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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 06/13/2025, 08/01/2025, and 03/17/2026 were filed after the mailing date of the application. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claims 6, 14, and 18 are objected to because of the following informalities: Claim 6 recites the light. There is no antecedent basis for this limitation. Appropriate correction is required.
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, 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-2, 4-8, 10, 12-16. 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Goodall et al. (US. Patent App. Pub. No. 20220092730, “Goodall”, hereinafter) in view of Yao et al. (“An Analysis of the Blue Noise Mask Based on a Human Visual Model” retrieved from SPIE Digital Library, February, 1996, https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/conference-proceedings-of-spie/2727/0000/Quantitative-analysis-of-blue-noise-mask-generation/10.1117/12.233304.short. “Yao”, hereinafter).
As per claim 1, Goodall teaches computer-implemented method comprising:
obtaining a plurality of pixels by performing an importance sampling operation using values associated with a set of pixels (¶ [24]);
generating a blue noise mask (¶ [3]) by at least swapping at least one first pixel of the plurality of pixels and at least one second pixel of the plurality of pixels (addressed below with reference to Yao. However, Goodall does teach as shown in Fig. 7, ¶ [43], that the sampling locations (for pixels) can be transformed to new locations for generating blue noise mask described at ¶ [21-22]); and
rendering an image using the blue noise mask (¶ [21-22], for reconstructing images/video).
Goodall does not expressly teach generating a blue noise mask by at least swapping at least one first pixel of the plurality of pixels and at least one second pixel of the plurality of pixels.
However, in a very similar method of generating blue noise mask, Yao teaches this feature, i.e., generating a blue noise mask by at least swapping at least one first pixel of the plurality of pixels and at least one second pixel of the plurality of pixels (see page 1, section Introduction, bottom paragraph, i.e., swapping clumps of white and black pixels for generating blue noise mask. See also page 2, section Swapping Multiple Dots).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply the method as taught by Yao to the method as taught by Goodall as addressed above, the advantage of which is to minimize the perceived error of a binary pattern based on the human visual model, resulting in visually pleasing patterns (page 3, section Conclusion).
As per claim 2, the combined teachings of Goodall and Yao also include displaying the image (Goodall, ¶ [51]).
As per claim 4, the combined Goodall-Yao does teach wherein the importance sampling operation is performed using one or more random values produced using a probably density function (as best understood and interpreted as the random distribution of sampling points taught by Goodall, ¶ [23]).
As per claim 5, the combined Goodall-Yao impliedly teaches generating the values associated with the set of pixels based at least in part on a quantities of light reflected by the set of pixels (at best understood by the examiner. See Goodall, ¶ [24], i.e., generating the appearance of the pixels based on the optical flow (which is the movement of pixel brightness in an image)).
As per claim 6 (see claim objection above), the combined Goodall-Yao does also impliedly teach wherein the light is reflected by the set of pixels toward a virtual camera (as addressed in claim 5, referring to Fig. 1 and 7, i.e., using the optical flow (interpreted as light reflected by the pixels) to generate sampled image 106 for reconstructing image for the virtual camera view shown in Fig. 7, ¶ [43] of Goodall).
As per claim 7, the combined Goodall-Yao impliedly teaches improving the blue noise mask by swapping first and second pixels of at least one pair of pixels of the plurality of pixels (Yao, see page 2, section Swapping Multiple Dots, and page 3, section Conclusion). Thus, claim 7 would have been obvious over the combined references for the reason above.
As per claim 8, the combined Goodall-Yao does also impliedly teach wherein swapping the at least one first pixel and the at least one second pixel comprises performing a pre-defined number of swaps (see Yao, page 1-2, section Changing One Black Pixel to a White Pixel, i.e., depending on the size of the blue noise mask (BNM), the number of pixels to be swapped is also changed accordingly). Thus, claim 8 would have been obvious over the combined references for the reason above.
Claim 10, which is similar in scope to claim 1 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 12, which is similar in scope to claim 7 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 13, which is similar in scope to claim 4 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 14, which is similar in scope to claim 6 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 15, which is similar in scope to claim 1 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
(Notes: The image texture is interpreted as image color and pattern described at ¶ [28] of Goodall, “For example, if one part of an image is a person's solid black shirt, then the scaling factor of the three-dimensional mask would be reduced for that part of the image, but if another part of the image contains a complex pattern, then the scaling factor of the three-dimensional mask may be increased”).
Claim 16, which is similar in scope to claim 4 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 18, which is similar in scope to claim 6 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 19, which is similar in scope to claim 8 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 20, which is similar in scope to claim 7 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 3, 11 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Goodall et al. (US. Patent App. Pub. No. 20220092730, “Goodall”, hereinafter) in view of Yao et al. (“An Analysis of the Blue Noise Mask Based on a Human Visual Model”) further in view of Xu et al. (US. Patent App. Pub. No. 2016/0063705, “Xu”).
As per claim 3, the combined Goodall-Yao does teach wherein swapping the at least one first pixel and the at least one second pixel comprises:
repeating swapping first and second pixels of at least one pair of pixels of the plurality of pixels (see Yao, section Introduction on page 1, last paragraph).
The combined Goodall-Yao does not explicitly teach computing an energy value for the plurality of pixels until the energy value has a desired energy value.
However, Xu teach a method for computing an energy value for the plurality of pixels until the energy value has a desired energy value (Fig. 9, ¶ [96-97], calculating the energy map of neighboring pixels for a minimum cumulative energy level).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply the method of computing energy for the pixels as taught by Xu and applying to the combined method of Goodall and Yao for swapping pixels as addressed above, the advantage of which is differentiating between stationary and moving objects (¶ [96]).
Claim 11, which is similar in scope to claim 3 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 17, which is similar in scope to claim 3 as addressed above, is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Goodall et al. (US. Patent App. Pub. No. 20220092730, “Goodall”, hereinafter) in view of Yao et al. (“An Analysis of the Blue Noise Mask Based on a Human Visual Model”) further in view of Kaneko (US. Patent App. Pub. No. 2020/0374420).
As per claim 9, the combined Goodall-Yao does not expressly teach storing the plurality of pixels as vector values comprising two or more dimensions. However, this is well known in the art as disclosed in Kaneko (¶ [49], and ¶ [62]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the method of storing pixel values as taught by Kaneko into the combined Goodall-Yao method as addressed above, the benefit of which is to be able to store multi-dimensional pixel values.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Hau H. Nguyen whose telephone number is: 571-272-7787. The examiner can normally be reached on MON-FRI from 8:30-5:30.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Tammy Goddard, can be reached on (571) 272-7773.
The fax number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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, see 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).
/HAU H NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2611
Prosecution Insights