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 Amendment and Argument
Applicant’s amendment and argument with respect to pending claims 1-9 filed on 08/04/2026 have been fully considered but the arguments regarding the prior art rejection has been rendered moot in view of a new ground(s) of rejection necessitated by the amendment of the pending claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Summary of Arguments:
Applicant requests the withdrawal of the rejection of the pending claims under 35 USC § 112.
Examiner’s Response:
In view of the amendment of claims 2 and 4, the rejection under 35 USC § 112 of the claims is withdrawn.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5, 8 and 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Kashimoto et al. (US 20250220232 A1).
The applied reference has a common assignee with the instant application. Based upon the earlier effectively filed date of the reference, it constitutes prior art under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2). This rejection under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) might be overcome by: (1) a showing under 37 CFR 1.130(a) that the subject matter disclosed in the reference was obtained directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor of this application and is thus not prior art in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(A); (2) a showing under 37 CFR 1.130(b) of a prior public disclosure under 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(B) if the same invention is not being claimed; or (3) a statement pursuant to 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) establishing that, not later than the effective filing date of the claimed invention, the subject matter disclosed in the reference and the claimed invention were either owned by the same person or subject to an obligation of assignment to the same person or subject to a joint research agreement.
Regarding claim 1, Kashimoto teaches the claim limitations as follows:
A mesh decoding device comprising a circuit, wherein the circuit: generates a motion vector residual and a motion vector prediction mode from a bit stream of an inter frame of a base mesh that includes a plurality of vertices defined in a three-dimensional space and edges that connect the vertices (See FIGS. 6, 9 and 19: ¶0100-0107: The motion vector residual decoding unit 202E1 is configured to generate a motion vector residual (MVR) from the P-frame bit stream…The motion vector prediction unit 202E3 is configured to…output the MVP of the vertex to be decoded. See FIG. 8 illustrating a correspondence between vertices of a base mesh of a P frame and vertices of a base mesh of an I frame. See FIG. 8: skip mode signal determination, steps 202E9, 202E10); calculates, using a motion vector of a decoded vertex around a vertex to be decoded, a motion vector of a vertex in a reference frame corresponding to the vertex to be decoded, and a motion vector of a vertex in the reference frame corresponding to a decoded vertex around the vertex to be decoded, a predicted value of a motion vector of the vertex to be decoded (¶0129: the motion vector prediction unit 202E3 may be configured to output the predicted value of the motion vector to be decoded by performing weighted averaging on the decoded motion vector of the vertex around the vertex to be decoded with a weight corresponding to a distance between the vertex to be decoded and the vertex of the reference frame corresponding to the vertex around the vertex to be decoded) by a prediction method identified by the prediction mode from among a plurality of prediction methods (See FIG. 19: steps 202E9, 202E10); adds the predicted value of the motion vector and the motion vector residual to compute a motion vector of the vertex to be decoded (¶0106: The motion vector calculation unit 202E4 is configured to add the MVR generated by the motion vector residual decoding unit 202E1 and the MVP output from the motion vector prediction unit 202E3, and output the MV of the vertex to be decoded), and reconstructing coordinates of the vertex to be decoded by adding the computed motion vector to coordinates of a corresponding vertex in a decoded base mesh of the reference frame (¶0107: The adder 202E5 is configured to add coordinates of a vertex corresponding to the vertex to be decoded obtained from the decoded base mesh of the I frame (reference frame) having the correspondence and the motion vector MV output from the motion vector calculation unit 202E3, and output the coordinates of the vertex to be decoded); and sets connectivity information of the inter frame to be identical to connectivity information of the reference frame (¶0097: The connectivity information decoding unit 202D is configured to set the connectivity information of the I frame extracted from the mesh buffer unit 2020 as connectivity information of a P frame).
Regarding claim 2, Kashimoto teaches the mesh decoding device according to claim 1, wherein the circuit: calculates, for each decoded vertex around the vertex to be decoded, a distance between a first vertex in the reference frame corresponding to the decoded vertex around the vertex to be decoded and a second vertex in the reference frame corresponding to the vertex to be decoded (¶0129: a distance between the vertex to be decoded and the vertex of the reference frame corresponding to the vertex around the vertex to be decoded), selects the first vertex having the smallest distance from among the calculated distances (¶0157, 0174-0175, 0428: the motion vector prediction unit 202E3 may be configured to select the MV of the closest vertex among the decoded MVs accumulated in the motion vector buffer unit 202E2 as an MV of a vertex connected to the vertex to be decoded), and sets a motion vector of a vertex in a frame to be decoded corresponding to the selected first vertex as a predicted value of a motion vector of the vertex to be decoded (¶0129-0130: the motion vector prediction unit 202E3 may be configured to output the predicted value of the motion vector to be decoded…).
Regarding claim 3, Kashimoto teaches the mesh decoding device according to claim 1, wherein the circuit: extracts a motion vector of a vertex corresponding to the vertex to be decoded from another decoded inter frame having a one-to-one correspondence with a frame to be decoded, and sets the extracted motion vector as a predicted value of a motion vector of the vertex to be decoded (¶0129: the motion vector prediction unit 202E3 may be configured to output the predicted value of the motion vector to be decoded by performing weighted averaging on the decoded motion vector of the vertex around the vertex to be decoded with a weight corresponding to a distance between the vertex to be decoded and the vertex of the reference frame corresponding to the vertex around the vertex to be decoded).
Regarding claim 5, Kashimoto teaches the mesh decoding device according to claim 1, wherein the circuit uses a same prediction mode in N consecutive vertices to be decoded (¶0095: a plurality of vertices having the same coordinates, that is, duplicate vertices, may be collectively rearranged in the predetermined order as a single vertex. ¶0210: One case (a case where the All skip mode signal indicates Yes, for example, has a value of 1) is a signal for copying a motion vector of a duplicate vertex without decoding the motion vectors of all the duplicate vertices of the P frame from the bit stream).
Regarding claim 8, the claim is drawn to a method claim and recites the limitation analogous to claim 1, and is rejected due to the same reason set forth above with respect to claim 1.
Regarding claim 9, the claim is drawn to a program stored on a non-transitory computer- readable medium claim and recites the limitation analogous to claim 1, and is rejected due to the same reason set forth above with respect to claim 1.
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 (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 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.
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kashimoto et al. (US 20250220232 A1) in view of Lim et al. (US 20210258583 A1).
Regarding claim 7, Kashimoto discloses: “[0349]… The arithmetic decoding unit 206B defines a number line from 0 to 1, and divides and uses the section. The section is divided by a binary occurrence probability (hereinafter, referred to as a context value)…[0355] The context value update unit 206C may use a probability update table that slightly updates a probability value when the MPS occurs and greatly updates the probability value when the LPS occurs…[0356] The context selection unit 206E is configured to generate and output the context value (the context value for output) by using the context value, a bit position, and the syntax read from the context buffer 206D.”
Kashimoto does not explicitly disclose wherein the circuit: selects a context model according to a prediction mode of a motion vector of a decoded vertex, generates a prediction mode of the vertex to be decoded by performing arithmetic decoding using a probability of the context model, and updates a probability of the context model according to the prediction mode of the vertex to be decoded.
Lim at ¶0376, 0448-0452, 0475, 0521-0522 discloses a method of image encoding/decoding by adaptively selecting context models based on a prediction mode used for image block, which has the advantage of improving coding efficiency. The method includes a prediction mode to be used for a current block is encoded using the selected context model, and updating the probability of the context model selected using the prediction mode used for the current block.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Koo's image encoding/decoding method by incorporating the teaching of Lim to arrive at the claimed invention "wherein the circuit: selects a context model according to a prediction mode of a motion vector of a decoded vertex, generates a prediction mode of the vertex to be decoded by performing arithmetic decoding using a probability of the context model, and updates a probability of the context model according to the prediction mode of the vertex to be decoded," since such modification would merely involve applying known adaptive context model selection techniques disclosed in Lim, to context adaptive binary arithmetic coding, in order to improve the coding efficiency. Lim ¶0522.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 4 and 6 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.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 NATHNAEL AYNALEM whose telephone number is (571)270-1482. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9AM-5:30 PM ET.
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/NATHNAEL AYNALEM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2488
