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 .
Response to Arguments
The rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ) of claims 1-3 has been withdrawn in view of the amendments.
The rejection under 35 U.S.C. 102(e) of claim 3 has been withdrawn in view of the amendments. However, claim 3 remains subject to rejection under 35 USC § 103 (a) over Wang in view of Sasai for the same or substantially similar reasons applied to claims 1 and 2, see below.
Applicant’s arguments, with respect to rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) of claims 1 and 2 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that the cited references fail to teach, disclose or suggest all limitations of claims 1 and 2. In particular, Applicant asserts that the cited references fail to disclose (1)“ wherein one tile overlapped with plural slices in the current picture includes only complete plural slices, a number of the complete plural slices being an integer of two or more” (amended limitation 1), and (2)“wherein one slice overlapped with plural tiles in the current picture includes only complete plural tiles, a number of the complete plural tiles being an integer of two or more” (Amended limitation 2)
Applicant’s argument is not persuasive with respect to amended limitation 1. Sasai discloses the amended limitation 1 in Fig. 3 and ¶[0065]. In particular, Sasai discloses, in Fig. 3, that “the portions enclosed by solid lines show tiles, and the portions enclosed by dotted lines show slices obtainable by dividing the tiles.” Further, Fig. 3 illustrates an example in which “ tile boundaries do not extend beyond any of slice boundaries. Thus, the tile shown in Fig. 3 overlaps plural slices and includes two complete slices because the tile boundary does not pass through or extend beyond a slice boundary.
Additionally, the Examiner respectfully disagrees with the assertion that the cited references fail to disclose the amended limitation 2. Amended limitation 2 recites “wherein one slice overlapped with plural tiles in the current picture includes only complete plural tiles, a number of the complete plural tiles being an integer of two or more.” Sasai teaches or suggests this limitation. In particular, Sasai discloses that Fig, 4 is an example of tiles and slices obtained by dividing an image where solid lines correspond to tile boundaries and dotted lines correspond to slice boundaries. In the lower portion of Fig. 4, one slice extends across plural of tiles and includes the plural lower tiles as complete plural tiles. Thus, the slice shown in the lower portion of Fig. 4 overlaps plural tiles and includes only complete plural tiles, with the number of complete tiles being two.
Applicant’s argument that Fig. 4 also shows an upper slice containing incomplete or partial tiles do not overcome the rejection. The claim recites “one slice” overlapped with plural tiles, not “ every slice” overlapped with plural tiles. The Examiner is not relaying on the upper slice of Fig. 4 to satisfy the amended limitation 2. Rather, the Examiner relies on the lower slice shown in Fig. 4, which includes plural complete tiles.
To the Extent Applicant argues that Sasai must disclose a universal structural constrained requiring every slice overlapping plural tiles to include only complete tiles. Such argument is not commensurate with the claim language. The claim recites “one slice” and “one tile,” not “every slice” and “every tile”
Accordingly, the cited reference teaches or suggest the amended limitations
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 -3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Wang et al. (US20130114735A1), hereinafter referred to as 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 current picture includes only complete plural slices, a number of the complete plural slices being an integer of two or more and wherein one slice overlapped with plural tiles in the current picture includes only complete plural tiles, a number of the complete plural tiles being an integer of two or more”
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 current picture includes only complete plural slices, a number of the complete plural slices being an integer of two or more and wherein one slice overlapped with plural tiles in the current picture includes only complete plural tiles, a number of the complete plural tiles being an integer of two or mor (¶¶ [0065] and Figs. 3 and 4, see explanation above how the prior art reads on these limitations);.
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: an 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.
Regarding claim 3, 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.
Furthermore, Wang discloses generating a bitstream and transmitting the data comprising the bitstream (Sasai, [0039] and [0041]-[0046])
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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 - Friday 8 am - 4 pm.
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/FABIO S LIMA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2486
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