DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
2. The newly added limitations/amended claim is not supported by the KR 10-2018-0070161, priority date of Jun. 19, 2018. And the priority date to support the newly added limitations, would be Nov. 8, 2018 (US 10356413).
Double Patenting
3. Claims 1,4-5 and 7-8 are still provisionally rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-8 of copending Application No. 19/079434 in view of Lee, Bae Keun (WO 2019/235891), for the same reason as set forth in the last office action, mailed on 4/03/2026. And as for the newly added limitation, inverse transform using DCT-II. Lee clearly, teaches the newly added limitation, please see the rejection below. Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to implement such known teaching.
This is a provisional nonstatutory double patenting rejection because the patentably indistinct
claims have not in fact been patented. Please see below:
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. Claims 1,4-5 and 7-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee, Bae Keun (WO 2019/235891) in view of Zhao et al. (WO 2017/058615).
Regarding claim 1, Lee discloses a method for decoding an image, comprising; decoding a
residual coefficient of a current block in the image from a bitstream (e.g., fig. 1, abstract), performing
inverse-quantization on the residual coefficient by using a quantization parameter (e.g., abstract, entire
disclosure and indication of dequantizing the residual coefficients / inverse quantized residual
Coefficients), and reconstructing a residual sample of the current block by performing inverse-transform
on the inverse-quantized residual coefficient (e.g., figs. 1-2, 10 and 12, decoding process is for
reconstruction of the sample, entire disclosure and indication of flowchart illustrating a decoding
process of a residual sample according to an embodiment to which the present invention is applied.
First, a residual coefficient of the current block may be obtained (S1010). The decoder may
obtain residual coefficients through coefficient scanning and inverse-quantization on the residual
coefficient inverse transform, a residual sample of the current block), wherein the inverse-transform
is performed by a first inverse-transform and a second inverse-transform, the second inverse-transform
being performed before the first inverse-transform (e.g., indication of performing secondary inverse
transformation on the dequantized residual coefficients, and performing primary inverse transformation
on the performance result of the secondary inverse transformation, disclosed in the disclosure), and
wherein the second inverse-transform is applied only to a partial region of the current block (e.g.,
indication of, the secondary inverse transformation can be performed for a partial region of the current
block, abstract, disclosure of the reference), and wherein, in response to the second inverse-transform being applied, a transform type for the inverse-transform is fixed to DCT-II among a plurality of transform types (e.g., the secondary inverse transformation can be performed for a partial region of the current block. Whether the second inverse transform is performed may be determined based on at least one of the size, shape, transform type encoding mode, or intra prediction mode of the current block. For example, when the current block is a 4x4 block encoded in an intra mode, a transform matrix based on a DST (specifically, DST-VII) may be used. If the current block does not satisfy the above condition, a DCT (specifically, DCT-II) based transformation matrix may be used. Secondary inverse transform may be performed for some regions of the current block. Equation 2 shows a transformation matrix T .sub.8 based on DCT-II. Inverse transformation based on DCT-II may be performed based on T .sub.8., The transformation matrix for the second inverse transform may be determined based on the size of the region to which the second inverse transform is applied. When the reduced transform matrix is used, 16 transform coefficients may be output as a result of performing the quadratic transform. The 16 samples may be mapped to a block having a size of 4x4 at the top-left of the block, in the disclosure of Lee) considered equivalent to the above limitation.
Lee, fails to explicitly teach, in response to the size of the current block being 4x8 or 8x4, the partial region is a 4x4 region located at a top-left of the current block.
However, Lee throughout the disclosure teaches, When the reduced transform matrix is used, 16 transform coefficients may be output as a result of performing the quadratic transform. The 16 samples may be mapped to a block having a size of 4x4 at the top-left of the block. And
Zhao, in the same field of endeavor, and more clearly teaches, when a 4x4 NSST is applied for MxN blocks, where M>4, N>4, M and N are multiples of 4, M≠N, the MxN block may be divided by multiple non-overlapped 4x4 sub-blocks. For each 4x4 sub-block, a 4x4 NSST may be applied. For example, video encoder may apply a first 4x4 secondary transform to the top-left 4x4 coefficients of an 8x4 block (e.g., paragraph 0185).
In view of the above, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to simply apply the above teachings and arrive at the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Lee and Zhao teach the method of claim 1, wherein the second inverse-transform is performed by using a transform matrix (e.g., indication of, The transformation matrix for the second inverse transform may be determined based on the size of the region to which the second inverse transform is applied, throughout the disclosure of Lee).
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Lee and Zhao teach the method of claim 4, wherein a shape of the transform matrix is square, and wherein a size of the transform matrix is 16x16 (e.g., the size of the transformation matrix T is 16X16 disclosure of the Lee).
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Lee and Zhao teach the method of claim 4, wherein a shape of the transform matrix is non-square (e.g., indication of, transform matrix may be applied to a 4x4, 2x8, or 8x2 size block, disclosure of Lee).
Regarding claims 7-8, the limitations claim ed are substantially similar to claim 1 above, and is directed to encoding method of the decoding method of the above claim 1, and since the disclosure of the reference also covers the encoding process, therefore the claims are rejected for the same reason as stated in the above.
Conclusion
7. 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.
8. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner
should be directed to Behrooz Senfi, whose telephone number is (571)272-7339. The examiner can
normally be reached on Monday-Friday 10:00-6:00.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a
USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use
the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor,
Christopher Kelley can be reached on 571 272 7331. The fax phone number for the organization where
this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application
Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained
from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available
through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see
http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact
the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a
USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-
9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571 -272-1000.
/BEHROOZ M SENFI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2482
Prosecution Insights