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 6/29/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claims 14-23 under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) have been fully considered and are persuasive. Specifically, the Examiner is persuaded that Lee fails to disclose:
setting the splitting direction to one of a vertical splitting and a horizontal splitting
based on whether the intra prediction mode of the current block belongs to a first group or a second group, and
wherein the first group is a group of intra prediction modes where a vertical splitting is allowed, and the second group is a group of intra prediction modes where a horizontal splitting is allowed.
Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new grounds of rejection is made in view of the newly found prior art, Lee II, US 2020/0077086, hereafter “Lee II II”. This rejection is made non-final because the amended claim language substantially corresponds to cancelled claim language from dependent claim 16.
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.
Claims 14, 17, and 20-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Lee II, US 2020/0077086 A1.
Regarding claim 14, Lee II discloses: a video decoding method for decoding predicting a current block on a per subblock basis, the method comprising:
determining an intra prediction mode of the current block (See [0050], “determined, and detailed information (e.g., an intra prediction mode, a motion vector, a reference picture, etc.) according to each prediction method may be determined”);
determining a splitting direction in which the current block is split into a plurality of sub blocks, based on the intra prediction mode of the current block (See [0013], disclosing “In a method and an apparatus for decoding a video signal according to the present invention, when an intra prediction mode of the current block is the vertical direction, the current block is partitioned so that a plurality of sub-blocks are arranged up and down, and when the intra prediction mode of the current block is the horizontal direction, the current block may be partitioned so that a plurality of sub-blocks are arranged left and right.); and
predicting samples in each of the sub blocks split from the current block according to the splitting direction, by performing a prediction process which comprises an intra prediction using the intra prediction mode of the current block (See [0138], which discloses: “… a prediction block may be determined through predictive partitioning of the coding block. The predictive partitioning of the coding block may be performed by a partition mode (Part mode) indicating a partition type of the coding block. A size or a shape of the prediction block may be determined according to the partition mode of the coding block.”),
wherein determining the splitting direction comprises:
setting the splitting direction to one of a vertical splitting and a horizontal splitting based on whether the intra prediction mode of the current block belongs to a first group or a second group (See [0228], “For example, when the intra prediction mode of the current block is the vertical direction or similar to the vertical direction, a partition type of the current block may have a form in which sub-blocks are arranged up and down” and “On the other hand, when the intra prediction mode of the current block is the horizontal direction or similar to the horizontal direction, a partition type of the current block may have a form in which sub-blocks are arranged left and right.”), and
wherein the first group is a group of intra prediction modes where a vertical splitting is allowed, and the second group is a group of intra prediction modes where a horizontal splitting is allowed (See [0228], which discloses a “first group” in the form of intra prediction modes that are either vertical or “similar to the vertical direction”, and “second group” in the form of intra prediction modes that are horizontal or “similar to the horizontal direction.”).
Regarding claim 17, Lee II discloses: the method of claim 14, wherein determining the splitting direction, when the intra prediction mode of the current block is not included in both the first group and the second group, comprises:
decoding splitting direction information from a bitstream (See [0224], which discloses “information for specifying a size and shape of a block (or region) including a plurality of sub-blocks may be signaled through the bitstream.”); and
setting the splitting direction to a direction indicated by the splitting direction information (Ibid.)
Regarding claim 20, Lee II discloses: the method of claim 14, further comprising: determining a number of the plurality of sub blocks based on a size of the current block (See [0124], which discloses “the partitioning process may be limitedly performed based on at least one of the information on a size/depth of the coding block that quad tree-based partitioning is allowed, the information on the size/depth of the coding block that binary tree-based partitioning is allowed, or the information on the
size/depth of the coding.”).
Regarding claim 21, Lee II discloses: the method of claim 14, wherein the plurality of subblocks has a same size (See [0048], which discloses, “A prediction unit may be one of partitions partitioned into a square or a rectangular shape having the same size in a single coding unit”).
Video encoding method claim 22 and video data providing method claim 23 are directed to method claims that recite steps corresponding to the steps of video decoding method claim 14. Claims 22 and 23 therefore correspond to claim 14, and are rejected for the same reasons of anticipation as given for claim 14.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 16 and 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claim 16, the prior art does not disclose: the method of claim 14, wherein the first group is determined based on a width and a height of a subblock resulting from the horizontal splitting, and
the second group is determined based on a width and a height of the subblock resulting from the vertical splitting.
The closest prior art, Lee II, US 2020/0077086 discloses using the determined intra prediction mode to determine the partition direction, either horizontal, or vertical, based on the angle of the intra prediction mode, as disclosed in [0228]. However, this is the opposite of what is claimed; the claims require limiting the intra prediction mode candidate range based on the partition direction of the target blocks.
Regarding claim 18, claim 18 is objected to as allowable at least because it depends on claim 16, which contains allowable subject matter. Claim 18 reads: the method of claim 16, wherein determining the first group is further based on a ratio between the width and the height of the sub block resulting from the horizontal splitting, and
wherein determining the second group is further based on a ratio between the width and the height of the sub block resulting from the vertical splitting.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KYLE M LOTFI whose telephone number is (571)272-8762. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00-5:00.
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/KYLE M LOTFI/Examiner, Art Unit 2425
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