DETAILED ACTION
This is the First Action on the Merits for U.S. Patent Application No. 19/039,147, filed 24 February 2025, which is a continuation of U.S. Patent Application No. 18/971,895, now U.S. Patent No. 12,581,064, filed 6 December 2024, which is a continuation of U.S. Patent Application No. 18/672,265, now U.S. Patent No. 12,244,930, filed 23 May 2024, which is a continuation of U.S. Patent Application No. 18/466,442, now U.S. Patent No. 12,167,138, filed 13 September 2023, which is a continuation of U.S. Patent Application No. 17/487,277, now U.S. Patent No. 11,831,818, filed 28 September 2021, which is a continuation of U.S. Patent Application No. 16/372,237, now U.S. Patent No. 11,165,958, filed 1 April 2019, which is a continuation of International Application No. PCT/KR2017/011143, filed 10 October 2017, which claims foreign priority to Korean Application No. KR10-2017-0090612, filed 17 July 2017, Korean Application No. KR10-2016-0129382, filed 6 October 2016, and to Korean Application No. KR10-2016-0127878, filed 4 October 2016.
Claims 8–13 are pending.
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 .
Specification
The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because it is not descriptive of the presently-claimed invention. A corrected abstract of the disclosure is required and must be presented on a separate sheet, apart from any other text. See M.P.E.P. § 608.01(b).
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
Claim Rejections - 35 U.S.C. § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. § 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 8–13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2017/0118540 A1 (“Thomas”).
Thomas directed to finding a region of interest in a video stream, teaches with respect to claim 8 a method of decoding an image, comprising:
predicting blocks in the image to generate prediction blocks of the blocks (¶ 0080, predictions common to the HEVC video codec);
reconstructing the image based on encoding information and the prediction blocks (¶ 0075, client reconstructs received stream);
determining a size of a region in the reconstructed image based on the encoding information (¶ 0071, ROI position and size embedded in the stream); and
identifying the region based on the determined size (Fig. 6, ¶ 0111; ROI identifier includes its side coordinates and hence its size),
wherein the region is based on an object included in the reconstructed image (¶¶ 0068–69, e.g., ball in sports broadcast application).
Regarding claim 9, Thomas teaches the method of claim 8, wherein a size of the reconstructed image is smaller than a size of an image indicated by the encoding information ¶ 0067, ROI is sub-region of panoramic or wide field-of-view source video; 0079–82, only HEVC tiles that include the ROI are delivered to the client).
Regarding claim 10, Thomas teaches the method of claim 8, wherein the encoding information related to the size is obtained from a supplemental enhancement information (SEI) message (¶ 0028, ROI position information is carried in an SEI message).
Regarding claim 11, Thomas teaches the method of claim 8, based on a value of flag included in the encoding information, the size is determined depending on information included in a previous SEI message (Fig. 16, SEI message indicating ROI coordinates precedes frame).
Regarding claim 12, Thomas teaches a method of encoding an image, comprising:
predicting blocks in the image to generate prediction blocks of the blocks (¶ 0005, predictions common to the HEVC video codec),
reconstructing the image based on the prediction blocks (id.);
identifying a region in the reconstructed image (¶ 0068, selecting a region of interest using a tracking algorithm);
determining a size of the identified region (¶ 0071, ROI position and size given in edge coordinates); and
generating encoding information indicating the size of the identified region (id., ROI position and size embedded in the stream),
wherein the region is identified based on an object included in the reconstructed image (¶ 0068–69, e.g., ball in sports broadcast application).
Regarding claim 13, Thomas teaches a method of transmitting a bitstream, comprising:
[the claim 12 method] (claim 12 rejection supra); and
transmitting the bitstream (¶ 0074, transmitting the streams including the ROI data to a client).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. The following prior art was found using an Artificial Intelligence assisted search using an internal AI tool that uses the classification of the application under the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) system, as well as from the specification, including the claims and abstract, of the application as contextual information. The documents are ranked from most to least relevant. Where possible, English-language equivalents are given, and redundant results within the same patent families are eliminated. See “New Artificial Intelligence Functionality in PE2E Search”, 1504 OG 359 (15 November 2022), “Automated Search Pilot Program”, 90 F.R. 48,161 (8 October 2025).
US 2016/0330480 A1
US 2018/0199053 A1
US 2014/0355686 A1
US 2014/0219356 A
KR 101857585 B1
KR 101857591 B1
US 2014/0211857 A1
US 2011/0038420 A1
JP 2013-240116 A
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to David N Werner whose telephone number is (571)272-9662. The examiner can normally be reached M--F 7:30--4:00 Central.
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/David N Werner/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487
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