DETAILED ACTION
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see application, filed 08/10/2026, with respect to the 112 rejections have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 112 rejections have been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1 and 6-8 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 08/10/2026 has been entered.
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 and 7-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Choi et al. (herein after will be referred to as Choi) (US 20220417517) in view of Deng et al. (herein after will be referred to as Deng) (US 20220030257) and in further view of Zhang et al. (herein after will be referred to as Zhang) (US 20190045184).
Regarding claim 1, Choi discloses
a method of decoding an image, the method comprising: [See Choi [Fig. 3]]
determining, based on a cross-component prediction mode flag, whether a cross-component prediction mode is applied to the current chroma block or not; in response to the cross-component prediction mode being applied to the current chroma block, obtaining prediction parameters of the current chroma block; and [See Choi [0742] cclm_mode_flag. Also, see 0011, deriving an intra prediction mode as CCLM mode based on the prediction mode information.]
obtaining a first prediction block of the current chroma block based on a corresponding luma block and the prediction parameters of the current chroma block, [See Choi [0011] Generating prediction samples for the current chroma block based on the CCLM parameter and the luma samples.]
Choi does not explicitly disclose
determining a partitioning structure of a current chroma block;
wherein cross-component prediction mode is available to the current chroma block only when the partitioning structure of the current chroma block is the same as the corresponding luma structure,
wherein a second prediction block for the current chroma block is obtained based on prediction information used to predict the corresponding luma block, and
wherein a final prediction block of the current chroma block is obtained based on a weighted sum of the first prediction block and the second prediction block.
However, Deng does disclose
determining a partitioning structure of a current chroma block; [See Deng [0034] Chroma partitioning tree.]
wherein cross-component prediction mode is available to the current chroma block only when the partitioning structure of the current chroma block is the same as the corresponding luma structure, [See Deng [0345] CCLM is restricted by block dimensions and/or partition information and/or partition structure type (i.e. single tree). Also, see 0340, CCLM is only applied when the corresponding luma block of the current chroma block covers all the samples of the corresponding block (i.e. same partitioning).]
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date to modify the method by Choi to add the teachings of Deng, in order to tackle the problems associated with CCLM via restriction of cross-component dependency in CCLM and other coding tools that rely on information from a different color component [See Deng [0180]].
Choi (modified by Deng) do not explicitly disclose
wherein a second prediction block for the current chroma block is obtained based on prediction information used to predict the corresponding luma block, and
wherein a final prediction block of the current chroma block is obtained based on a weighted sum of the first prediction block and the second prediction block.
However, Zhang does disclose
wherein a second prediction block for the current chroma block is obtained based on prediction information used to predict the corresponding luma block, and [See Zhang [0017-0018] Multi-phase LM modes consisting of two different LM modes. Alternatively, see [0016], first mode corresponds to LM and second mode corresponds to a mode used by a current luma block.]
wherein a final prediction block of the current chroma block is obtained based on a weighted sum of the first prediction block and the second prediction block. [See Zhang [Fig. 10] Fusion mode prediction by weighted summation of Mode L prediction and Mode K prediction. Also, see 0017, this is performed for chroma.]
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date to modify the method by Choi (modified by Deng) to add the teachings of Zhang, in order to improve upon coding performance via obvious weighted prediction techniques.
Regarding claim 7, see examiners rejection for claim 1 which is analogous and applicable for the rejection of claim 7.
Regarding claim 8, see examiners rejection for claim 1 which is analogous and applicable for the rejection of claim 8.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Choi (US 20220417517) in view of Deng (US 20220030257) in view of Zhang (US 20190045184) and in further view of Lee et al. (herein after will be referred to as Lee) (US 20210281838).
Regarding claim 6, Choi (modified by Deng, Zhan) disclose the method of claim 1. Furthermore, Choi does not explicitly disclose
wherein the prediction information of the corresponding luma block is a most frequent intra prediction mode among intra prediction modes of the plurality of neighboring samples.
However, Lee does disclose
wherein the intra prediction mode of the corresponding luma block is derived as the most frequent intra prediction mode among the intra prediction modes of the plurality of neighboring samples. [See Lee [0275] Predetermined mode is a mode with highest frequence of occurrence.]
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date to modify the method by Choi (modified by Deng and Zhang) to add the teachings of Lee, in order to improve upon color component prediction [See Lee [0010]].
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAMES T BOYLAN whose telephone number is (571)272-8242. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 7am-3pm.
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/JAMES T BOYLAN/Examiner, Art Unit 2486
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