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 .
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant's cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Drawings
The drawings were received on 1/2/25. These drawings are acceptable.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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 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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-11 and 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Zhang et al. (US 2025/0150604).
Regarding claim 1, Zhang discloses a computing system (see 5600 in fig. 56), comprising: one or more processors (see 5610 in fig. 56), and a computer-readable storage medium (see 5620 in fig. 56) communicatively coupled to the one or more processors, the computer-readable storage medium storing computer-readable instructions executable by the one or more processors that, when executed by the one or more processors, perform associated operations (e.g. see ¶ [0008]) comprising: constructing a template of a reference block (see “reference template” in fig. 25) of a coding block (see block in fig. 25) by deriving respective sub-templates of an upper boundary subblock or a left boundary subblock of the coding block (see TA1-TA4 and TL1-Tl4 in fig. 25).
Regarding claim 2, Zhang further discloses wherein deriving respective sub-templates of an upper boundary subblock or a left boundary subblock comprises: determining a motion vector of a sub-template of an upper boundary subblock or a sub-template of a left boundary subblock (see arrows in fig. 25; e.g. see ¶ [0293]), and determining a sub-template based on the motion vector (see sub-template for TA1-TA4 and TL1-Tl4 in fig. 25).
Regarding claim 3, Zhang further discloses wherein deriving respective sub-templates of an upper boundary subblock or a left boundary subblock comprises: determining a motion vector of an upper boundary subblock or a left boundary subblock, and determining a sub-template based on the motion vector (see sub-template for TA1-TA4 and TL1-Tl4 in fig. 25).
Regarding claim 4, Zhang further discloses wherein deriving a motion vector of an upper boundary subblock or a left boundary subblock comprises: deriving, for a uni-predicted subblock, a motion vector of either reference picture list 0 or reference picture list 1 (see fig. 22; e.g. see ¶ [0095]); and deriving, for a bi-predicted subblock, two respective motion vectors of reference picture list 0 and reference picture list 1 (see fig. 23; e.g. see ¶ [0096]).
Regarding claim 5, Zhang further discloses wherein the operations further comprise: deriving a template of reference picture list 0 comprising at least one sub-template derived from a motion vector of reference picture list 0 (see fig. 25; e.g. see ¶ [0095]); and deriving a template of reference picture list 1 comprising at least one sub-template derived from a motion vector of reference picture list 1 (see fig. 26; e.g. see ¶ [0096]).
Regarding claim 6, Zhang further discloses wherein the operations further comprise: deriving a final template for by computing a weighted average of the template of reference picture list 0 and the template of reference picture list 1 (e.g. see ¶ [0164]).
Regarding claim 7, Zhang further discloses wherein computing the weighted average of the template of reference picture list 0 and the template of reference picture list 1 comprises: computing a weighted average of the at least one sub-template derived from a motion vector of reference picture list 0 and the at least one sub-template derived from a motion vector of reference picture list 1 (e.g. see ¶ [0164]).
Regarding claim 8, Zhang further discloses wherein the operations further comprise: deriving a final sub-template for a uni-predicted subblock by taking a sub-template derived from a motion vector of reference picture list 0 or a motion vector of reference picture list 1 (e.g. see ¶ [0095]); or
Regarding claim 9, Zhang further discloses wherein a sub-template of an upper boundary subblock is wider than the upper boundary subblock, and a sub-template determined of a left boundary subblock is longer than the left boundary subblock (see range of location of reference template is wider than boundary in fig. 26; e.g. see ¶ [0372]).
Regarding claim 10, Zhang further discloses wherein a sub-template of the upper boundary subblock overlaps with up to two sub-templates of adjacent upper boundary subblocks, and a sub-template of the left boundary subblock overlaps with up to two sub-templates of adjacent left boundary subblocks (see overlaps of templates MVAA and MVA in fig. 26; e.g. see ¶ [0372]).
Regarding claim 11, Zhang further discloses wherein the operations further comprise: deriving an upper template by fusing the sub-template of the upper boundary subblock with an overlapping sub-template, or deriving a left template by fusing the sub-template of the left boundary subblock with an overlapping sub-template (see overlaps of templates MVAA and MVA in fig. 26; e.g. see ¶ [0372]).
Regarding claim 13, Zhang further discloses wherein the operations further comprise: refining a motion vector of an upper boundary subblock or a left boundary subblock based on a template matching ("TM") cost (e.g. see “to refine the motion information of the current CU by finding the closest match between a template” in ¶ [0157]), wherein the TM cost comprises a difference between a template of the coding block and the template of the reference block (e.g. see “to refine the motion information of the current CU by finding the closest match between a template” in ¶ [0157]).
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 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 of this title, 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 15 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang.
Regarding claim 15, although it is not explicitly recited, it is conventional in the art of motion vector refinement for adding a same offset is added to respective motion vectors of each subblock. The Examiner takes official notice that adding a same offset to respective motion vectors of each subblock is well known in the art. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to incorporate adding a same offset to respective motion vectors of each subblock in refining motion vector for the benefit of improving template matching to reduce errors.
Regarding claim 20, although it is not explicitly recited, it is conventional in the art of motion vector refinement wherein the motion vector search is performed for fewer iterations for a higher quantization parameter ("QP"), and is performed for more iterations for a lower QP to determine optimum rate distortion compression. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to incorporate iteration of high to low quantization parameter to determine optimum rate distortion for the benefit of improving video compression quality.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) 12 is/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 an Examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: discloses wherein fusing a sub-template of a non-leftmost and non-rightmost upper boundary subblock with an overlapping sub-templates, and fusing a sub-template of a non-uppermost and non-lowermost upper boundary subblock with an overlapping sub-templates, comprises computing a weighted average of the sub-template and the overlapping sub-template wherein the overlapping sub-template has a weight of b; and wherein fusing a sub-template of a leftmost or rightmost upper boundary subblock with an overlapping sub-template, and fusing a sub-template of an uppermost or lowermost left boundary subblock with an overlapping sub-template, comprises computing a weighted average of the sub-template and the overlapping sub- template wherein the overlapping sub-template has a weight of 2b.
The closest prior art Zhang fails to anticipate or render the above underlined limitation obvious.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Citation of Pertinent Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
1. Xiu et al. (US 2021/0051340), discloses frame rate up conversion.
2. Lee et al. (US 2020/0154124), discloses decoding with reference picture list.
3. Chen et al. (US 12,452,430), discloses sub-block based template matching.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RICHARD T TORRENTE whose telephone number is (571)270-3702. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 6:45-3:15 pm.
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/RICHARD T TORRENTE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2485
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