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 .
Claims 1-39 are pending for examination.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 02/12/2025 are 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
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, 3-6 and 10-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Holcomb (US 20120294355 A1) in view of Rosen (US 20130077675 A1)
Regarding claim 1, Holcomb teaches a method comprising:
receiving, by a computing device, a group of pictures (GOP) of a content item (Fig. 8: 810 groups of pictures);
Holcomb does not teach the following limitations, however, in an analogous art, Rosen teaches determining a quantization parameter and a resolution associated with a previously- encoded GOP of the content item ([0034] A first pass is used for determining a rate control and down-resolution plot for a top-level 10 mbps; as indicated at 226, the gating mechanism 222 may provide feedback to the quantizer 210 to adjust a QP level provided to the quantizer. Examiner note: from fig 2: a catalog is fed to an adjustment unit based on QP and resolution);
determining, based on the resolution associated with the previously-encoded GOP, an adjustment parameter (as indicated at 224, the gating mechanism 222 may provide feedback to the complexity-adjustment reduction module 203 for dynamic resolution reduction, application of one or more filters, and/or any other suitable complexity-reduction process. Likewise, as indicated at 226, the gating mechanism 222 may provide feedback to the quantizer 210 to adjust a QP level provided to the quantizer.); and
encoding, based on the quantization parameter and the adjustment parameter, at least one frame of the GOP ( the second pass, bit rate control methods may be used to reduce the bit rate of those portions of the video content, both prior to and after the actual point at which the bit rate excursion would be detected in a single pass method [0024]).
It would have been obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to take the teachings of Rosen and apply them to Holcomb. One would be motivated as such as to compress video so that it keeps a consistent average viewing quality across a catalog, even when the videos have different levels of visual complexity.
Regarding claim 3, Holcomb in view of Rosen teaches the method of claim 1. Rosen teaches wherein the content item comprises streaming video content (Streaming [0012]). The same motivation used to combine Holcomb in view of Rosen in claim 1 is applicable.
Regarding claim 4, Holcomb in view of Rosen teaches the method of claim 1. Rosen teaches wherein determining the quantization parameter and the resolution associated with the previously-encoded GOP of the content item comprises determining, based on a target bit rate for transmitting the GOP, the quantization parameter and the resolution associated with the previously-encoded GOP of the content item (Fig. 1: 114 target bit rate; 116 adjust QP; 122 adjust resolution). The same motivation used to combine Holcomb in view of Rosen in claim 1 is applicable.
Regarding claim 5, Holcomb in view of Rosen teaches the method of claim 4. Rosen teaches determining an indication of a network condition, wherein the network condition is associated with at least one of: network bandwidth, data throughput, and data loss, wherein determining the target bit rate for transmitting the GOP comprises determining, based on the network condition, the target bit rate (The peak bit rate 220 may have any suitable value, and may be varied based upon such factors as client or communications channel bandwidth limitations. [0029]). The same motivation used to combine Holcomb in view of Rosen in claim 1 is applicable.
Regarding claim 6, Holcomb in view of Rosen teaches the method of claim 5. Rosen teaches receiving the indication of the network condition from a user device ([0029] client bandwidth limitations). The same motivation used to combine Holcomb in view of Rosen in claim 1 is applicable.
Regarding claim 10, Holcomb in view of Rosen teaches the method of claim 1. Holcomb teaches wherein encoding, based on the quantization parameter and the adjustment parameter, the at least one frame of the GOP comprises:
modifying, based on the quantization parameter and the adjustment parameter, a frame size of each frame of the GOP; and
allocating, based on the modified frame size of each frame of the GOP, a quantity of bits to the GOP, wherein the quantity of bits is associated with a target bit rate (receiving a video stream; monitoring a bit rate of a network connection through which the video stream is being transmitted; determining quantization parameters for the video stream; resizing frames of the video stream based on the quantization parameters and the bitrate of the network connection; encoding the video stream with the resized frames; and transmitting the encoded video stream over a network for display on a client computer coupled to the network. [claim 17]).
Regarding claim 11, Holcomb in view of Rosen teaches the method of claim 10. Holcomb teaches wherein modifying, based on the quantization parameter and the adjustment parameter, the frame size of the at least one frame of the GOP comprises:
determining, based on the quantization parameter and the adjustment parameter, a coding mode; and
modifying, based on the coding mode, the frame size of the at least one frame of the GOP (receiving a video stream; monitoring a bit rate of a network connection through which the video stream is being transmitted; determining quantization parameters for the video stream; resizing frames of the video stream based on the quantization parameters and the bitrate of the network connection; encoding the video stream with the resized frames; and transmitting the encoded video stream over a network for display on a client computer coupled to the network. [claim 17]).
Regarding claim 12, Holcomb in view of Rosen teaches the method of claim 1. Holcomb teaches wherein encoding the at least one frame of the GOP comprises increasing a frame size of the at least one frame ([0013] FIG. 2 shows a video encoder being used in conjunction with a frame resizer to modify spatial resolution of a video stream.).
Regarding claim 13, Holcomb in view of Rosen teaches the method of claim 5. Holcomb teaches wherein encoding the at least one frame of the GOP comprises decreasing a frame size of the at least one frame ([0013] FIG. 2 shows a video encoder being used in conjunction with a frame resizer to modify spatial resolution of a video stream.).
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Holcomb in view of Rosen further in view of Leontaris (US 20110090960 A1).
Regarding claim 7, Holcomb in view of Rosen teaches the method of claim 1. Holcomb in view of Rosen does not teach the following limitations, however, in an analogous art, Leontaris teaches wherein the indication of the network condition is based on at least one of: an overflow condition of a buffer associated with a user device, or an underflow condition of the buffer ([0011] A mechanism for generating compressed bit streams that satisfy the bandwidth and delay constraints is rate control. Rate control may minimize visual distortion, generates bits that fit the communication channel, and may deter decoder input buffer overflow or starvation (e.g., that may result in an underflow.) For instance, a compliant bit stream may satisfy two constraints with respect to the decoder buffer: [0012] (a) received picture bits fit in the buffer (otherwise results in a buffer overflow), and [0013] (b) when the decoder removes a picture from the buffer to decode the picture, the picture is received in its entirety (otherwise results in buffer underflow or starvation.)).
It would have been obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to take the teachings of Leontaris and apply them to Holcomb in view of Rosen. One would be motivated as such as to improve the quality of the compressed video (Leontaris: [0093]).
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Holcomb in view of Rosen further in view of AUYEUNG (US 20210092382 A1).
Regarding claim 8, Holcomb in view of Rosen teaches the method of claim 1. Holcomb in view of Rosen does not teach the following limitations, however, in an analogous art, AUYEUNG teaches wherein the quantization parameter is a quantization parameter of 63 different quantization parameters ([0047] Further, the transform/quantization unit 440 supports a maximum of 63 quantization parameters (QPs).).
It would have been obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to take the teachings of AUYEUNG and apply them to Holcomb in view of Rosen. One would be motivated as such as to decrease computations without sacrificing coding efficiency. (AUYEUNG: [0104]).
Claims 2 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Holcomb in view of Rosen further in view of Wen (US 20160301931 A1).
Regarding claim 2, Holcomb in view of Rosen teaches the method of claim 1. Holcomb in view of Rosen does not teach the following limitations, however, in an analogous art, Wen teaches wherein the GOP is associated with at least one of: a slice of the content item, a coding unit (CU) of the content item, or coding and a coding tree unit (CTU) of the content item ([0037] At a high level, rate control algorithms consist of two steps. The first step is to allocate a target bitrate budget over a group of pictures (GOPs), individual pictures or frames and Coding Units (CUs) in a video sequence).
It would have been obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to take the teachings of Wen and apply them to Holcomb in view of Rosen. One would be motivated as such to improve the rate control at a relatively small increase in computational complexity (Wen: [abstract]).
Regarding claim 9, Holcomb in view of Rosen teaches the method of claim 1. Holcomb in view of Rosen does not teach the following limitations, however, in an analogous art, Wen teaches wherein encoding, based on the quantization parameter and the adjustment parameter, the at least one frame of the GOP comprises encoding, based on a value for the quantization parameter and a value for the adjustment parameter that causes a multiplier to minimize a cost function associated with a target bit rate, the at least one frame of the GOP (the initial encoding parameter value being one of λ and quantization parameter (QP); adjust the initial encoding parameter value by fast-encoding the portion of the frame using a reduced subset of possible encoding modes; and encode the portion of the frame using the adjusted encoding parameter value [0006]).
It would have been obvious for a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filling date of the claimed invention, to take the teachings of Wen and apply them to Holcomb in view of Rosen. One would be motivated as such to improve the rate control at a relatively small increase in computational complexity (Wen: [abstract]).
Regarding claims 14-26, the method of claims 14-26 are rejected under the same arts and evidence used to reject the method of claims 1-13. Holcomb further teaches QoS based adjustment parameter ([0031])
Regarding claims 27-39, the method of claims 27-39 are rejected under the same arts and evidence used to reject the method of claims 1-13. Holcomb further teaches distortion-based adjustment parameter ([0032])
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HESHAM K ABOUZAHRA whose telephone number is (571)270-0425. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5.
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/HESHAM K ABOUZAHRA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2486
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