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 .
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
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Claims 1- 2, 15- 16, and 20 are provisionally rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 1- 4, and 13- 16 of copending Application No. 19041390 (reference application). Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because See Table 1 for details.
Pending Application
U.S. Application No. 19041390
Claim 1:
A method for reconstructing an encode current position from a bitstream of a 3D mesh, comprising:
determining a reference position set comprising a plurality of reference positions from a set of discrete polar grid points around the anchor position;
decoding the bitstream to obtain a reference index for the encoded current position;
identifying a target reference position from the reference position set according to the reference index; and
reconstructing the encoded current position using the target reference position as a position predictor.
Claim 1:
A method for reconstructing an encoded current position from a bitstream of a 3D mesh, comprising:
determining a reference position set comprising a plurality of reference positions from the N-by-N discrete parallelogram grid points;
decoding the bitstream to obtain a reference index for the encoded current position;
identifying a target reference position from the reference position set according to the reference index; and
reconstructing the encoded current position using the target reference position as a position predictor.
Claim 1:
determining an anchor position based on a plurality of prior reconstructed positions;
Claim 2:
The method of claim 1, wherein:
the plurality of prior reconstructed positions comprise a first position, A, a second position, B, and a third position, C, that are reconstructed immediately prior to reconstructing the encoded current position, the first position, the second position, and the third position forming a triangle ABC;
Claim 3:
3. The method of claim 2, wherein:
each of the at least one parallelogram grid space comprises one corner point located at a mid-position between A and B;
Claim 2:
The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of reference positions in the reference position set comprise N reference positions, N being predefined or signaled in the bitstream.
Claim 4:
The method of claim 3, wherein the reference position set comprises all of the N-by-N discrete parallelogram grid points of each of the at least one parallelogram grid space.
Claim 15:
A method for encoding a current position a 3D mesh, comprising:
maintaining a plurality of positions encoded prior to the current position;
determining a reference position set comprising a plurality of reference positions from a set of discrete polar grid points around the anchor position;
identifying a target position within the plurality of reference positions in the reference position set as an optimal predictor for the current position;
encoding the current position as a residual using the optimal predictor; and
including, in an encoded bitstream for the 3D mesh, the residual and an index of the target position within the plurality of reference positions.
Claim 13:
A method for encoding a current position from of a 3D mesh, comprising:
deriving at least one parallelogram grid space based on a plurality of prior encoded positions of the 3D mesh, each of the at least one parallelogram grid space encompasses N-by-N discrete parallelogram grid points;
determining a reference position set comprising a plurality of reference positions from the N-by-N discrete parallelogram grid points;
selecting a target reference position from the reference position set that optimally predicts the current position;
encoding the current position by generating a residual of the current position using the target reference position as a predictor;
including the residual and an index of the target reference position among the reference position set in an encoded bitstream of the 3D mesh.
Claim 15:
determining an anchor position based on the plurality of positions;
Claim 14:
The method of claim 13, wherein:
the plurality of prior encoded positions comprise a first position, A, a second position, B, and a third position, C, that are encoded immediately prior to encoding the current position, the first position, the second position, and the third position forming a triangle ABC;
Claim 15:
The method of claim 14, wherein:
each of the at least one parallelogram grid space comprises one corner point located at a mid-position between A and B;
Claim 16:
The method of claim 15, wherein the plurality of reference positions in the reference position set comprise N reference positions, N being predefined or signaled in the encoded bitstream.
Claim 16:
The method of claim 15, wherein the reference position set comprises all of the N-by-N discrete parallelogram grid points of each of the at least one parallelogram grid space.
Claim 20:
An electronic device for reconstructing an encoded current position from a bitstream of a 3D mesh, the electronic device comprising a memory for storing computer instructions and at least one processor configured to execute the computer instructions to:
determine a reference position set comprising a plurality of reference positions from a set of discrete polar grid points around the anchor position;
decode the bitstream to obtain a reference index for the encoded current position;
identify a target reference position from the reference position set according to the reference index; and
reconstruct the encoded current position using the target reference position as a position predictor.
Claim 1:
A method for reconstructing an encoded current position from a bitstream of a 3D mesh, comprising:
determining a reference position set comprising a plurality of reference positions from the N-by-N discrete parallelogram grid points;
decoding the bitstream to obtain a reference index for the encoded current position;
identifying a target reference position from the reference position set according to the reference index; and
reconstructing the encoded current position using the target reference position as a position predictor.
Claim 20:
determine an anchor position based on a plurality of reconstructed positions preceding reconstructing the encoded current position;
Claim 2:
The method of claim 1, wherein:
the plurality of prior reconstructed positions comprise a first position, A, a second position, B, and a third position, C, that are reconstructed immediately prior to reconstructing the encoded current position, the first position, the second position, and the third position forming a triangle ABC;
Claim 3:
3. The method of claim 2, wherein:
each of the at least one parallelogram grid space comprises one corner point located at a mid-position between A and B;
Table 1
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-14, and 17- 19 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.
Closest prior art listed below either singularly or in combination, fail to anticipate or render the above limitations obvious.
Xiang Zhang (US20230014820A1) is directed to methods and apparatus for mesh coding, including compression and decompression of 3D mesh data. A processing system decodes a point cloud from a bitstream using a point cloud compression decoder, where the points correspond to mesh vertices or sampled polygon points. Based on the decoded point cloud, the system estimates connectivity information among vertices and reconstructs mesh frame. Additional data such as texture maps decoded by a video decoder and texture coordinates decoded by an attribute decoder may be used to enhance the reconstructed mesh. The system also incorporate connectivity differences from the bitstream to refine connectivity information. For dynamic meshes containing sequences of frames, the system supports interframe connectivity prediction by estimating the connectivity of a current frame using reference connectivity from previously reconstructed frames.
Lauri Ilola (US20230050860A1) is directed to a method and system for encoding a 3D representation of an object by projecting it onto one or more 2D patches and generating corresponding geometry and texture images. A mesh is then constructed from the geometry image, producing vertices that are mapped to 2D coordinates in the texture image. These texture coordinates are signaled in a bitstream so they can be applied to the mesh vertices during decoding, enabling proper texture mapping of the reconstructed 3D object. The signaling may be carried through metadata structures, syntax elements, or attribute maps within volumetric video coding frameworks, and may include configurable parameters such as mapping types, flags, or atlas metadata.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MAHMOUD KAMAL ABOUZAHRA whose telephone number is (703)756-1694. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
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/MAHMOUD KAMAL ABOUZAHRA/Examiner, Art Unit 2486
/JAMIE J ATALA/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2486