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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is sent in response to Applicant’s Communication received 14 January 2024 for application number 19/020,926. The Office hereby acknowledges receipt of the following and placed of record in file: Specification, Drawings, Abstract, Oath/Declaration, Claims.
Claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on the following dates are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97 and are being considered by the Examiner: 11/7/25; 5/9/25.
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, 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.
Claim(s) 1-4, 6-11, 13-16, 18, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Supikov et al. (US 2024/0355047) in view of Bilcu et al. (US 2013/0222645) in view of Fan et al. (NPL titled “LightGaussian: Unbounded 3D Gaussian Compression with 15x Reduction and 200+ FPS”).
Regarding claim 1, Supikov discloses a method comprising: a Gaussian splat (fig. 3, par. 27).
Although Supikov further discloses Spherical Harmonic (SH) coefficients of a Gaussian splat being RGB colors (fig. 2; par. 27), Supikov does not explicitly disclose applying a color space transform to Spherical Harmonic (SH) coefficients of a Gaussian splat; calculating view-dependent YUV components using the transformed SH coefficients.
In the same field of endeavor, Bilcu discloses applying a color space transform from RGB to YUV (). Therefore Bilcu discloses applying a color space transform to Spherical Harmonic (SH) coefficients of a Gaussian splat; calculating view-dependent YUV components using the transformed SH coefficients (pars. 173-174).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, with motivation to modify Supikov to include the teachings of Bilcu in order to match one image to another (Bilcu, par. 70).
Supikov and Bilcu does not explicitly disclose eliminating redundant SH coefficients.
In the same field of endeavor, Fan discloses eliminating redundant SH coefficients (fig. 1; p. 1; section 1. Introduction).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, with motivation to modify Supikov and Bilcu to include the teachings of Fan in order to reduce the size (Fan, fig. 1; p. 1).
Regarding claim 2, see teachings of claim 1. Supikov further discloses receiving the Gaussian splat (figs. 5 and 6).
Regarding claim 3, see teachings of claims 1 and 2. Supikov further discloses wherein receiving the Gaussian splat includes acquiring the Gaussian splat using one or more camera devices (figs. 5 and 6).
Regarding claim 4, see teachings of claims 1 and 2. Supikov further discloses wherein receiving the Gaussian splat includes receiving the Gaussian splat from another device (par. 80, where the display receives the Gaussian splat from the one or more cameras).
Regarding claim 6, see teachings of claim 1. Supikov further discloses wherein the Gaussian splat comprises geometry including position, scale and rotation, and attributes including the SH coefficients and opacity (pars. 26-28).
Regarding claim 7, see teachings of claim 1. Fan further discloses wherein eliminating the redundant SH coefficients reduces memory requirements by approximately 50% (fig. 1; p. 1).
Regarding claim 8, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 1. Supikov further discloses a processor coupled to the memory, the processor configured for processing the application (fig. 8).
Regarding claim 9, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 2.
Regarding claim 10, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 3.
Regarding claim 11, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 4.
Regarding claim 13, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 6.
Regarding claim 14, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 7.
Regarding claim 15, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 1 and 11.
Regarding claim 16, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 3.
Regarding claim 18, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 6.
Regarding claim 19, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 7.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 12, 17, and 20 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 a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claims 5, 12, and 17, none of the references, alone or in combination, discloses wherein eliminating the redundant SH coefficients includes retaining base colors, retaining the SH coefficients for the Luma (Y) component, but eliminating the SH coefficients for the Chroma (U and V) component.
Regarding claim 20, none of the references, alone or in combination, discloses wherein eliminating the redundant SH coefficients reduces 48 SH coefficients to 18 SH coefficients.
Prior Art not relied upon: Please refer to the references listed in attached PTO-892, which are not relied upon for the claim rejections, since these references are pertinent to the disclosure.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NGUYEN T TRUONG whose telephone number is (571)272-5262. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon - Fri, 6AM - 2PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, JAMIE ATALA can be reached on 571-272-7384. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/NGUYEN T TRUONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2486