Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 9-28 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. Full support for the limitation “decode a QP delta syntax element in the bit stream if a size of the first coding unit is not smaller than the minimum coding unit size”, does not appear to be clearly identifiable in the specification.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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 pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a), the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned at the time any inventions covered therein were made absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and invention dates of each claim that was not commonly owned at the time a later invention was made in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(c) and potential pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102(e), (f) or (g) prior art under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a).
Claims 9-10, 12-14, 16-17, 19, 21-22, 24-25, 27 rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Huang et al. US 2012/0114034 from IDS in view of Han et al. US 2011/0096829
Huang discloses:
9. and 16. A system comprising:) and configurable to: extract, from the bit stream, a minimum coding unit size for which decoding of a quantization parameter (QP) delta is enabled in the picture (Figs. 4-5, 7a-b; 0036); divide the picture into a plurality of non-overlapping blocks including a first non-overlapping block (Figs. 1-3); divide a non-overlapping block in the picture into a plurality of coding units including a first coding unit (Figs. 1-3); decode a QP delta syntax element in the bit stream if a size of the first coding unit is not smaller than the minimum coding unit size (Fig. 7a-b); and determine a QP value for the first coding unit using the first QP delta value (0035).
Huang does not explicitly disclose the following, however Han teaches a receiver configurable to receive a bit stream including a coded representation of a picture (Fig. 17); and a decoder coupled to the receiver (Fig. 17); determine a first QP delta value for a first region in the picture using the QP delta syntax element (0217; 0265-6);
Therefore it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill at the time the invention was made to combine the references above in order to have a relationship among a depth of a coding unit, rotational transformation, and an operating mode may be considered as a relationship between the size of a coding unit and the index of the matrix of rotational transformation (Han 0262)
10. and 17. The system of The system of wherein a size of a largest coding unit in the picture is 64x64 (0030), and wherein the minimum coding unit size for which decoding of the QP delta is enabled in the picture is 16x16 (0032; 0036; 16x16 is a known block size which could be the selected Qpmincusize).
12. and 19. The system of claim 9, wherein the decoder is configurable to decode the QP delta syntax element at a transform unit level of the bit stream if the size of the first coding unit is not smaller than the minimum coding unit size (0030-1; 0040; Figs 7a-b, 9a-b).
13. and 27. The system of claim 9, wherein the decoder is configurable to determine the QP value for the first coding unit using the first QP delta value and a previous QP value (0031; 0035).
14. The system of claim 9, wherein the decoder is configurable to: decode a flag in the bit stream; and extract, from the bit stream, the minimum coding unit size for which decoding of the QP delta is enabled in the picture only if the flag is set (fig. 5; 0036; 0044).
21. and 24. The system of claim 9, wherein the decoder is configurable to decode the QP delta syntax element in the bit stream only if the size of the first coding unit is not smaller than the minimum coding unit size (Fig. 7a-b).
22. and 25. The system of claim 9, wherein the decoder is configurable to: determine that the first coding unit is not smaller than the minimum coding unit size (Fig. 7a-b); and decode the QP delta syntax element in the bit stream in response to determining that the first coding unit is not smaller than the minimum coding unit size (Fig. 7a-b).
Claims 11, 15, 18, 20, 28 rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Huang et al. US 2012/0114034 from IDS in view of Han et al. US 2011/0096829 and further in view of Sasai et al. US 2013/0156099 from IDS
11. and 18. The system of claim 9,
Huang does not explicitly disclose the following, however Sasai teaches wherein the decoder is configurable to extract, from a picture parameter set in the bit stream, the minimum coding unit size for which decoding of the QP delta is enabled in the picture (0185).
Therefore it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill at the time the invention was made to combine the references above in order to solve the problem of the coding delta quantization scale parameter is restricted only on a largest coding unit level (Sasai 0180)
15. 20. and 28. The system of claim 14,
Huang does not explicitly disclose the following, however Sasai teaches wherein the decoder is configurable to decode the flag in a picture parameter set in the bit stream (0185).
Therefore it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill at the time the invention was made to combine the references above in order to solve the problem of the coding delta quantization scale parameter is restricted only on a largest coding unit level (Sasai 0180)
Claims 11, 15, 18, 20, 28 rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Huang et al. US 2012/0114034 from IDS in view of Han et al. US 2011/0096829 and further in view of Regunathan et al. US 2009/0296808
23. and 26. The system of claim 9, wherein the decoder is configurable to: and determine the QP value for the first coding unit using the first QP delta value and the predicted QP value (0035).
Huang does not explicitly disclose the following, however Regunathan teaches determine a predicted QP value for the first coding unit based on a left neighboring coding unit and a top neighboring coding unit (0125; 0140);
Therefore it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill at the time the invention was made to combine the references above in order to assume QP_LEFT being equal to QP_TOP indicates a trend for the QPs of that particular section of the frame or color channel such that it is reasonable to assume that QP_MB, the QP of the current macroblock, is most likely close to, if not equal to, QP_LEFT (Regunathan 0125)
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSEPH W BECKER whose telephone number is (571)270-7301. The examiner can normally be reached flexible usually 10-6.
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/JOSEPH W BECKER/ Examiner, Art Unit 2424
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