DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to the application filed on 03/03/2025, wherein claims 1-22 have been examined and are pending.
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
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. IN 201931010751, filed on 03/19/2019.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) was submitted on 02/18/2025.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 Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim 22 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Kadono et al. (U.S. 2006/0268989) hereinafter Kadono.
Regarding claim 22, Claim 22 recites “A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing bitstream of a video, comprising: a bitstream stored in the non-transitory computer-readable medium, the bitstream comprising an encoded sequence of frames of the video, wherein the sequence of frames is encoded into the bitstream based on a plurality of operations comprising:”
The bitstream comprising an encoded sequence of frames of the video, wherein the sequence of frames is encoded into the bitstream based on a plurality of operations comprising … is a product by process claim limitation where the product is the bit stream and the process is the method steps to generate the bitstream. MPEP §2113 recites “Product-by-Process claims are not limited to the manipulations of the recited steps, only the structure implied by the steps”. Thus, the scope of the claim is the storage medium storing the bitstream (with the structure implied by the method steps). The structure includes the information and samples manipulated by the steps.
“To be given patentable weight, the printed matter and associated product must be in a functional relationship. A functional relationship can be found where the printed matter performs some function with respect to the product to which it is associated”. MPEP §2111.05(I)(A). When a claimed “computer-readable medium merely serves as a support for information or data, no functional relationship exists. MPEP §2111.05(III). The storage medium storing the claimed bitstream in claim 18 merely services as a support for the storage of the bitstream and provides no fictional relationship between the stored bitstream and storage medium. Therefor the structure bitstream, which scope is implied by the method steps, is non-functional descriptive material and given no patentable weight. MPEP §2111.05(III). Thus, the claim scope is just a storage medium storing data and is anticipated by Kadono which recites a generated bitstream is stored in a storage medium as in [0060].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-21 are allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
In light of the specification, the Examiner finds the claimed invention to be patentably distinct from the prior art of record.
Regarding claims 1, 11 and 21, the prior arts of record, taken individually or in combination fail to explicitly teach or render obvious within the context of the claims the feature of obtaining prediction sample values corresponding to the first reference frame and prediction sample values corresponding to the second reference frame from the first reference frame and the second reference frame, respectively, using the pair of motion vectors for the current block with respect to the first reference frame and the second reference frame; determining a horizontal motion offset vx and a vertical motion offset vy of the current block, and wherein the vertical motion offset is determined based on the horizontal motion offset and a fifth variable ss, wherein: the fifth variable ss indicates a sum of a plurality of first terms, wherein each of the plurality of first terms is obtained from a sign of an element of a second matrix and an element of a first matrix, and the element of the first matrix corresponds to the element of the second matrix; each element of the first matrix is obtained from a sum of a first horizontal predicted sample gradient that corresponds to a first reference frame of the current block and a second horizontal predicted sample gradient that corresponds to a second reference frame of the current block, wherein the first horizontal predicted sample gradient and the second horizontal predicted sample gradient correspond to the element of the first matrix; and each element of the second matrix is obtained from a sum of a first vertical predicted sample gradient that corresponds to the first reference frame of the current block and a second vertical predicted sample gradient that corresponds to the second reference frame of the current block, wherein the first vertical predicted sample gradient and the second vertical predicted sample gradient correspond to the element of the second matrix; and determining prediction sample values of the current block using the prediction sample values corresponding to the first reference frame, the prediction sample values corresponding to the second reference frame, and the horizontal motion offset and the vertical motion offset; obtaining residual information of the current block based on sample values of the current block and the prediction sample values of the current block; and encoding information associated with the current block into a bitstream for transmission, wherein the information associated with the current block comprises the residual information of the current block and indication information, and wherein the indication information indicates the pair of motion vectors for the current block as cited in claims 1, 11 and 21.
Claims 2-10 and 12-20 are allowable because they depend on allowable parent claims 1 and 11, respectively, as set forth above.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KATHLEEN V NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)270-0626. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9:00am-6:00pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jamie Atala can be reached on 571-272-7384. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KATHLEEN V NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2486