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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 11/05/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 9, 13, 14, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Us patent application publication no. 2022/0189387 to Yu et al. (hereinafter Yu) in view of us patent application publication no. 2015/0279325 to Lu et al. (hereinafter Lu).
For claims 1, 13 and 20, Yu as applied teaches a method (see, e.g., FIG. 2), comprising:
upsampling a first image to form an upsampled image (see, e.g., pars. 23, 25-28 and 32 and FIGS. 1, 2, 3A, 3B, and 4, which teach upsampling a decompressed Demura table to form an upsample Demura table); and
adjusting the upsampled image, based on a set of parameters, to form an output image (see, e.g., pars. 34 and FIGS. 4, 5B, which teach inverse-reordering the upsampled Demura table to form the reconstructed Demura table based on the reorder information), the set of parameters having a total size, in bits, smaller than a total size of the upsampled image.
While Yu as applied does not explicitly teach, Lu in the analogous art teaches a set of parameters having a total size, in bits, smaller than a total size of the upsampled image (see, e.g., pars. 11 and 56-63 and FIGS. 5-8 of Lu, which teach compressing the pre-processed compensation parameters into a sequence of bits, e.g., bitstream, whose number of bits is less than a total number of bits of the compensation parameters; the examiner notes that the compensation parameters corresponds to subpixels of the upsampled image).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yu to compress its parameters as taught by Lu because doing so would reduce the memory size requirements of the display panels, which would in turn reduce manufacturing costs (see pars. 43-47 of Lu).
With respect to claims 13 and 20, Yu as applied teaches an image processing device that is implemented as integrated circuit and connected to a memory device and a display panel (see, e.g., pars. 22-24, 32, 42-43 and FIGS. 1, 2, 4 and 8 of Yu).
For claims 2 and 14, Yu in view of Lu teaches decoding a second image to form the first image (see, e.g., pars. 23, and 41 and FIGS. 1, 2 and 7 of Yu, which teach performing decompression on a compressed Demura table to form the decompressed Demura table).
For claim 9, Yu in view of Lu teaches that the output image is an image of mura compensation values (see, e.g., pars. 25, 28, 32, and 38-39 and FIGS. 1, 4 and 6B of Yu, which teach outputting the reconstructed Demura table).
Claim(s) 3, 4, 15, and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yu in view of Lu and further in view of Us patent application publication no. 2021/0134221 to Berget et al. (hereinafter Berget).
For claims 3 and 15, Yu in view of Lu teaches that the adjusting comprises calculating a value of a first subpixel of the output image as a polynomial of values of a set of subpixels of the upsampled image (see, e.g., pars. 28-29 and 38-39 and FIGS. 3B and 6B of Yu, which teach calculating a value of a subpixel using a neighboring subpixel and an imputation technique).
Yu in view of Lu does not explicitly teaching a polynomial having coefficients based on the parameters. In the analogous art, Berget teaches correcting the image data using a polynomial of correction coefficients and the decompressed parameters (see, e.g., pars. 116-117, 121-122 and 133-134 of Berget).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yu in view of Lu to use a polynomial for calculation as taught by Berget because doing so would constitute applying a known technique to a known calculation method to yield predictable results of obtaining the corrected subpixel value (see MPEP 2443(I)(D)).
For claims 4 and 16, Yu in view of Lu and Berget teaches that the subpixels of the upsampled image are subpixels of a neighborhood of the first subpixel (see, e.g., pars. 28-29 and 38-39 and FIGS. 3B and 6B of Yu, which teach calculating a value of a subpixel based on a neighboring subpixel).
Claim(s) 5, 6, 17, and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yu in view of Lu and Berget and further in view of Us patent application publication no. 2024/0428374 to Sundareson et al. (hereinafter Sundareson).
For claims 5 and 17, while Yu in view of Lu and Berget does not explicitly teach, Sundareson in the analogous art teaches that the neighborhood is a square neighborhood centered on the first subpixel (see, e.g., pars. 30-34 and FIGS. 2A-D of Sundareson).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yu in view of Lu and Berget to use a square neighborhood as taught by Sundareson because doing so would generate a smoother high resolution image (see par. 30 of Sundareson).
For claims 6 and 18, while Yu in view of Lu and Berget does not explicitly teach, Sundareson in the analogous art teaches that the square neighborhood has dimensions of 3x3 (see, e.g., pars. 30-34 and FIGS. 2A-D of Sundareson).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yu in view of Lu and Berget to use a square neighborhood as taught by Sundareson because doing so would generate a smoother high resolution image (see par. 30 of Sundareson).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, and 19 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.
In regard to claims 7 and 19, when considered as a whole, prior art of record fails to disclose or render obvious, alone or in combination:
“the polynomial is a constant plus a weighted sum of the values of the set of subpixels.”
In regard to claim 8, it depends on objected claim 7. Therefore, by virtue of its dependency, claim 8 is also indicated as objected subject matter.
In regard to claim 10, when considered as a whole, prior art of record fails to disclose or render obvious, alone or in combination:
“determining a mura image;
downsampling the mura image to form a third image;
upsampling a fourth image, the fourth image being based on the third image;
calculating a discrepancy between the fourth image and the mura image; and
calculating the parameters based on the discrepancy.”
In regard to claims 11 and 12, each depends on objected claim 10. Therefore, by virtue of their dependencies, claims 11 and 12 are also indicated as objected subject matter.
Additional Citations
The following table lists several references that are relevant to the subject matter claimed and disclosed in this Application. The references are not relied on by the Examiner, but are provided to assist the Applicant in responding to this Office action.
Citation
Relevance
Luo et al. (us pat. pub. 2018/0047368)
Describes a display mura correction method, an apparatus, and a system. In one embodiment, the display mura correction method includes: obtaining initial image data of an initial image displayed on a display of a terminal, where the initial image data includes image data of a mura region corresponding to the initial image, when at least one pixel whose brightness value is not in a reference threshold set exists in the initial image data, the mura region is a region that is covered by the at least one pixel on the display, and a target feature data set of the mura region includes a set of target feature data of the at least one pixel; obtaining, according to a correspondence between feature data and a correction value and the target feature data of the at least one pixel, a target correction value set corresponding to the target feature data set; and writing the target correction value set into the terminal.
Tian et al. (us pat. pub. 2015/0348458)
Describes a method for compensating pixel luminance of a display panel. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving pixel parameters corresponding to sub-pixels of the display panel, receiving an input image, adjusting the input image according to the pixel parameters, and displaying the adjusted input image at the display panel. The pixel parameters include a first pixel parameter of a base luminance level of a base color channel, a first residual determined from performing inter-channel prediction, a second residual determined from performing inter-level prediction, and parameters used in the performing of the inter-level prediction.
Jacobson et al. (us pat. pub. 2024/0013713)
Describes methods and devices for display processing including an apparatus, e.g., a DPU. In one embodiment, the apparatus may receive a plurality of panel measurements for a display panel, each of the plurality of panel measurements associated with a plurality of subpixels in the display panel. The apparatus may also determine, upon receiving the plurality of panel measurements, at least one offset for one or more subpixels of the plurality of subpixels associated with each of the plurality of panel measurements. The apparatus may also store, upon determining the at least one offset for the one or more subpixels, the at least one offset for the one or more subpixels associated with each of the plurality of panel measurements.
Table 1
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See Table 1 and form 892.
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/WOO C RHIM/Examiner, Art Unit 2676
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