DETAILED ACTION
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 second paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112:
(B) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Regarding claims 1-3, these claims recite the limitation phrases “includes an integer number of the complete plural slices” and “includes an integer number of the complete plural tiles” which are undefine. First, the term “plural” implies more than one, but “integer number” encompasses the value 1. It is unclear if the claim excludes the case where a tile and/or slice contains exactly one tile and/or slice. Further, the term “includes” is open ended. For example, a tile overlapping 3.4 slices technically “includes” the integer 3 while also contain a 0.4 slice. Therefore, it is unclear if the claim requires the tile to consist exclusively of whole slices or if it merely requires the presence of at least some whole slices alongside partial ones. Thus, it is undefined to one of ordinary skill in the art would know from the claim terms what structure or steps are encompassed by the claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for a patent.
(b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of application for patent in the United States.
(e) the invention was described in (1) an application for patent, published under section 122(b), by another filed in the United States before the invention by the applicant for patent or (2) a patent granted on an application for patent by another filed in the United States before the invention by the applicant for patent, except that an international application filed under the treaty defined in section 351(a) shall have the effects for purposes of this subsection of an application filed in the United States only if the international application designated the United States and was published under Article 21(2) of such treaty in the English language.
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(e) as being anticipated by Wang et al. (US20130114735A1), hereinafter referred to as Wang.
Regarding claim 3, this claim is directed to a transmission method of data for an image generated by an encoding method. The limitations related to the operations that generated the bitstream are irrelevant as in terms of determining patentability of the transmission method of data for an image Therefore, the operations referenced in the claim(s) that generates the bitstream do not form part of transmitting method, and thus are not limiting to the scope of the claim. Thus, the claim scope is just a method of obtaining and transmitting a bitstream and is anticipated by Wang which recites a method of obtaining transmitting a bitstream in, ¶¶[0039] and [0041]-[0046].
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 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 of this title, 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 negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1 and 2 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Wang, in view of Sasai et al. (US20140341478A1), hereinafter referred to as Sasai.
Regarding claim 1, Wang discloses video decoding method, by a decoding apparatus (¶¶ [0095] disclosing a video decoder 30 ), comprising:
obtaining video information from a bitstream (¶¶ [0095] and [0122]-[0144] disclose a video decode 30 that receives a bitstream and parses the syntax elements);
deriving a tile and a slice for a current picture based on the obtained video information (¶¶ [0187] and [0197] disclose deriving a tile and a slice from syntax elements ); and performing decoding based on the derived slice and the derived tile (¶[0191] discloses decode the encoded picture partitions and ¶[0213] discloses video decoder 30 may decode two or more of the encoded picture partitions in parallel ), wherein the current picture is partitioned into one or more tiles and one or more slices (¶¶ [0062], [0073] and [0074] and Fig. 10 disclose that a picture is partitioned into slices and tiles), wherein non-square prediction units are partitioned from a coding unit in a coding tree unit, wherein inter prediction is performed on the non-square prediction units (¶[0107] discloses that the video decoder 30 may also support asymmetric partitioning for PU sizes of 2N×nU, 2N×nD, nL×2N, and nR×2N for inter prediction),
Wang does not explicitly disclose wherein each tile and slice in the picture fulfills at least one of specific constraints, the specific constraints comprising 1) each tile in a slice does not traverse a boundary of the slice, and 2) each slice in a tile does not traverse a boundary of the tile, wherein one tile overlapped with plural slices in the picture includes an integer number of the complete plural slices;, and
wherein one slice overlapped with plural tiles in the picture includes an integer number of the complete plural tiles;.
However, Sasai from the same or similar endeavor of image processing discloses wherein each tile and slice in the picture fulfills at least one of specific constraints (¶¶[0069]-[0081] - constraint information), the specific constraints comprising 1) each tile in a slice does not traverse a boundary of the slice, and 2) each slice in a tile does not traverse a boundary of the tile, wherein one tile overlapped with plural slices in the picture includes an integer number of the complete plural slices; and wherein one slice overlapped with plural tiles in the picture includes an integer number of the complete plural tiles (¶¶ [0065] and FIG. 3 tile boundaries do not extend beyond any of slice boundaries);.
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the teachings disclosed by Wang to add the teachings of Sasai as above, in order to easily realizing parallel processing. (Sasai, [0008]).
Regarding claim 2, this claim is rejected based on the same art and evidentiary limitations applied to the video decoding method of claim 1, since it claims analogous subject matter in the form of a video encoding method for performing the same or equivalent functionality.
The Examiner notes that it is well-known in the art that video compression involves a complementary pair of systems: a encoder and a decoder. The encoder converts the source data into a compressed form, occupying a reduced number of bits prior to transmission or storage, while the decoder converts the compressed form back into a representation of the original video data by performing a reciprocal process to that of the encoder, decoding the encoded video data from the bitstream.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892 for additional references.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FABIO S LIMA whose telephone number is (571)270-0625. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday, 7:30 AM - 4:00 PM (EST).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, JAMIE ATALA can be reached on (571)272-7384. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/FABIO S LIMA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2486