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 01/28/2025 & 11/21/2025. 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 Objections
Claim 9 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Both claim 9 10 recite “and a width of five sample; or.” Which could be a typo error. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 20 is are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112, second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which applicant regards as the invention.
The claim/claims is/are directed to “storing instructions” and/or “storing bitstreams” but claim/claims does not have any steps related to “storing instructions” and “storing bitstreams”, therefore, the scope of the claim/claims are/is vague and indefinite.
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 1-10 & 12-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over SARWER et al. (US 20210306673, hereinafter SARWER) in view of Yin et al. (US 20250063166, hereinafter Yin).
Regarding Claim 1, SARWER in view of Yin 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.
Yin teaches ALF including one or more extended taps ([0147] using a filter with at least one extended tap to form an independent filter in ALF and perform training data collection for a filter with at least one extended tap based on ALF-unfiltered samples or ALF-filtered samples).
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 Yin ([0147]) into the encoding & decoding system of SARWER in order to provide systems for performing the conversion between the visual media data and the bitstream based on the extended tap in the adaptive loop filter (ALF) in an effective manner (Yin, [0094]).
Regarding Claim 2, SARWER in view of Yin discloses the method of claim 1,
Yin 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 ([0143], at least one extended tap and at least one spatial tap may co-exist inside one ALF filter. In one example, an ALF filter may include of both spatial and extended tap. In one example, an ALF filter may include M (e.g., M>0) spatial tap/taps and N (e.g., N>0) extended tap/taps. Alternatively, an ALF filter may include only one or more spatial taps. Alternatively, an ALF filter may include only one or more extended taps). The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1
Regarding Claim 3, SARWER in view of Yin discloses the method of claim 2,
Yin 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 (2 ([0117] In the JEM, up to three diamond filter shapes (as shown in FIG. 10) can be selected for the luma component. An index is signalled at the picture level to indicate the filter shape used for the luma component. Each square represents a sample, and Ci (i being 0˜6 (left), 0˜12 (middle), 0˜20 (right)) denotes the coefficient to be applied to the sample. For chroma components in a picture, the 5×5 diamond shape is always used. In VVC, the 7×7 diamond shape is always used for Luma while the 5×5 diamond shape is always used for Chroma).
The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1
Regarding Claim 4, SARWER in view of Yin discloses the method of claim 1,
Yin discloses wherein a coefficient of each extended tap corresponds to N input samples, where N is 1 or 2 ([0117] In the JEM, up to three diamond filter shapes (as shown in FIG. 10) can be selected for the luma component. An index is signalled at the picture level to indicate the filter shape used for the luma component. Each square represents a sample, and Ci (i being 0˜6 (left), 0˜12 (middle), 0˜20 (right)) denotes the coefficient to be applied to the sample. For chroma components in a picture, the 5×5 diamond shape is always used. In VVC, the 7×7 diamond shape is always used for Luma while the 5×5 diamond shape is always used for Chroma).
The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1
Regarding Claim 5, SARWER in view of Yin discloses the method of claim 1,
Yin 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 ([0143], at least one extended tap and at least one spatial tap may co-exist inside one ALF filter. In one example, an ALF filter may include of both spatial and extended tap. In one example, an ALF filter may include M (e.g., M>0) spatial tap/taps and N (e.g., N>0) extended tap/taps. Alternatively, an ALF filter may include only one or more spatial taps. Alternatively, an ALF filter may include only one or more extended taps).
The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1
Regarding Claim 6, SARWER in view of Yin discloses the method of claim 1,
Yin 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 ([0143], at least one extended tap and at least one spatial tap may co-exist inside one ALF filter. In one example, an ALF filter may include of both spatial and extended tap. In one example, an ALF filter may include M (e.g., M>0) spatial tap/taps and N (e.g., N>0) extended tap/taps. Alternatively, an ALF filter may include only one or more spatial taps. Alternatively, an ALF filter may include only one or more extended taps).
The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1
Regarding Claim 7, SARWER in view of Yin discloses the method of claim 6,
Yin 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. 10).
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 Yin 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 Yin discloses the method of claim 6,
Yin 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; or. ([0117] In the JEM, up to three diamond filter shapes (as shown in FIG. 10) can be selected for the luma component. An index is signalled at the picture level to indicate the filter shape used for the luma component. Each square represents a sample, and Ci (i being 0˜6 (left), 0˜12 (middle), 0˜20 (right)) denotes the coefficient to be applied to the sample. For chroma components in a picture, the 5×5 diamond shape is always used. In VVC, the 7×7 diamond shape is always used for Luma while the 5×5 diamond shape is always used for Chroma). The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1
Regarding Claim 10, SARWER in view of Yin discloses the method of claim 1,
Yin discloses wherein a geometrical-information-based transpose is applied to one or more spatial taps independently and the one or more extended taps independently ([0143],at least one extended tap may be different from the spatial tap in ALF which only utilize the information of the spatial neighbor samples of the filtering component (e.g., only use spatial neighbor luma samples to filter the central luma sample inside one filter). The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1.
Regarding Claim 12, SARWER in view of Yin discloses the method of claim 1,
Yin 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 ([0165] first syntax element may be coded by arithmetic coding. In one example, the first syntax element may be coded with at least one context. The context may depend on coding information of the current block or neighboring block. The context may depend on the filtering shape of at least one neighboring block. In one example, the first syntax element may be coded with bypass coding. In one example, the first syntax element may be binarized by unary code, or truncated unary code, or fixed-length code, or exponential Golomb code, truncated exponential Golomb code, etc. ).
The same reason or rational of obviousness motivation applied as used above in claim 1.
Regarding Claim 13, SARWER in view of Yin 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 Yin 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 Yin 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 Yin 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.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 11 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claims, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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