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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) were submitted on 06/15/2026 & 09/15/2026. The submission are 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 § 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 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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over SARWER et al. (US 20210306673, hereinafter SARWER) in view of Chen et al. (US 20210084295, hereinafter Chen).
Regarding Claim 1, SARWER in view of Chen discloses a method for processing video data comprising:
determining, during a conversion between a video and a bitstream, to apply an adaptive loop filter (ALF) to a first component of a video unit of the video ([0112], FIG. 5, cross component adaptive loop filter (CCALF) process 500, applied to a decoded sample (e.g., at loop filter stage 232 in FIG. 2B or FIG. 3B),
the ALF including one or more spatial taps ([0112], FIG. 5, apply decoded sample (a luma component ,“Y Component” and two chroma components, “Cb Component” and “Cr Component”) with one or more loop filters, such as a deblocking filter followed by a sample adaptive offset (“SAO”) filter; [0113], FIG. 6 , CCALF process 500 uses an 8-tap hexagon shaped; [0125], FIG. 9, 9-tap 5×5 cross-shape filter is incorporated in VVC); and
performing the conversion based on the ALF ([0126], encoder applies various loop filter techniques at loop filter stage , such as, adaptive loop filters; [0112], FIG. 5, apply an ALF to all components (e.g., Y, Cb, and Cr) of the sample).
SARWER does not explicitly disclose ALF including one or more extended taps.
Chen teaches ALF including one or more extended taps ([0002] adaptive loop filter (ALF) processing in a video coding system constraining Cross-Component ALF processing in a video encoder or decoder; [0008], FIG. 2A, two additional ALF filters, CC ALF Cb 222 and CC ALF Cr 224 are used to derive adjustment signals to add to ALF processed Cb and Cr using adders 240 and 242 respectively; [0045] FIG. 2C illustrates an example of placement of CC-ALF 250 with respect to luma samples).
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Therefore, it would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of ALF including one or more extended taps as taught by Chen ([0002]) into the encoding & decoding system of SARWER in order to provide systems for various other ALF boundary issues are addressed and solutions to improve performance, to unify multiple systems or to simply ALF boundary process (Chen, [0036]).
Regarding Claim 2, SARWER in view of Chen discloses the method of claim 1,
Chen discloses wherein the one or more spatial taps utilize spatial neighbor samples from a reconstructed component of the video unit prior to applying the ALF, and wherein the one or more extended taps utilize an input source other than spatial neighbor samples of the first component [[0008], FIG. 2A, two additional ALF filters, CC ALF Cb 222 and CC ALF Cr 224 are used to derive adjustment signals to add to ALF processed Cb and Cr using adders 240 and 242 respectively;). The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1
Regarding Claim 3, SARWER in view of Chen discloses the method of claim 2,
Chen discloses wherein the first component is a luma component, and wherein the ALF including the one or more extended taps is applied only to filter the luma component ([0037] the target CCALF belongs to a filter set comprising one or more candidate filters and a sum of filter coefficients for each candidate filter, in said one or more candidate filters, is constrained to be a fixed value. The target CCALF is applied to the related reconstructed luma samples to generate a CCALF filtered chroma sample for a target reconstructed chroma sample. A final filtered chroma sample is generated by combining the CCALF filtered chroma sample and a regular ALF filtered chroma sample, wherein the final filtered chroma sample is used as a video decoding output or used for further video encoding or decoding process).
The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1
Regarding Claim 4, SARWER in view of Chen discloses the method of claim 1,
Chen discloses wherein a coefficient of each extended tap corresponds to N input samples, where N is 1 or 2 ([0037] the target CCALF belongs to a filter set comprising one or more candidate filters and a sum of filter coefficients for each candidate filter, in said one or more candidate filters, is constrained to be a fixed value. The target CCALF is applied to the related reconstructed luma samples to generate a CCALF filtered chroma sample for a target reconstructed chroma sample. A final filtered chroma sample is generated by combining the CCALF filtered chroma sample and a regular ALF filtered chroma sample, wherein the final filtered chroma sample is used as a video decoding output or used for further video encoding or decoding process).
a).
The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1
Regarding Claim 5, SARWER in view of Chen discloses the method of claim 1,
Chen discloses wherein in the ALF, different filter shapes are used for the one or more extended taps and the one or more spatial taps; and/or wherein in the ALF, different filter sizes are used for the one or more extended taps and the one or more spatial taps ([0037] the target CCALF belongs to a filter set comprising one or more candidate filters and a sum of filter coefficients for each candidate filter, in said one or more candidate filters, is constrained to be a fixed value. The target CCALF is applied to the related reconstructed luma samples to generate a CCALF filtered chroma sample for a target reconstructed chroma sample. A final filtered chroma sample is generated by combining the CCALF filtered chroma sample and a regular ALF filtered chroma sample, wherein the final filtered chroma sample is used as a video decoding output or used for further video encoding or decoding process).
The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1
Regarding Claim 6, SARWER in view of Chen discloses the method of claim 1,
Chen discloses wherein at least one of filter shapes used for the one or more spatial taps and the one or more extended taps is selected from a group consisted of: a diamond shape, a cross shape, a symmetrical shape or a combination thereof ([([0037] the target CCALF belongs to a filter set comprising one or more candidate filters and a sum of filter coefficients for each candidate filter, in said one or more candidate filters, is constrained to be a fixed value. The target CCALF is applied to the related reconstructed luma samples to generate a CCALF filtered chroma sample for a target reconstructed chroma sample. A final filtered chroma sample is generated by combining the CCALF filtered chroma sample and a regular ALF filtered chroma sample, wherein the final filtered chroma sample is used as a video decoding output or used for further video encoding or decoding process).
The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1
Regarding Claim 7, SARWER in view of Chen discloses the method of claim 6,
Chen discloses wherein the filter shape of the one or more spatial taps is a diamond with a height of nine samples and a width of nine samples (FIG. 4A to 4F).
The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1
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Regarding Claim 8, SARWER in view of Chen discloses the method of claim 6,
SARWER discloses wherein the filter shape of the one or more spatial taps is combination of a cross with a height of thirteen samples and a width of thirteen samples and a square with a width of five samples and a height of five samples (0130], FIG. 13A is a schematic diagram illustrating an example 13-tap 7×7 cross-shape filter 1300A for a CCALF, consistent with some embodiments of this disclosure. Similar to FIG. 9, in FIG. 13A, a white circle represents a luma sample. Filter 1300A covers 13 luma samples arranged on a cross shape, represented by an area enclosed by a dash line).
Regarding Claim 9, SARWER in view of Chen discloses the method of claim 6,
Chen discloses wherein filter shape used for the extended taps include at least one of: a single sample; a diamond with a height of three samples and a width of three samples; a cross with a height of five samples and a width of five samples; a diamond with a height of five samples and a width of five sample; ([0047] FIGS. 4A-F illustrate examples of coefficient normalization for truncated luma ALF filter processing at the virtual boundary, where FIG. 4A illustrates the modified ALF coefficient for the case that the top position is outside the virtual boundary; FIG. 4B illustrates the case that the bottom position is outside the virtual boundary; FIG. 4C illustrates the modified ALF coefficients for the case that the top two rows are outside the virtual boundary; FIG. 4D illustrates the modified ALF coefficients for the case that the bottom two rows are outside the virtual boundary; FIG. 4E illustrates the modified ALF coefficients for the case that the top three rows are outside the virtual boundary; and FIG. 4F illustrates the modified ALF coefficients for the case that the bottom three rows are outside the virtual boundary). The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1
Regarding Claim 10, SARWER in view of Chen discloses the method of claim 1,
Chen discloses wherein a geometrical-information-based transpose is applied to one or more spatial taps independently and the one or more extended taps independently ([0047] FIGS. 4A-F illustrate examples of coefficient normalization for truncated luma ALF filter processing at the virtual boundary, where FIG. 4A illustrates the modified ALF coefficient for the case that the top position is outside the virtual boundary; FIG. 4B illustrates the case that the bottom position is outside the virtual boundary). The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1.
Regarding Claim 11, SARWER in view of Chen discloses the method of claim 1,
Chen discloses wherein input for the one or more extended taps includes at least one of:
a reconstructed component of the video unit before applying a deblocking filter (DBF);an intermediate result of a predefined filter; intermediate filtering results generated by a reconstruction process before applying the ALF to a current frame and before applying a fixed-filter of the ALF and wherein the fixed-filter is an offline-trained-filter; intermediate filtering results generated by the reconstruction process before applying the DBF to the current frame; intermediate filtering results generated by the reconstruction process before applying the DBF to the current frame and before applying the fixed-filter of the ALF; intermediate filtering results generated by the reconstruction process before applying the DBF to the current frame and before applying the predefined filter; an intermediate filtering result of offline-trained ALF; intermediate filtering results of a gauss filter; intermediate filtering results generated by the reconstruction process after applying the DBF; intermediate filtering results generated by the reconstruction process before applying the ALF; or
intermediate filtering results generated by the reconstruction process after applying the ALF ([0047] FIGS. 4A-F illustrate examples of coefficient normalization for truncated luma ALF filter processing at the virtual boundary, where FIG. 4A illustrates the modified ALF coefficient for the case that the top position is outside the virtual boundary; FIG. 4B illustrates the case that the bottom position is outside the virtual boundary). The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1.
Note: Claim 11 is now recited in a completely optional limitations using the at least one of & or terms.
Regarding Claim 12, SARWER in view of Chen discloses the method of claim 1,
Chen discloses wherein a syntax element is included in the bitstream to indicate whether the one or more extended taps inside the ALF are enabled, wherein the syntax element is binarized by unary code, truncated unary code, fixed-length code, exponential Golomb code, or truncated exponential Golomb code ([0059] , the filter shape of CC-ALF is aligned with the filter shape of the luma ALF filter. In one embodiment, CC-ALF filter can have 25 taps with 23 coefficients, where the most top and most bottom coefficients are equal and the most left and the most right coefficients are equal. In one embodiment, CC-ALF filter can have 25 taps with 22 coefficients, where the most top, most bottom, most left and most right coefficients are all equal).
The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1.
Regarding Claim 13, SARWER in view of Chen discloses the method of claim 12, SARWER discloses wherein the syntax element is included in a sequence parameter set (SPS), a picture parameter set (PPS), a picture header, a slice header, an adaptation parameter set (APS), a coding tree unit (CTU), or a coding unit (CU) in the bitstream ([0110] In the quantization and inverse quantization functional blocks (e.g., quantization 214 and inverse quantization 218 of FIG. 2A or FIG. 2B, inverse quantization 218 of FIG. 3A or FIG. 3B), a quantization parameter (QP) is used to determine the amount of quantization (and inverse quantization) applied to the prediction residuals. Initial QP values used for coding of a picture or slice can be signaled at the high level, for example, using init_qp_minus26 syntax element in the Picture Parameter Set (PPS) and using slice_qp_delta syntax element in the slice header. Further, the QP values can be adapted at the local level for each CU using delta QP values sent at the granularity of quantization groups)
Regarding Claim 14, Analogous rejection as the rejection of Claim 13 applies.
Regarding Claim 15, SARWER in view of Chen discloses the method of claim 1,
SARWER discloses wherein the ALF includes a cross component ALF (CCALF) ([0020] FIG. 5,cross component adaptive loop filter (CCALF) process).
Regarding Claim 16, SARWER in view of Chen discloses the method of claim 1,
SARWER discloses wherein the conversion includes encoding the video into the bitstream ([0015] FIG. 2A).
Regarding Claim 17, SARWER in view of Chen discloses the method of claim 1,
SARWER discloses wherein the conversion includes decoding the video from the bitstream ([0016] FIG. 2B).
Regarding Claim 18, Apparatus claim 18 of using the corresponding method claimed in claims 1, and the rejections of which are incorporated herein for the same reasons as used above.
Regarding Claim 19, Computer-readable claim 19 of using the corresponding method claimed in claims 1, and the rejections of which are incorporated herein for the same reasons as used above.
Regarding Claim 20, Method claim 20 of using the corresponding method claimed in claims 1, and the rejections of which are incorporated herein for the same reasons as used above.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Samuel D Fereja whose telephone number is (469)295-9243. The examiner can normally be reached 8AM-5PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, DAVID CZEKAJ can be reached at (571) 272-7327. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SAMUEL D FEREJA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487
