DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This office action is a response to an application filed on 01/15/2025, in which claims 1-20 are pending and ready for examination.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d).
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted was filed before the mailing date of the Office Action on the merits. The submission is 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
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.
Claims 1-4, 7, 11-14, 17, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kalva (“[VCM] Response to VCM CfP from the Florida Atlantic University and OP Solutions, LLC”, IDS submitted) in view of Cricri (WO 2024208609 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Kalva discloses an image encoding method, the method comprising (Kalva; Fig. 1, Heading “2. Region Detector (Encoder)”. An image coding system/method is used.):
extracting region of interest information in an image (Kalva; Heading “3. Top-Down Region Extractor”. Region of interest information is extracted from an image.);
varying a resolution for each region of interest (Kalva; Fig. 4, Heading “4. Optional Region Transformation (Encoder and decoder)”. A resolution for each ROI is scaled/varied.); and
encoding the image with the region of interest information (Kalva; Heading “6. Frame and parameter coding (Encoder and Decoder)”. Images are encoded with ROI information.).
But it does not specifically disclose performing an object tracking between frames based on the region of interest information.
However, Cricri teaches performing an object tracking between frames based on the region of interest information (Cricri; Para. [0042]. An object tracking is done among frames in accordance with bounding boxes/ROI information and frame indexes.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the pertinent before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding system of Kalva to adapt an image processing approach, by incorporating Cricri’s teaching wherein object is tracked using frame indexes, for the motivation to perform VCM using neural network (Cricri; Para. [0004].).
Regarding claim 2, modified Kalva teaches an extraction of the region of interest information is performed by using an object detection neural network from a current frame (Kalva; Heading “2. Region Detector (Encoder)”. Region detection/extraction is performed using object detection neural network for a current frame.).
Regarding claim 3, modified Kalva teaches above limitation, but the region of interest information is information accumulated for an adjacent frame of the current frame according to a mode.
However, Cricri further teaches the region of interest information is information accumulated for an adjacent frame of the current frame according to a mode (Cricri; Para. [0105-106]. ROI information associated with object tracking NN is gathered/obtained from adjacent frames in accordance with inter-frame prediction NN.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the pertinent before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding system of Kalva to adapt an image processing approach, by incorporating Cricri’s teaching wherein object tracking is done in accordance with inter-frame prediction NN, for the motivation to perform VCM using neural network (Cricri; Para. [0004].).
Regarding claim 4, modified Kalva teaches above limitation, but when the mode is an All Intra mode, the region of interest information is not accumulated for the adjacent frame.
However, Cricri further teaches when the mode is an All Intra mode, the region of interest information is not accumulated for the adjacent frame (Cricri; Para. [0105-106]. ROI information associated with object tracking NN is gathered/obtained from a current frame, not adjacent frames, when intra-frame prediction NN is used.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the pertinent before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding system of Kalva to adapt an image processing approach, by incorporating Cricri’s teaching wherein object tracking is done in accordance with intra-frame prediction NN, for the motivation to perform VCM using neural network (Cricri; Para. [0004].).
Regarding claim 7, modified Kalva further teaches varying the resolution for the each region of interest is performed based on whether an object is detected by upscaling or downscaling the region of interest (Kalva; Fig. 4, Heading “4. Optional Region Transformation (Encoder and decoder)”. A resolution for each ROI is scaled/varied in accordance with one of upscaling or downscaling, i.e. downscaling in Fig. 4.).
Claims 11, 13-14, 17, and 20 are directed to an image decoding method, comprising a sequence of processing steps corresponding to the same as claimed in claims 1, 3-4, 7, and are non-patentable over the prior art for the same reason as previously indicated.
Regarding claim 12, modified Kalva further teaches the region of interest information includes coordinate information specifying a region of interest of the image (Kalva; Heading “2. Region Detector (Encoder)”. ROI information includes coordinate information indicating a ROI of an image.).
Claim 20 is directed to a method for transmitting a bitstream, comprising a sequence of processing steps corresponding to the same as claimed in claim 1, and is non-patentable over the prior art for the same reason as previously indicated.
Claims 8-10 and 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kalva (“[VCM] Response to VCM CfP from the Florida Atlantic University and OP Solutions, LLC”, IDS submitted) in view of Cricri (WO 2024208609 A1), as applied to claim 2 above, and further in view of Lim (WO 2025071125 A1).
Regarding claim 8, modified Kalva teaches encoding the image with the region of interest information performs an encoding of an image in which a region of interest is adjusted (Kalva; Fig. 4, Heading “4. Optional Region Transformation (Encoder and decoder)”. Encoding of an image is performed in which a ROI is varied.), but a scale factor for each region of interest obtained from varying the resolution for the each region of interest.
However, Lim teaches a scale factor for each region of interest obtained from varying the resolution for the each region of interest (Lim; Para. [0234]. A scaling ratio for each ROI is obtained from varying resolution of each ROI.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the pertinent before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding system of Kalva to adapt an image processing approach, by incorporating Lim’s teaching wherein scaling ratio is signaled for scaling ROIs, for the motivation to perform VCM using ROI-based coding (Lim; Abstract.).
Regarding claim 9, modified Kalva teaches above limitation, but the region of interest information includes a flag showing whether to perform a scaling of a region of interest.
However, Lim teaches the region of interest information includes a flag showing whether to perform a scaling of a region of interest (Lim; Para. [0240]. ROI information includes a flag indicating whether affine information including scaling is present.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the pertinent before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding system of Kalva to adapt an image processing approach, by incorporating Lim’s teaching wherein a flag associated with the performing of scaling is signaled, for the motivation to perform VCM using ROI-based coding (Lim; Abstract.).
Regarding claim 10, modified Kalva teaches above limitation, but the region of interest information includes information showing an accumulation cycle of a region of interest.
However, Lim teaches the region of interest information includes information showing an accumulation cycle of a region of interest (Lim; Para. [0164]. ROI information indicating a cycle for ROI, over which ROI information is gathered/used.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the pertinent before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding system of Kalva to adapt an image processing approach, by incorporating Lim’s teaching wherein ROI information is coded in accordance with specific ROI cycle, for the motivation to perform VCM using ROI-based coding (Lim; Abstract.).
Claims 18-19 are directed to an image decoding method, comprising a sequence of processing steps corresponding to the same as claimed in claims 9-10, and are non-patentable over the prior art for the same reason as previously indicated.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-6 and 15-16 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Ghaznavi (WO 2023280558 A1) teaches a video coding system that provide improvement via neural network filter.
Damghanian (WO 2021251886 A1) teaches a video coding system that provides sematic information with encoded image data.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALBERT KIR whose telephone number is (571)272-6245. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8:30am - 5:00pm.
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/ALBERT KIR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2485