DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the amendment filed on 03/19/2026. Claims 1, 11, 18 and 19-20 are amended. Claims 1-20 have been examined.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 12/15/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Response to Amendment/Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1, 18 and 20 have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to any of the references being used in the current rejection. Although a new grounds of rejection has been used to address additional limitations that have been added to the claims, a response is deemed necessary for several of applicant’s arguments since Park (US 2022/0383553) will continue to be used to meet several of the claimed limitations.
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 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park (US 2022/0383553) in view of Zhang (US 2024/0323424).
Regarding claim 1, Park discloses a point cloud processing method, performed by a decoding device and comprising: obtaining code stream data of point cloud data (Park, paragraph 40 discloses transmission device 10000 and the reception device 10004 are capable of wired or wireless communication to transmit and receive point cloud data),
parsing the code stream data to obtain group information of the point cloud data (Park, paragraph 180 discloses metadata parser 13006 according to the embodiments may parse metadata contained in the received point cloud data, for example, a set value. The metadata parser 13006 may pass the metadata to geometry decoding and/or attribute decoding),
the group information indicating an association relationship, related to encoding and decoding, between groups corresponding to the point cloud data (Park, paragraph 321 discloses a point cloud bitstream including parameters including geometry information, attribute information, and/or metadata for the same may be generated (encoded) and received (decoded) by the transmission device 10000),
optimizing a group prediction process based on the association relationship between the groups, to obtain attribute information of the point cloud data; and presenting the point cloud data based on the attribute information of the point cloud data (Park, paragraph 123 and table 2 and 3 discloses predicted attribute (or attribute value) according to the embodiments is set to the average of values obtained by multiplying the attributes (or attribute values) (e.g., color, reflectance, etc.) of neighbor points set in the predictor of each point by a weight (or weight value) calculated based on the distance to each neighbor point. The point cloud encoder according to the embodiments (for example, the coefficient quantizer 40011) may quantize and inversely quantize the residuals (which may be called residual attributes, residual attribute values, or attribute prediction residuals) obtained by subtracting a predicted attribute (attribute value) from the attribute (attribute value) of each point… Attribute prediction residuals quantization pseudo code int PCCQuantization(int value, int quantStep) { if( value >=0) { return floor(value / quantStep + 1.0 / 3.0); } else { return -floor(-value / quantStep + 1.0 / 3.0); } }… Attribute prediction residuals inverse quantization pseudo code int PCCInverseQuantization(int value, int quantStep) { if( quantStep ==0) { return value; } else { return value * quantStep; } }).
Park does not explicitly disclose the following claim limitations: data, wherein the code stream data comprises S bits of data, S being a positive integer… data, comprising: performing, on the S bits of data, entropy decoding or run-length decoding, to obtain the attribute information of the point cloud data, wherein the attribute information of the point cloud data comprises at least one of: a residual value of a point or a transformation coefficient of the point.
However, in the same field of endeavor Zhang discloses more explicitly the following:
data, wherein the code stream data comprises S bits of data, S being a positive integer… data, comprising: performing, on the S bits of data, entropy decoding or run-length decoding, to obtain the attribute information of the point cloud data, wherein the attribute information of the point cloud data comprises at least one of: a residual value of a point or a transformation coefficient of the point (Zhang, paragraph 73 discloses the process of attribute transformation is as follows: first, the point cloud attributes are transformed by wavelet transform, and the transformation coefficients are quantized; then, the attribute reconstruction value is obtained by inverse quantization and inverse wavelet transform; then, a difference between the original attribute and the reconstructed value of the attribute is calculated to obtain the attribute residual, which is quantized then; and finally, entropy encoding is performed on the quantized transform coefficient and attribute residual to generate a binary code stream).
It would have been obvious to one the ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to modify the teachings of Park with Zhang to create the point cloud system of Park with obtaining attribute information residual.
The reasoning being is to generate a binary code stream (Zhang, paragraph 73).
With regard to claim 18, claim 18 recites the same elements and features in claim 1 as outlined above. The same rationale that was utilized in claim 1 applies equally as well to claim 18. Park, paragraph 93 discloses including one or more processors or integrated circuits configured to communicate with one or more memories included in the point cloud providing apparatus.
With regard to claim 20, claim 20 recites the same elements and features in claim 1 as outlined above. The same rationale that was utilized in claim 1 applies equally as well to claim 20. Park, paragraph 93 discloses including one or more processors or integrated circuits configured to communicate with one or more memories included in the point cloud providing apparatus.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-17 and 19 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.
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 JERRY T JEAN BAPTISTE whose telephone number is (571)272-6189. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9-5PM EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, William Vaughn can be reached at 571-272-3922. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JERRY T JEAN BAPTISTE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2481
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