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 .
Claims 1, 3-9, 11-16, and 18 have been amended. Claims 2, 10, and 17 have been cancelled. Claims 1, 3-9, 11-16, and 18 are pending for examination.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 01/10/2025 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.
Claims 1, 3-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Helmrich (A Spectrally Adaptive Noise Filling Tool for Perceptual Transform Coding of Still Images).
Regarding claim 1, Helmrich teaches a method for decoding comprising:
obtaining at least one characteristic of a current block comprising a current sample of a picture before a prediction to obtain the current block has started (figure 2: the entropy decoded (and QP descaled) picture coefficients of a transform unit (TU) are "characteristics of a current sample of a picture" (actually of each and every pixel within the TU) "before reconstructing the current sample");
determining parameters of a film grain synthesis process to be applied to the current sample from the at least one characteristic (figure 2, step "Spectrally Adaptive Noise Filling": the film grain synthesis depends both on the TU coefficients and on the "coded model parameters");
storing the determined parameters with information representative of a location of the current sample (implicit. Note that working on a TU by TU basis (D1, last paragraph of section Ill, spanning across pages 2 and 3) necessarily implies that the location of the TU - and of the samples therein - is known and available at any stage of the processing);
reconstructing the current sample (figure 2, step "Inv. Transform & Prediction, Post-Filtering"); and,
applying the film grain synthesis process on the current sample with the determined parameters (figure 2, addition generating the "out" in combination with steps "Spectrally Adaptive Noise Filling" and "Additional Inv. Transform").
Regarding claim 3, Helmrich teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the at least one characteristic of the current block comprises at least one of an information representative of a shape of the current block, a location of the current block, a sum of bits used to encode all components of the current block, an information representative of a surface delimited by the current block, an information indicating that a prediction residual of the current block comprises at least one non-zero transform coefficient (Examiner note: the film grain analysis and synthesis are carried out on a TU by TU basis (see Helmrich, last paragraph of section Ill, spanning across pages 2 and 3) implies that shape and location of the current block (TU) are taken into account as characteristics of the current block (and sample)).
Regarding claim 4, Helmrich teaches the method of claim 3, wherein responsive to the at least one characteristic of the current block comprising an information representative of a shape and a location of the current block, the parameters of a film grain synthesis process are shape and a location of a block of film grain samples comprising a film grain sample to be applied to the current sample (Examiner note: the film grain analysis and synthesis are carried out on a TU by TU basis (see Helmrich, last paragraph of section Ill, spanning across pages 2 and 3) implies that shape and location of the current block (TU) are taken into account as characteristics of the current block (and sample)).
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 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.
Claims 5-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Helmrich in view of Grois (Film grain synthesis technology for video applications (Draft 2)).
Regarding claim 5, Helmrich teaches the method of claim 1. Helmrich does not explicitly teach the following limitations, however, in an analogous art, Grois teaches wherein applying the film grain synthesis process to the current sample comprises adding a film grain value to a value of the current sample, and wherein the film grain value is obtained by weighting a value obtained using a film grain model by a first weighting factor depending on the value of the current sample or of an average value of samples of the current block (to estimate intensity intervals and associated scaling factors, first step would be to calculate indicative features for each block that enters the process of film grain parameter estimation (each block within a flat region of the image). The first feature is the average value (avg) calculated on a block within the filtered frame. [8.3.1]).
It would have been obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to take the teachings of Grois and apply them to Helmrich. One would be motivated as such thus reducing the amount of noise that may be present in a video or image signal prior to compression, and by resynthesizing and adding back an approximation of the removed noise
Regarding claim 6, Helmrich in view of Grois teaches the method of claim 5. Grois teaches wherein responsive to the at least one characteristic of the current block comprising a sum of bits used to encode all components of the current block, the value obtained using a film grain model is further weighted by a second weighting factor depending on the sum of bits used to encode all components of the current block ([7.3.1.4] Synthesized grain can be constructed as follows:
1) For each block of samples of the decoded picture having the same applicable intensity interval, select a block of the same size from the grain pattern for the corresponding intensity interval.
2) Scale the values of the selected grain pattern block by the standard deviation applicable to the intensity interval.).
The same motivation used to combine Helmrich in view of Grois in claim 5 is applicable.
Regarding claim 7, Helmrich in view of Grois teaches the method of claim 5. Grois teaches wherein responsive to the at least one characteristic of the current block comprising an information representative of a surface delimited by the current block, the value obtained using a film grain model is further weighted by a second weighting factor depending on the surface delimited by the current block (Final step approximates the scaling function represented by the 4rd order polynomial curve by a simplified stepwise scaling function, see Error! Reference source not found.. [8.3.2.4]).
The same motivation used to combine Helmrich in view of Grois in claim 5 is applicable.
Regarding claim 8, Helmrich in view of Grois teaches the method of claim 5. Helmrich teaches wherein responsive to the at least one characteristic of the current block comprising an information indicating that a prediction residual of the current block comprises at least one non- zero transform coefficient, the value obtained using a film grain model is further weighted by a second weighting factor that depends on the information indicating that the prediction residual of the current block comprises at least one non-zero transform coefficient (section Ill, last five lines (top-left of page 3): the number of N° (coefficients quantized to zero) determines the "amount of denoising", i.e. the amount (weight) of film grain to be added.).
Regarding claim 9, 11-16 and 18, the device of claims 9, 11-16 and 18 are rejected under the same arts and evidence used to reject the method of claims 1, 3-8.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HESHAM K ABOUZAHRA whose telephone number is (571)270-0425. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jamie Atala can be reached at 57127227384. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/HESHAM K ABOUZAHRA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2486
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