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 statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 01/31/2025, 05/28/2025, 10/30/2025 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement(s) is/are 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 taught 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li et al. (US 20180316929) (hereinafter Li) in view of Zhao et al. (US 20190335172) (hereinafter Zhao).
Regarding claim 1, Li teaches A video decoding method comprising:
obtaining an affine motion model for prediction of a current block (see Li figures 5 and 6 and paragraphs 115-120 regarding an affine motion model of a current block with a respective motion vector for each sub-block with the model, and predicting the sub-blocks of the current block using the motion vectors);
determining a respective motion vector for each of the sub-blocks using the affine motion model; and predicting the sub-blocks of the current block based on the respective motion vectors (see Li figures 5 and 6 and paragraphs 115-120 regarding an affine motion model of a current block with a respective motion vector for each sub-block with the model, and predicting the sub-blocks of the current block using the motion vectors).
However, Li does not explicitly teach sub-block handling as needed for the limitations of claim 1.
Zhao, in a similar field of endeavor, teaches selecting a sub-block size for sub-blocks of the current block, wherein the sub-block size is based on a shape of the current block (see Zhao paragraphs 14, 17, 99, and 155 regarding selecting a sub-block based on minimum size, cases where the aspect ratio is retained between a sub-block and current block, and therefore has a first lateral dimension selected to be a minimum lateral size and second lateral dimension based on the ratio of the height and the width- in many cases it is chosen that the sub-block has the same aspect ratio, and restricting bi-prediction based on the size of the sub-blocks so that the complement is true- minimum block sizes will be restricted if a block is bi-predicted, and block sizes are selected from at least 4x4 and 4x8- in combination with Li, the sub-block selection may be incorporated into the affine model process in order to conserve memory used for motion data);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to modify the teaching of Li to include the teaching of Zhao so that in combination with Li, the sub-block selection may be incorporated into the affine model process in order to conserve memory used for motion data.
One would be motivated to combine these teachings in order to provide techniques for improving data handling efficiency for smaller partitions of data (see Zhao paragraphs 14, 17, 99, and 155).
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Li and Zhao teaches all aforementioned limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed.
Furthermore, the combination of Li and Zhao teaches wherein the sub-block size is selected to have an aspect ratio the same as an aspect ratio of the current block (see Zhao paragraphs 14, 17, 99, and 155 regarding selecting a sub-block based on minimum size, cases where the aspect ratio is retained between a sub-block and current block, and therefore has a first lateral dimension selected to be a minimum lateral size and second lateral dimension based on the ratio of the height and the width- in many cases it is chosen that the sub-block has the same aspect ratio, and restricting bi-prediction based on the size of the sub-blocks so that the complement is true- minimum block sizes will be restricted if a block is bi-predicted, and block sizes are selected from at least 4x4 and 4x8- in combination with Li, the sub-block selection may be incorporated into the affine model process in order to conserve memory used for motion data).
One would be motivated to combine these teachings in order to provide techniques for improving data handling efficiency for smaller partitions of data (see Zhao paragraphs 14, 17, 99, and 155).
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Li and Zhao teaches all aforementioned limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed.
Furthermore, the combination of Li and Zhao teaches wherein the sub-block size has a first lateral dimension selected to be a minimum lateral size and a second lateral dimension selected according to an aspect ratio of the current block (see Zhao paragraphs 14, 17, 99, and 155 regarding selecting a sub-block based on minimum size, cases where the aspect ratio is retained between a sub-block and current block, and therefore has a first lateral dimension selected to be a minimum lateral size and second lateral dimension based on the ratio of the height and the width- in many cases it is chosen that the sub-block has the same aspect ratio, and restricting bi-prediction based on the size of the sub-blocks so that the complement is true- minimum block sizes will be restricted if a block is bi-predicted, and block sizes are selected from at least 4x4 and 4x8- in combination with Li, the sub-block selection may be incorporated into the affine model process in order to conserve memory used for motion data).
One would be motivated to combine these teachings in order to provide techniques for improving data handling efficiency for smaller partitions of data (see Zhao paragraphs 14, 17, 99, and 155).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Li and Zhao teaches all aforementioned limitations of claim 3, and is analyzed as previously discussed.
Furthermore, the combination of Li and Zhao teaches wherein the minimum lateral size is determined based on whether the current block is uni-predicted or bi-predicted (see Zhao paragraphs 14, 17, 99, and 155 regarding selecting a sub-block based on minimum size, cases where the aspect ratio is retained between a sub-block and current block, and therefore has a first lateral dimension selected to be a minimum lateral size and second lateral dimension based on the ratio of the height and the width- in many cases it is chosen that the sub-block has the same aspect ratio, and restricting bi-prediction based on the size of the sub-blocks so that the complement is true- minimum block sizes will be restricted if a block is bi-predicted, and block sizes are selected from at least 4x4 and 4x8- in combination with Li, the sub-block selection may be incorporated into the affine model process in order to conserve memory used for motion data).
One would be motivated to combine these teachings in order to provide techniques for improving data handling efficiency for smaller partitions of data (see Zhao paragraphs 14, 17, 99, and 155).
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Li and Zhao teaches all aforementioned limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed.
Furthermore, the combination of Li and Zhao teaches wherein the sub-block size is selected from a plurality of sizes including at least 4×4 and 4×8 (see Zhao paragraphs 14, 17, 99, and 155 regarding selecting a sub-block based on minimum size, cases where the aspect ratio is retained between a sub-block and current block, and therefore has a first lateral dimension selected to be a minimum lateral size and second lateral dimension based on the ratio of the height and the width- in many cases it is chosen that the sub-block has the same aspect ratio, and restricting bi-prediction based on the size of the sub-blocks so that the complement is true- minimum block sizes will be restricted if a block is bi-predicted, and block sizes are selected from at least 4x4 and 4x8- in combination with Li, the sub-block selection may be incorporated into the affine model process in order to conserve memory used for motion data).
One would be motivated to combine these teachings in order to provide techniques for improving data handling efficiency for smaller partitions of data (see Zhao paragraphs 14, 17, 99, and 155).
Independent claim(s) 6, 11, and 16 is/are analogous in scope to claim(s) 1, albeit regarding the inverse encoding method and/or using an apparatus comprising one or more processors as taught by Li paragraph 9, and is/are rejected according to the same reasoning.
Dependent claim(s) 7-10, 12-15 and 17-20 is/are analogous in scope to claim(s) 2-5, and is/are rejected according to the same reasoning.
Conclusion
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/MATTHEW DAVID KIM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2483