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 Amendment
This action is in response to the remark entered on March 9, 2026.
Claim 1-20 pending in the instant application.
Claims 1-2 & 20 are amended.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's remarks filed 03/09/2026, pages 10-11, regarding the rejection of claim 1, and similarly claim 20 under 35 USC 103 have been fully considered, and are moot upon further consideration and a new ground(s) of rejection made under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Deng et al. (WO 2023/051624 A1) (hereinafter Deng) in view of Deng et al. (WO 2023/020569 A1) (hereinafter Deng2), and further in view of Lee et al. (US 2021/0297658 A1) (hereinafter Lee) as outlined below.
In response to Applicant’s remark that Examiner’s previously-cited references do not show the Applicant’s newly-recited claim limitations, the Examiner directs Applicant’s attention to the rejection of claims 1 & 20 below, wherein Applicant’s newly-recited limitations are addressed by Lee for the reasons as outlined below.
Applicant’s remarks filed 09/25/2025, pages 11, with respect to the rejection of claims 12-15 & 19 under 35 USC 103 have been fully considered, but they are not persuasive.
Applicant first relies on the patentability of the claims from which these claims depend to traverse the rejection without prejudice to any further basis for patentability of these claims based on the additional elements recited.
Examiner cannot concur with the Applicant because the combination of Deng, Deng2 and Lee teach independent claim 1 as outlined below. Thus, claims 12-15 & 19 are also rejected for the similar reasons as outlined below.
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 of this title, 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, 12-15 & 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Deng et al. (WO 2023/051624 A1) (hereinafter Deng) in view of Deng et al. (WO 2023/020569 A1) (hereinafter Deng2), and further in view of Lee et al. (US 2021/0297658 A1) (hereinafter Lee).
Regarding claim 1, Deng discloses a video decoding method [Pg. 42, l. 4, proposed intra block decoding process as video decoding method], comprising:
decoding a video bitstream [Abstract, obtaining during conversion between video block and bitstream of video] to obtain correction value indication information used when template based intra mode derivation (TIMD) is used [Pg. 43, ll. 17-21, flag signaled in SPS as correction value indication information to enable TIMD signaling proposed method];
obtaining a candidate prediction mode of a current block obtained through TIMD [Pg. 43, ll. 8-27, Deriving a TIMD mode from MPMs using intra prediction mode with minimum SATD]; and
decoding the current block [Pg. 55, ll. 19-24, Decoder derived intra prediction being TIMD].
However, Deng does not explicitly disclose correcting the candidate prediction mode with a correction value indicated by the correction value indication information, to obtain a corrected TIMD prediction mode; and decoding the current block based on the corrected TIMD prediction mode.
Deng2 teaches of correcting the candidate prediction mode with a correction value indicated by the correction value indication information, to obtain a corrected TIMD prediction mode; and decoding the current block based on the corrected TIMD prediction mode [Paragraph [00136]-[00142] & [00154]-[00163], TIMD flag as correction value indication information, indicating TIMD mode, indicating of padding values as correction values to apply TIMD to non-dyadic block correctly and accurately, and/or selecting correct prediction samples in a non-dyadic block or template used in TIMD to operate correctly].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Deng to incorporate and implement the correction process in Deng2 as above, to address the problems and configure TIMD mode to operate correctly when the block is non-dyadic (Deng2, Paragraphs [00155]).
Furthermore, neither Deng nor Deng2 teach or suggest wherein the correction value indication information comprises a first flag bit for indicating whether to use the correction value to correct the candidate prediction mode of the current block, and a correction value indication flag bit.
Lee teaches wherein the correction value indication information comprises a first flag bit for indicating whether to use the correction value to correct the candidate prediction mode of the current block, and a correction value indication flag bit [Paragraph [0347], n this case, the intra prediction mode that the MPM indicator specifies may be determined as the intra prediction mode of the current block. In the meantime, when the MPMD indicator has a second value, the MPM indicator and the MPMD are signaled].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Deng to incorporate and implement the sign signaling in Lee as above, to provide an image encoding/decoding method and apparatus capable of improving compression efficiency by using syntax element merge mode, and a recording medium in which a bitstream generated by the method or apparatus is stored (Lee, Paragraphs [0004]).
Regarding claim 12, Deng, Deng2, and Lee disclose the video decoding method according to claim 1, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Deng2 teaches wherein the video decoding method further comprises: determining a correction value set corresponding to the candidate prediction mode based on at least one of: the candidate prediction mode of the current block obtained through TIMD, a size of the current block, a most probable mode (MPM) set, a candidate prediction mode obtained through decoder-side intra mode derivation (DIMD), or a TIMD cost [Paragraph [00136]-[00142] & [00154]-[00163], TIMD flag as correction value indication information, indicating TIMD mode, indicating of padding values as correction value set to apply TIMD to non-dyadic block correctly and accurately based upon deriving of TIMD mode from MPM/Planar],
the correction value being determined from the correction value set based on the correction value indication information [Paragraph [00136]-[00142] & [00154]-[00163], TIMD flag as correction value indication information, indicating TIMD mode, indicating of padding values as correction values to apply TIMD to non-dyadic block correctly and accurately].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Deng to incorporate and implement the correction process in Deng2 as above, to address the problems and configure TIMD mode to operate correctly when the block is non-dyadic (Deng2, Paragraphs [00155]).
Regarding claim 13, Deng, Deng2, and Lee disclose the video decoding method according to claim 12, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Deng2 teaches wherein the corrected TIMD prediction mode is different from at least one of: a candidate prediction mode obtained through TIMD, a prediction mode in the MPM set, a prediction mode not in the MPM set, the candidate prediction mode obtained through DIMD, or a prediction mode obtained by correcting the candidate prediction mode obtained through DIMD [Paragraph [00136]-[00142] & [00154]-[00163], TIMD flag as correction value indication information, indicating TIMD mode, indicating of padding values as correction values set to apply TIMD mode from derived from DIMD and MPMs, thus making corrected TIMD mode different from mode derived from DIMD/MPM/Planar].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Deng to incorporate and implement the correction process in Deng2 as above, to address the problems and configure TIMD mode to operate correctly when the block is non-dyadic (Deng2, Paragraphs [00155]).
Regarding claim 14, Deng, Deng2, and Lee disclose the video decoding method according to claim 1, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Deng2 teaches wherein the correcting the candidate prediction mode with a correction value indicated by the correction value indication information, to obtain the corrected TIMD prediction mode comprises: correcting, with the correction value indicated by the correction value indication information, a first candidate prediction mode obtained through TIMD to obtain a corrected first prediction mode [Paragraph [00136]-[00142] & [00154]-[00163], TIMD flag as correction value indication information, indicating TIMD mode, indicating of padding values as correction values to apply TIMD to non-dyadic block correctly and accurately, and/or selecting correct prediction samples in a non-dyadic block or template used in TIMD to operate correctly]; and
the decoding the current block based on the corrected TIMD prediction mode comprises: using a predicted value obtained for the current block in the corrected first prediction mode as a predicted value of the current block, or fusing a predicted value obtained for the current block in the corrected first prediction mode and a predicted value obtained for the current block in a specified prediction mode to obtain a predicted value of the current block [Paragraph [00136]-[00142] & [00154]-[00163], TIMD flag as correction value indication information, indicating TIMD mode, indicating of padding values as correction values to apply TIMD to non-dyadic block correctly and accurately, and/or selecting correct prediction samples in a non-dyadic block or template used in TIMD to operate correctly].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Deng to incorporate and implement the correction process in Deng2 as above, to address the problems and configure TIMD mode to operate correctly when the block is non-dyadic (Deng2, Paragraphs [00155]).
Regarding claim 15, Deng, Deng2, and Lee disclose the video decoding method according to claim 14, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Deng2 teaches wherein the specified prediction mode comprises at least one of: a non-angular prediction mode, a second candidate prediction mode obtained through TIMD, or a prediction mode obtained by correcting the second candidate prediction mode obtained through TIMD, and the second candidate prediction mode is corrected with a same correction value as or a different correction value from the first candidate prediction mode [Paragraph [00136]-[00142] & [00154]-[00163], TIMD flag as correction value indication information, indicating TIMD mode from fusion of planar mode as non-angular prediction mode, indicating of padding values as correction values to apply TIMD to non-dyadic block correctly and accurately, and/or selecting correct prediction samples in a non-dyadic block or template used in TIMD to operate correctly for each TIMD mode].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Deng to incorporate and implement the correction process in Deng2 as above, to address the problems and configure TIMD mode to operate correctly when the block is non-dyadic (Deng2, Paragraphs [00155]).
Regarding claim 19, Deng, Deng2, and Lee disclose the video decoding method according to claim 1, and are analyzed as previously discussed with respect to the claim.
Furthermore, Deng2 discloses wherein the video decoding method further comprises:
decoding a syntactic element of the video bitstream to obtain a specified flag bit, and determining, based on the specified flag bit, whether the candidate prediction mode of the current block is to be corrected, the syntactic element comprising at least one of: a sequence parameter set (SPS), a picture parameter set (PPS), a flag bit in a picture header, or a flag bit in a slice header [Paragraph [00138], TIMD flag as correction value indication information, being a flag bit, indicating of padding values as correction values to apply TIMD to non-dyadic block correctly and accurately, signaled in a sequence parameter set (SPS)].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method disclosed by Deng to incorporate and implement the correction process in Deng2 as above, to address the problems and configure TIMD mode to operate correctly when the block is non-dyadic (Deng2, Paragraphs [00155]).
Regarding claim 20, claim 20 is drawn to a video coding method having reciprocal limitations similar to the video decoding method of using the same as claimed in claim 1 treated in the above rejection. Therefore, method claim 20 corresponds to method claim 1 and is rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used above.
Furthermore, Deng discloses of a video coding method [Paragraph [0048], video coding system utilizing techniques].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-11 & 16-18 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claims 2-11 & 16-18 contain allowable subject matter.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The various claimed limitations mentioned in the claims are not taught or suggested by the prior art taken either singly or in combination, with emphasize that it is each claim, taken as a whole, including the interrelationships and interconnections between various claimed elements make them allowable over the prior art of record.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL CHANG whose telephone number is (571)272-5707. The examiner can normally be reached M-Sa, 12PM - 10 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, David Czekaj can be reached at 571-272-7327. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DANIEL CHANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487
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