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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 01/23/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding section 101, Applicant argues: “Similar to the claims found to be patent eligible in the "2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance," published by the USPTO on January 4, 2019 ("2019 Revised 101 Guidance"), claims 1-13 are not directed to an abstract idea, and are allowable under 35 U.S.C. § 101. See Ex Parle Baba, Appeal 2019-000116 (PTAB Dec. 30, 2019). For at least the reasons established below, and because no federal circuit case has found such wide area goods delivery service method to be patent ineligible”
Examiner notes that the present claims are not directed to a “wide area goods delivery service.” The present claims are directed to applying mathematical and logical operations to data at a high degree of generality and not limited to any particular practical application. While a mathematical or a logical computer operation can be useful when applied to a practical application, under the present patent eligibility guidance, it is not a practical application in and of itself.
Examiner suggests applying the claimed operations to a claimed particular practical application in which Applicant intends to use it, such as image compression from a raw image to a single bitstream described on page 1 of the Specificaiton.
Applicant argues: “"The examiner bears the initial burden of presenting a prima facie case of unpatentability." MPEP (citing In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, (Fed. Cir. 1992). "If the record as a whole suggests that it is more likely than not that the claimed invention would be considered a practical application of an abstract idea, physical phenomenon, or law of nature, then USPTO personnel should not reiect the claim." Id. (emphasis added). Here, the Office has failed to meet its initial burden of "presenting a prima facie case of unpatentability," as required by the MPEP.”
Examiner notes that the Office Action has provided detailed reasons for rejection citing to evidence, MPEP and case law, which is a prima facie case of unpatentability. Thus, a blanket denial that those rejection reasons were presented by the Office is not persuasive of patentability.
Applicant argues: “Applicants respectfully submit that the present claims are not directed to a "mathematical calculations," or mathematical concepts, as indicated in the above-noted Guidance. That is, the above-noted claimed features of claims 1-13 are not, and/or would/could not be corresponding to mathematical calculations, as indicated in the above-noted Guidance. Therefore, the present claims do not recite an abstract idea”
Examiner notes that by stating a conclusion unsupported by evidence or case law, and that does not even refer to the claim language under rejection, Applicant fails to address the reasons for rejection below. The claimed quantization and entropy encoding are high level mathematical / logical operations on data and Applicant’s argument provides nothing to contradict that.
Applicant further argues: “Specifically, Applicants respectfully submit that the claims are not directed to a mere mathematical concept or abstract data manipulation. Rather, the claims are directed to a specific technical solution for encoding latent representations in a data compression system by employing a hierarchical quantization structure with layer-dependent quantization intervals and boundary adjustment mechanisms.”
Examiner again notes that Applicant states a conclusion but Applicant fails to provide evidence that entropy encoding is a recognized practical application for determining patentable subject matter under the present guidance. As noted in the reasons for rejection below, such transformations of data not limited to practical tools have been deemed unpatentable as abstract ideas by multiple cases.
Applicant argues: “In particular, the claimed method defines how quantization intervals of a current layer are derived from a previous layer and how boundaries of the quantization intervals of the current layer are determined. Such features impose concrete constraints on the encoding process and cannot be performed as a mental process or a purely abstract calculation.”
Examiner notes that Applicant fails to cite support for unspecified “concrete constraints” of a mathematical operation being not-abstract. Note that the “concrete constraints” in the claims are themselves abstract mathematical operations, such as “subtracting an average value of latent representations from a latent representation.”
Regarding section 103, Applicant has substantively amended the claims and argues that the amended language is patentable.
Examiner notes that the newly amended language is addressed in the updated reasons for rejection below
Further, Applicant argues: “Applicants respectfully submit that there is no teaching or suggestion in the cited references of at least the features "quantizing an unbiased latent representation which belongs to one of the quantization intervals of the current layer; wherein the unbiased latent representation is derived by subtracting an average value of latent representations from a latent representation," as recited in independent claim 1. That is, rather than directly quantizing the latent representation itself, the claimed feature quantizes the unbiased latent representation, which has a smaller magnitude than the original latent representation, thereby improving encoding and decoding efficiency.”
Examiner notes that the updated reasons for rejection below indicate that it was known or obvious that information, particularly image and video information, can be subjected to the claimed mathematical transformations. Further, it is not clear how subtracting an average reduces the magnitude of the data considered by the quantization, since quantization provides steps in the range between the data maximum and minimum, where a subtraction may shift the range but will not change its magnitude.
Applicant argues: “Further, Applicants respectfully submit that there is no teaching or suggestion in the cited references of the feature "a quantization interval of a previous layer to which the unbiased latent representation belongs is partitioned into a plurality of sub-intervals that form the quantization intervals of the current layer," as recited in claim 1. For example, the claim recites that quantization intervals of a current layer are derived from sub-partitions generated by partitioning a single quantization interval of a previous layer. In other words, the configuration of the quantization intervals of the current layer is dependent on a single quantization interval of the previous layer.”
Examiner notes that Applicant appears to argue that prior art is different because it uses different names to describe data elements. This is not required since the prior art, Li and Han describe substantively similar problems and approaches to quantization of data using partition trees and coding layers, and substantively correspond to the embodiments and term definitions in the Specification. See reasons for rejection below.
While Applicant is allowed to be his own lexicographer in describing claim structures, Examiner must reject the claim based on the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claimed elements and not based on the presence of Applicant’s exact phrasing. See In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 44 USPQ2d 1023 (Fed. Cir. 1997); MPEP 904.01(a). Examiner suggests clarifying the exact circumstances of the claimed application that define a problem that Applicant intends to solve by the limitations in the claims.
Applicant argues: “In contrast, paragraph [0034] of Li merely teaches that quantization accuracy can be adjusted by an input parameter. Applicants respectfully submit that Li does not teach or suggest any dependency between quantization intervals of a current layer and a quantization interval of a previous layer.”
Examiner notes that Li teaches substantively more than represented in the argument. Li teaches substantively identical parameters to the ones exemplified in the Specification. See updated reasons for rejection below.
Applicant argues: “In contrast, paragraph [0034] of Li merely teaches that quantization accuracy can be adjusted by an input parameter. Applicants respectfully submit that Li does not teach or suggest any dependency between quantization intervals of a current layer and a quantization interval of a previous layer.”
Examiner notes that these claims contain entirely new claim language, which is addressed by the updated reasons for rejection below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1, 3, 6-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 3, 6-13 recite: “wherein a quantization interval of a previous layer to which the unbiased latent representation belongs is partitioned into a plurality of sub-intervals that form the quantization intervals of the current layer” however Examiner did not find support in the Specification for the quantization interval to be partitioned. Further, it is not clear what quantization function Applicant intends to describe by this claim language. Examiner suggests clarifying this claim language to be consistent with the terms of art and embodiments in the Specification.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1, 3, 6-13 are rejected as being directed toward patent ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 101, under the “Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance” issued on January 7, 2019 (Federal Register, Vol. 84, No. 4, 50).
The claims are directed to statutory categories of methods, articles of manufacture (under Step 1).
Upon analysis of the present claims under the broadest reasonable interpretation (under Step 2A, prong one), the claims appear to recite a judicial exception, an abstract idea directed to mathematical relationships, following rules or instructions, and allusions to empirical determinations without limitation to particular empirical equations or algorithms of quantizing and entropy-encoding data in the abstract. The claims convert digital values from one representation to another representation by repeating basic mathematical operations such as quantization and addition/subtraction.
The claims include several categories of this abstract idea: information (latent representation, layer, quantization intervals, size of a quantization interval, boundary of a quantization interval, etc.), collecting information (determining quantization intervals for the current layer, ); outputting information (entropy-encoding a quantized latent representation), and/or analyzing information at a high degree of algorithmic generality (determining quantization intervals for the current layer, … a boundary of a quantization interval is determined based on …). These categories have been identified as abstract ideas by the Federal Circuit as summarized in Electric Power Group, LLC v. ALSTOM SA, 830 F. 3d 1350, 1354 (Fed. Cir. 2016):
Information as such is an intangible. See Microsoft Corp. v. AT & T Corp., 550 U.S. 437, 451 n.12, 127 S.Ct. 1746, 167 L.Ed.2d 737 (2007); Bayer AG v. Housey Pharm., Inc., 340 F.3d 1367, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2003). Accordingly, we have treated collecting information, including when limited to particular content (which does not change its character as information), as within the realm of abstract ideas. See, e.g., Internet Patents, 790 F.3d at 1349; OIP Techs., Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2015); Content Extraction & Transmission LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank, Nat'l Ass'n, 776 F.3d 1343, 1347 (Fed. Cir. 2014); Digitech Image Techs., LLC v. Elecs. for Imaging, Inc., 758 F.3d 1344, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2014); CyberSource Corp. 1354*1354 v. Retail Decisions, Inc., 654 F.3d 1366, 1370 (Fed. Cir. 2011). In a similar vein, we have treated analyzing information by steps people go through in their minds, or by mathematical algorithms, without more, as essentially mental processes within the abstract-idea category. See, e.g., TLI Commc'ns, 823 F.3d at 613; Digitech, 758 F.3d at 1351; SmartGene, Inc. v. Advanced Biological Labs., SA, 555 Fed.Appx. 950, 955 (Fed. Cir. 2014); Bancorp Servs., L.L.C. v. Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada (U.S.), 687 F.3d 1266, 1278 (Fed. Cir. 2012); CyberSource Corp. v. Retail Decisions, Inc., 654 F.3d 1366, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2011); SiRF Tech., Inc. v. Int'l Trade Comm'n, 601 F.3d 1319, 1333 (Fed. Cir. 2010); see also Mayo, 132 S.Ct. at 1301; Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 584, 589-90, 98 S.Ct. 2522, 57 L.Ed.2d 451 (1978); Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 67, 93 S.Ct. 253, 34 L.Ed.2d 273 (1972). And we have recognized that merely presenting the results of abstract processes of collecting and analyzing information, without more (such as identifying a particular tool for presentation), is abstract as an ancillary part of such collection and analysis. See, e.g., Content Extraction, 776 F.3d at 1347; Ultramercial, Inc. v. Hulu, LLC, 772 F.3d 709, 715 (Fed. Cir. 2014).
Upon consideration of the record (under Step 2A, prong two), Examiner did not find that the additional elements of the present claims integrate the judicial exception into a practical application of that judicial exception “in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception, such that the claim is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the judicial exception.” The additional elements, when considered individually or in a claim as a whole, “encoding method … decoding method … computer readable recording medium storing instructions”, do not seem to reflect a substantive improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field under the standards of the present judicial guidance; (The claimed methods are mathematical and logical operations that apply to data in general without application to specific industry and without particular practical inputs and outputs in mind.); do not seem use a judicial exception in conjunction with, a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim (The claims are mathematical methods separate from computation platforms or computer or automated application.); do not seem to effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing (Transformation of data at the claimed level of generality is not a transformation of matter or a reduction to a practical application that transforms matter.).
This is further evidenced in that the additional elements, merely recite the words ‘‘determine … based on …” in connection with the judicial exception, or merely includes instructions to record an abstract idea on a computer readable medium, or merely suggests a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea; adds insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception (i.e. obtaining, analyzing, transforming, or outputting information for use with the judicial exception as in CyperSource and Mayo); do no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (i.e. data operations linked to a computer or other well-established activities in the art). Substantially similar subject matter has been found ineligible in RecogniCorp, LLC v. Nintendo Co., Ltd., 855 F. 3d 1322 (Fed. Cir. 2017), Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Fin. Corp., 850 F.3d 1332, 1340-41 (Fed. Cir. 2017).
Finally, the claimed elements, when considered individually and in combination (under step 2B), do not seem to provide an Inventive Concept that is “significantly more” than the ineligible subject matter. The claims perform data operations on unspecified data for an unspecified application, with unspecified inputs or outputs used in a practical application, with no link to automation or a computer (other than storing the data on a CRM in Claim 13).
The claims should be amended to include meaningful limitations within the technical field.
Examiner suggests clarifying the intended technical field of the claims, clarifying the practical inputs to be received and practical outputs to be improved, clarifying the “based on” operations to describe the specific relationships and operations performed by the claims, and clarifying the intended contribution of the invention using terms of art rather than relying on Applicant’s own lexicography to convey the meaning.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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, 3, 6-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20210335019 to Li (“Li”) in view of US 20060245495 to Han (“Han”).
Examiner notes that the present Specification may be a literal translation rather than application of relevant terms of art in English. The claims tend to broadly base functionality on terms that are not clearly defined or limited in the claims. Examiner suggests clarifying the functions and the relationships between the claimed elements. The reasons for rejection below construe the claim language in the context of the Specification and the corresponding features as they are described in the art.
Regarding Claim 1: “A latent representation encoding method based on a hierarchical quantization, the method comprising:
determining quantization intervals of a current layer; (“In the encoding method shown in FIG. 1, … the position coordinates of each 3D data point can be quantified based on the difference between the maximum and minimum values of the position coordinates on the three axes, and the quantization accuracy determined based on the input parameter,” which define the maximum, minimum, and the interval parameters of the quatization. Li, Paragraphs 34, 43.)
quantizing an unbiased latent representation which belongs to one of the quantization intervals of the for a current layer; and (Under the broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification and ordinary skill in the art, (a) the latent representation can embody data coded in a particular layer of one or more layers, and (b) quantizing employs specified quantization intervals. See Specification, Page 3, first paragraph and Page 4, last 5 paragraphs.
Prior art teaches: “In the encoding method shown in FIG. 1, … the position coordinates of each 3D data point can be quantified based on the difference between the maximum and minimum values of the position coordinates on the three axes, and the quantization accuracy determined based on the input parameter. … encoding the position coordinates of 3D data points, the octree can be encoded layer by layer” Li, Paragraphs 34, 43.)
entropy-encoding a quantized latent representation obtained by quantizing the unbiased latent representation, (“In the encoding method shown in FIG. 1, … quantization … In the process at 150, entropy encoding is performed on a code stream” Li, Paragraph 34.)
wherein a quantization interval of a previous layer to which the unbiased latent representation belongs is partitioned into a plurality of sub-intervals that form the quantization intervals of the current layer.” (See reasons for rejection under section 112 above. Cumulatively, Prior Art teaches that the quantization interval is embodied as “the quantization accuracy determined based on the input parameter.” Li, Paragraph 34. The quantization parameters, such as a quantization step [interval] size, or the residual interval, can be set to be set for each layer, as noted in Li, Paragraph 139.)
wherein the unbiased latent representation is derived by subtracting an average value of latent representations from a latent representation, and (Li teaches that the quantified value can be a sum of multiple reference points, but does not explicitly teach that a reference point can be an average of reference points. See Li, Paragraph 138.
Han teaches the above claim feature in the context of coding an image under image coding standards using quantization: “an encoder can obtain [delta] by subtracting … an average of the residuals between each of the base reference frame and the FGS layer reference frame and the original image 0,” See Han, Paragraphs 44, 9.
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to supplement the teachings of Li to use an unbiased latent representation that is derived by subtracting an average value of latent representations from a latent representation, in the manner taught in Han, in order to optimize “video coding which reduces the amount of computations required for a multilayer-based Progressive Fine Granular Scalability” under the video coding standards. Han, Paragraphs 3, 9.
Finally, in reviewing the present application, there does not seem to be objective evidence that the claim limitations are particularly directed to: addressing a particular problem which was recognized but unsolved in the art, producing unexpected results at the level of the ordinary skill in the art, or any other objective indicators of non-obviousness.)
Regarding Claim 3: “The method of Claim 2,
a bottom boundary of a first quantization interval of the current layer is set to be the same as a bottom boundary of the quantization interval of the previous layer, and (“attributes can be set for each layer of LOD,” for example “the size of the dead zone of each layer of the LOD ( quantizedDeadZoneSize) (that is, the residual interval to quantized the residual to 0) can be selected” which represents the minimum value of a quantization interval that can be encoded and appears can be set to be the same across the layers. Li, Paragraph 139.)
wherein a top boundary of a last quantization interval of the current layer is set to be the same as a top boundary of the quantization interval of the previous layer.” (Under the broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification and ordinary skill in the art, “according to the present disclosure, a bottom boundary and a top boundary of a quantization interval for a first layer may be determined based on a quantization step size vector for the first boundary and the total number of layers.” See Specification, Page 3, lines 1-3 and Page 22, second paragraph. Further, “and a size of the quantization intervals of the current layer may be the same as a size of quantization intervals to which the latent representation within a previous layer belongs” See Specification, Page 2, fourth paragraph.
Prior art teaches this feature: “the number of LOD levels (levelOfDetailCount) [the total number of layers], … the quantization step size of each layer of the LOD ( quantizationSteps), [quantization step size] … the size of the dead zone of each layer of the LOD ( quantizedDeadZoneSize) [a quantization interval] … (that is, the residual interval to quantized the residual to 0) can be selected” which represents the minimum value of a quantization interval that can be encoded and appears can be set to be the same across the layers. Li, Paragraph 139. Li, Paragraph 139 further notes that these three “attributes can be set for each layer of LOD.” Thus, just like in the Specification, Li indicates that these attributes may be selected within the available range, and thus may be selected to be the same as the previous layer thus preserving the top and bottom boundaries of the quantization interval of the previous layer, or can select values different from the previous layer that otherwise preserve the quantized zone having the same top and bottom boundaries.)
Regarding Claim 6: “The method of Claim 1, wherein determining the quantization intervals of the current layer comprises: … determining, based on whether at least one of a size of a first sub-interval or a last sub-interval is less than a threshold, whether to adjust the sub-intervals to form the quantization intervals of the current layer.” (For example, “If the minimum distance [sub-interval] is greater than a distance threshold (dist2) set in the current LOD layer, this point will be categorized to the current LOD layer.” Li, Paragraphs 136, 139.)
Regarding Claim 7: “The method of Claim 6, wherein in response to at least one of the size of the first sub-interval or the last sub-interval being less than the threshold, at least one of the first sub-interval or the last sub-interval whose size is less than the threshold is merged with a neighboring sub-interval.” (For example, “the quantized position coordinates of at least two position coordinates may be the same, and these at least two position coordinates may correspond to at least two attribute values. At this time, before encoding the quantized position coordinates, the duplicate coordinates can be removed (e.g., the process at 125 as shown in FIG. 15 and FIG. 16). That is, the quantized position coordinates of the at least two position coordinates can be one,” which effectively merges quantized positions that are the same, i.e. having intervals less than the detection threshold at that quantization level. Li, Paragraphs 143, 136.)
Regarding Claim 8: “The method of Claim 7, when the merged subinterval is generated by merging the first sub-interval with a neighboring sub-interval, a bottom boundary of the merged sub-interval corresponds to a bottom boundary of the first sub-interval, and a top boundary of the merged sub-interval is formed by extending a top boundary of the neighboring sub-interval.” (As noted in Claims 3 and 7 above, “the duplicate coordinates can be removed (e.g., the process at 125 as shown in FIG. 15 and FIG. 16). That is, the quantized position coordinates of the at least two position coordinates can be one,” which effectively means that the intervals of quantization of the first quantized coordinate would be the same as the duplicate quantized coordinates and thus a bottom boundary of the first coordinate and a top boundary of a further coordinate would be preserved. Li, Paragraphs 143, 136.)
Regarding Claim 9: “The method of Claim 8, wherein the top boundary of the neighboring sub-interval is extended based on a median value of the quantization interval of the previous layer to which the unbiased latent representation belongs and an extended quantization step size vector.” (As noted in Claims 3 and 8 above, “the duplicate coordinates can be removed (e.g., the process at 125 as shown in FIG. 15 and FIG. 16). That is, the quantized position coordinates of the at least two position coordinates can be one,” which effectively means that the intervals of quantization of the first quantized coordinate would be the same as the duplicate quantized coordinates and thus preserve a value that is the same as the first value, the last value, or a median value of the interval deemed to be the same at that level of quantization. Li, Paragraphs 143, 136.)
Regarding Claim 10: “The method of Claim 1, wherein the unbiased latent representation is composed of a plurality of components, and wherein the quantization is performed only on a filtered component among the plurality of components of the unbiased latent representation.” (Han indicates that coded values may be first filtered, such as by performing interpolation. See Han, Paragraphs 52, 77 and statement of motivation in Clam 1.)
Claim 11: “The method of Claim 1, wherein: the entropy encoding is performed based on a quantized Probability Mass Function (PMF) approximate value for each of the quantization intervals of the current layer, … wherein the PMF-approximate value for a quantization interval represents a probability that the unbiased latent representation belongs to the quantization interval ” (Under the broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification and ordinary skill in the art, the entropy coding can be performed on data in the current layer that is quantized using the same (or probably the same) parameters as the data in the previous layer. See Specification, Page 15. Prior art notes that these parameters can be set to be the same, and thus representing a probability of the coded interval belonging to the coded layer and the previous layer: “the number of LOD levels (levelOfDetailCount), the distance threshold for dividing each layer of the LOD (dist2), the quantization step size of each layer of the LOD ( quantizationSteps ), and the size of the dead zone of each layer of the LOD ( quantizedDeadZoneSize) (that is, the residual interval to quantized the residual to 0) can be selected,” thus the total number of layers is relevant to determining the number of levels which is relevant to determining the quantization steps and step sizes. See Li, Paragraph 139. See statement of motivation in Claim 1.)
Claim 12: “A latent representation decoding method based on a hierarchical quantization,” is rejected for reasons stated for Claim 1, and because prior art applies such features to decoding in the same manner as to encoding: “The 3D) data point set processing method includes encoding or decoding” Li, Paragraph 4.
Claim 13: “A non-transitory computer readable recording medium storing instructions that, when executed, cause a computer to carry out …” is rejected for reasons stated for Claim 1, and because prior art applies such features to decoding in the same manner as to encoding: “The computer storage medium stores program code, and the program code may be configured to perform the method for processing the 3D data point set described in foregoing embodiments of the present disclosure.” Li, Paragraph 207.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20080002767 Schwarz (“Schwarz”). As cited in the previous Office Actions.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
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/MIKHAIL ITSKOVICH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2483