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, 9, 11-13, 18, and 20 have been amended. Claims 5 and 10 have been cancelled. Claims 21-22 have been added. Claims 1-4, 6-9, and 11-22 are pending for examination.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, filed 04/17/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-2, 13-14, and 19-20 under 35 U.S.C. 102 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Kim (US 20190387222 A1).
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 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee (US 20190116381 A1) in view of Kim (US 20190387222 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Lee a decoding method, comprising:
determining a prediction mode for a target block ([0119] Referring to FIG. 5, an intra prediction mode of the current block may be determined at step S500.); and
performing prediction for the target block using a reference pixel determined by the prediction mode ([0130] Referring to FIG. 5, a reference sample for intra prediction of the current block may be derived at step S510. [0135] Referring to FIG. 5, intra prediction may be performed using the intra prediction mode of the current block and the reference sample at step S520.).
Lee does not teach the following limitations, however, in an analogous art, Kim teaches whether to perform the prediction using a list including one or more Most Probable Modes (MPMs) is determined (MPM flag to indicate whether the current luma Intra mode belongs to the luma MPM list [0074]),
in a case where the prediction using the list is not performed, the prediction is performed using a selected remaining mode indicated by a remaining mode indicator among 61 remaining modes, wherein the remaining mode indicator has a value binarized using a truncated binary coding method, and the 61 remaining modes does not include the one or more MPMs ([0060] Also, the remaining mode can be signaled with truncated binarization (TB) … When the list size is 67 and the number of MPM is 6, the remaining mode can be signaled as TB with maximum 61.).
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 Kim and apply them to Lee. One would be motivated as such as to improve the Intra prediction performance and signaling efficiency.
Regarding claim 9, Lee in view of Kim teaches the decoding method of claim 1. Lee teaches determining whether at least one first prediction mode is used as intra prediction mode for the target block,
wherein whether the list comprising one or more second prediction modes is used for the prediction for the target block is determined in a case that it is determined that the at least one first prediction mode is not used for the target block, and
the at least one first prediction mode is not comprised in the list ([0245] An intra-prediction modes of one of top neighboring blocks and left neighboring blocks may be used when generating MPM candidates, while the other may not be available when generating MPM candidates).
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee in view of Kim further in view of Kondo (US 20130216150 A1).
Regarding claim 2, Lee in view of Kim teaches the decoding method of claim 1. Lee does not teach the following limitations, however, in an analogous art, Kondo teaches wherein the reference pixel comprises a first reference pixel and a second reference pixel, and
the first reference pixel and the second reference pixel are determined by a direction of the prediction mode ([0449] In step S314, the reference image read unit 220 determines two, three, four, five, or six to be the number of reference pixels to be used in generating a prediction-associated pixel, based on the position of the generation target predicted pixel in the predicted image, the motion vector, the size of the inter prediction block, and the predicting direction.).
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 Kondo and apply them to Lee in view of Kim. One would be motivated as such as to improve the prediction accuracy.
Claims 3-4, and 6-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee in view of Kim and Kondo further in view of Filippov (US 20190238838 A1).
Regarding claim 3, Lee in view of Kim and Kondo teaches the decoding method of claim 2. Lee does not teach the following limitations, however, in an analogous art, Filippov teaches wherein the prediction is performed using a first weight value for a first reference value determined by the first reference pixel and a second weight value for a second reference value determined by the second reference pixel ([0056] In an embodiment, the intra prediction unit 103 is configured to intra predict the pixel value of the current pixel of the current video coding block on the basis of: a product of a first weight with the first reference pixel value, wherein the first weight is based on the distance between the current pixel and the first reference pixel and the distance between the current pixel and the second reference pixel, and a product of a second weight with the second reference pixel value, wherein the second weight is based on the distance between the current pixel and the first reference pixel and the distance between the current pixel and the second reference pixel.).
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 Filippov and apply them to Lee in view of Kim and Kondo. One would be motivated as such as an improved apparatus for video coding is provided, which allows increasing the coding efficiency for intra prediction.
Regarding claim 4, Lee in view of Kim, Kondo and Filippov teaches the decoding method of claim 3. Filippov teaches wherein the first weight value is determined based on a distance between a target pixel of the target block and the first reference pixel, and
the second weight value is determined based on a distance between the target pixel and the second reference pixel ([0056] In an embodiment, the intra prediction unit 103 is configured to intra predict the pixel value of the current pixel of the current video coding block on the basis of: a product of a first weight with the first reference pixel value, wherein the first weight is based on the distance between the current pixel and the first reference pixel and the distance between the current pixel and the second reference pixel, and a product of a second weight with the second reference pixel value, wherein the second weight is based on the distance between the current pixel and the first reference pixel and the distance between the current pixel and the second reference pixel.). The same motivation used to combine Lee in view of Kim, Kondo and Filippov in claim 3 is applicable.
Regarding claim 6, Lee in view of Kim and Kondo teaches the decoding method of claim 2. Lee does not teach the following limitations, however, in an analogous art, Filippov teaches wherein the direction is a diagonal direction (The reference pixel unit 101 according to embodiments of the invention uses a combination of two components, namely gradually interpolated pixel values or components and directionally predicted pixel values or components, i.e. pixels predicted on the basis of a directional prediction, as provided, for instance, by the 33 directional modes defined in the HEVC/H.265 standard. [0079]).
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 Filippov and apply them to Lee in view of Kim and Kondo. One would be motivated as such as an improved apparatus for video coding is provided, which allows increasing the coding efficiency for intra prediction.
Regarding claim 7, Lee in view of Kim and Kondo teaches the decoding method of claim 2. Lee does not teach the following limitations, however, in an analogous art, Filippov teaches wherein the prediction is performed by a plurality of different prediction methods (The reference pixel unit 101 according to embodiments of the invention uses a combination of two components, namely gradually interpolated pixel values or components and directionally predicted pixel values or components, i.e. pixels predicted on the basis of a directional prediction, as provided, for instance, by the 33 directional modes defined in the HEVC/H.265 standard. [0079]).
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 Filippov and apply them to Lee in view of Kim and Kondo. One would be motivated as such as an improved apparatus for video coding is provided, which allows increasing the coding efficiency for intra prediction.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee in view of Kim further in view of Filippov (US 20190238838 A1).
Regarding claim 8, Lee in view of Kim teaches the decoding method of claim 1. Lee does not teach the following limitations, however, in an analogous art, Filippov teaches wherein the reference pixel comprises a first reference pixel and a second reference pixel,
the first reference pixel and the second reference pixel are not adjacent to the target block,
a X coordinate of the first reference pixel and a X coordinate of the second reference pixel are different to each other, and
a Y coordinate of the first reference pixel and a Y coordinate of the second reference pixel are different to each other ([0088] In an embodiment, which is illustrated on the basis of the exemplary video coding block shown in FIG. 9, the reference pixel unit 101 of the apparatus 100 is configured to determine a corresponding secondary reference pixel for this average pixel value by projecting of the point located at the middle of the currently processed video coding block to the positions of the secondary reference pixels. Examiner notes: different reference pixels).
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 Filippov and apply them to Lee in view of Kim. One would be motivated as such as an improved apparatus for video coding is provided, which allows increasing the coding efficiency for intra prediction.
Regarding claims 13-19, the encoding method of claims 13-19 are rejected under the same arts and evidence used to reject the decoding method of claims 1-4, 6-9.
Regarding claim 20, the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 20 is rejected under the same arts and evidence used to reject the method of claims 1-4, 6-9.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 11-12, 21-22 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 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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