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 .
Examiner’s Remarks
The English translation of the prior references for the rejections in current Office Action are attached.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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, 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 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) 1-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO 2010038961 A2 KIM, HAYOON et al. (hereafter Kim ‘961), in view of US 20100054336 A1 Okumura; Akihiro et al. (hereafter Okumura), and further in view of US 20110182362 A1 Kim; Hayoon et al. (hereafter Kim ‘362).
Regarding claim 1, Kim ‘961 discloses An apparatus for storing a bitstream (Fig.1), wherein the apparatus comprises at least one processor (P.23, para.4th), at least one storage medium storing computer executable instructions and at least one communication interface (P.23, para.3rd); wherein the at least one communication interface is configured to receive or transmit the bitstream and the at least one storage medium is configured to store the bitstream (P.29, para.2nd); and wherein the bitstream is generated by encoding a picture block by inter-prediction (P.23 para.3rd -4th) using a first motion vector associated with a first reference picture of a video and a second motion vector associated with a second reference picture of the video (P.10, para.3rd, P.22, para.4th, the inter prediction uses a first MV and a second MV that refer to reference pictures to preform motion compensating), and wherein when the instructions are executed by the processor the apparatus is caused to carry out a method comprises: obtaining an estimate of the first motion vector (P.14, para.4th ); obtaining an estimate of the second motion vector (P.14, para.4th); calculating, after the search to determine the first motion vector has been performed, the second motion vector based on: a difference between the first motion vector and the estimate of the first motion vector (P.31 para.2nd, motion information is the difference between any two motion vectors including the difference between the first motion vector and the estimate of the first motion vector ); applying the first motion vector and the second motion vector for inter- prediction of the picture block (P.22, para.4th); and generating the bitstream comprising the encoded picture block (P.23, para.2nd ).
Kim ‘961 fails to disclose determining, by performing a search within a search space specified based on the estimate of the first motion vector, the first motion vector; calculating, after the search to determine the first motion vector has been performed, the second motion vector based on: the estimate of the second motion vector.
However, Okumura teaches determining, by performing a search within a search space specified based on the estimate of the first motion vector, the first motion vector ([11]); Kim ‘362 teaches calculating, after the search to determine the first motion vector has been performed, the second motion vector based on: the estimate of the second motion vector ([60]-[61]).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention having all the references Kim ‘961, Okumura and Kim ‘362 before him/her, to modify the apparatus for storing a bitstream disclosed by Kim ‘961 to include the teaching in the same field of endeavor of Okumura and Kim ‘362, in order to reduce the deterioration of a boundary area between a foreground and a background, as identified by Okmura, and improve the video compression efficiency, as identified by Kim ‘362.
Regarding claims 2, 14, Kim ‘961 discloses The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the calculating the second motion vector comprises: adding to the estimate of the second motion vector: the difference between the first motion vector and the estimate of the first motion vector, or a function of the difference between the first motion vector and the estimate of the first motion vector (P.16, para.1st -3rd ).
Regarding claims 3, 15, Kim ‘961 discloses The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the function includes scaling by a scaling factor and/or clipping (P.20, para.2nd).
Regarding claims 4, 16, Okumura teaches The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the value of the scaling factor depends on a ratio between the respective distances of the first reference picture and the second reference picture to the current picture ([58]).
Regarding claims 5, 17, Okumura teaches The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises: obtaining two reference pictures; selecting the first reference picture from among the two reference pictures; and selecting the second reference picture from among the two reference pictures ([43]-[44]).
Regarding claim 6, 18, Kim ‘961 discloses The apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the method comprises: selecting the first picture or the second picture in accordance with the respective first picture or second picture being referred to, in a bit stream that also includes the coded picture block of the video, by an index relating to a predefined list of reference pictures among at least two lists of reference pictures, wherein a list of reference pictures associates an index with the position of a reference picture with respect to the current picture (P.15 para.1st).
Regarding claim 7, Kim ‘362 teaches The apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the method comprises: selecting as the first reference picture, in accordance with the two reference pictures being referred to in the bitstream by an index in the same predefined list of reference pictures, the picture with the highest position in said list of reference pictures (P.10, para.4th ).
Regarding claim 8, Okumura teaches The apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the method comprises: selecting, as the first reference picture, the picture that has a lowest temporal layer among the two pictures, wherein a temporal layer of a reference picture indicates a number of pictures that must be decoded to decode the reference picture ([88]).
Regarding claim 9, Kim ‘961 discloses The apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the method comprises: selecting, as the first reference picture, the picture that has a lowest base quantization value, wherein a base quantization value refers to a quantization value that is common to a picture slice and used for all blocks (P.11, para.3rd).
Regarding claim 10, Okumura teaches The apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the method comprises: selecting, as the first reference picture, the picture that has a lowest distance to the current picture ([55]).
Regarding claim 11, Kim ‘961 discloses The apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the method comprises: selecting the first reference picture and the second reference picture such that the estimate of the first motion vector is smaller in magnitude than the estimate of the second motion vector (P.20, para.2nd).
Regarding claim 12, Kim ‘961 discloses The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises: determining the estimate of the first motion vector and the estimate of the second motion vector by selecting the estimate of the first motion vector and the estimate of the second motion vector from a set of motion vector candidates based on similarity of a template with a portion of the picture referred to by the respective motion vector candidate (P.15, para.1st).
Regarding claim 13, see the rejection for claim 1.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: WO 2011121942 A1, CN 101960855 A, CN 108419082 B.
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/TRACY Y. LI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487