile columns included in the slice, wherein whether to decode the width information of the slice from the bitstream is determined based on whether a tile located at top-left of the slice is included in rightmost one among the plurality of tile columns, and wherein when the tile located at top-left of the slice is included in the rightmost tile column, decoding the width information of the slice from the bitstream is omitted, and a value thereof is inferred to be 0.
Claim 7. A method of encoding a video, the method comprising: partitioning a picture into a plurality of tile columns; partitioning the picture into a plurality of tile rows; and in response to a plurality of tiles is included in the picture encoding, into a bitstream, slice type flag of 1-bit indicates one of a raster scan slice definition method and a rectangular slice definition method, wherein when the slice type flag indicates the rectangular slice definition method, the method further comprises: encoding, into the bitstream, slice number information which specifying a number of slices included in the picture selectively encoding width information of a slice which is determined based on a number of tile columns included in the slice; and selectively encoding height information of the slice which is determined based on a number of tile rows included in the slice, wherein the width information has a value subtracting 1 from the number of tile columns included in the slice, wherein whether to encode the width information of the slice into the bitstream is determined based on whether a tile located at top-left of the slice is included in rightmost one among the plurality of tile columns, and wherein when the tile located at top-left of the slice is included in the rightmost tile column, encoding the width information of the slice into the bitstream is omitted.
7.4. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was made/filed, to combine the instant 18/932,589, with the above reference 18/207,134 (now US 12,166,981 B2), because although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other, the claim language uses similar scope of the invention, and/or a similar variation of the same claim language.
35 USC 102 rejection.
8. 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.
8.1. 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.
8.2. Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wang; et al. (US 9,584,819 B2; hereafter Wang).
Claim 12. Wang in details teaches a codec implementation and a computer readable storage media of the same, that may be any available media accessed by one or more computers or one or more processors to retrieve instructions, code or data structures for implementation of the techniques described in this disclosure.
More specifically, the implemented CRM is similarly able to determining a partitioning of a picture into a plurality of rectangular tiles, wherein each of the plurality of LCUs is within one of the plurality of rectangular tiles and each of the rectangular tiles comprises a respective subset of the plurality of the CUs; [Wang; Summary; Claim 1].
NOTES: Regarding Claim 12 above, to be given patentable weight, the recording medium and the datastream (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 recording 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”.
_ See MPEP §2111.05(III). The storage medium storing the claimed datastream in claim 12 merely services as a support for the storage of the datastream and provides no functional relationship between the stored bitstream and storage medium. Therefor the structure datastream, which scope is implied by the method steps, is non-functional descriptive material and given no patentable weight.
_ See MPEP §2111.05(III). Thus, the claim scope is just a storage medium storing data.
Claim Objection section
9. Claims (1 -11) are objected to, because of the judicially created Double patent doctrine, also being rejected in section (7) above, but it may be considered for allowance if properly rewritten, and/or if a Terminal Disclaimer (TD) is timely filed, in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d).
Prior Art Citations
10. The following List of prior art, made of record and not relied upon, is/are considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
10.1. Patent documentation:
US 9,584,819 B2 Wang; et al. H04N19/174; H04N19/70; H04N19/17;
US 11,184,611 B2 Lee; et al. H04N19/119; H04N19/46; H04N19/51;
US 11,722,665 B2 Lee; et al. H04N19/174; H04N19/46; H04N19/119;
US 12,166,981 B2 Lee; et al. H04N19/174; H04N19/105; H04N19/119;
US 12,003,718 B2 Sjoberg; et al. H04N19/70; H04N19/119; H04N19/174;
10.2. Non-Patent documentation:
_ Tile groups; Wang – 2011,
_ Bitstream restriction flag to enable Tile split; 2012,
_ Uniform tile partitioning; Sjoberg – 2019,
CONCLUSIONS
11. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from Examiner should be directed to LUIS PEREZ-FUENTES (luis.perez-fuentes@uspto.gov) whose telephone number is (571) 270 -1168. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 8am-5pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, WILLIAM VAUGHN can be reached on (571) 272-3922. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 272 -1168. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, please call (800)786-9199 (USA/CANADA) or (571)272 -1000.
/LUIS PEREZ-FUENTES/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2481.