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 .
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 byt he manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sizuki (US 2019/0028715) (Yoshinori Sizuki) in view of Wu et al. (US 2024/0073438) (Yeqing Wu).
Regarding Claim 1, Sizuki discloses a method for motion vector magnitude restriction for generated reference frame prediction [See abstract and Paragraphs 15-17 and Fig 1 e.g. selecting a prediction mode representing the directions of prediction, selecting a frames to be referred to in each direction of prediction in the prediction mode], the method comprising: identifying forward and backward reference frames for a current frame [See abstract and Paragraphs 54-62 and Figs. 1-2 and 9-10]; determining a portion of a generated reference frame using the forward and backward reference frames [See Paragraphs 69-75 and Figs. 13-17];
Sizuki doesn’t explicitly disclose generating a prediction block by predicting a current block of the current frame according to a motion vector restricted to one of a same block located within the portion of the generated reference frame or a set of blocks including the same block and located within the portion of the generated reference frame, wherein a location of the same block within the portion of the generated reference frame corresponds to a location of the current block within the current frame; and decoding a prediction residual associated with the current block using the prediction block.
However, Wu discloses generating a prediction block by predicting a current block of the current frame according to a motion vector restricted to one of a same block located within the portion of the generated reference frame or a set of blocks including the same block and located within the portion of the generated reference frame [See Paragraphs 54-74, 204-217 and Figs 6-9 and 19-21], wherein a location of the same block within the portion of the generated reference frame corresponds to a location of the current block within the current frame [See Paragraphs 83-118 and 91--102]; and decoding a prediction residual associated with the current block using the prediction block [See Paragraphs 90-95 and 117-122].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at time of invention to modify the system disclosed by Sizuki to add the teachings in Wu as above, to provide a method that improve coding efficiency by reducing bits of side information used to predict the current pixel block [See Paragraphs 5-6].
Regarding Claims 2, Sizuki doesn’t explicitly disclose wherein the portion of the generated reference frame corresponds to an area of the current frame which includes the current block, one or more blocks which precede the current block in a scan order, and one or more blocks which follow the current block in the scan order.
However, Wu discloses wherein the portion of the generated reference frame corresponds to an area of the current frame which includes the current block, one or more blocks which precede the current block in a scan order, and one or more blocks which follow the current block in the scan order [See Paragraphs 58-60].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at time of invention to modify the system disclosed by Sizuki to add the teachings in Wu as above, to provide a method that improve coding efficiency by reducing bits of side information used to predict the current pixel block [See Paragraphs 5-6].
Regarding Claims 3, Sizuki discloses wherein the area of the current frame is within a working buffer or cache of a hardware coder [See Fig. 26-29].
Regarding Claims 4, 11 and 17, Sizuki doesn’t explicitly disclose wherein the motion vector is restricted to the same block and an outline of a location to which the motion vector points resides completely within the same block.
However, Wu discloses wherein the motion vector is restricted to the same block and an outline of a location to which the motion vector points resides completely within the same block [See Paragraphs 49-55, 100-110, 214-218 and 223-239].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at time of invention to modify the system disclosed by Sizuki to add the teachings in Wu as above, to provide a method that improve coding efficiency by reducing bits of side information used to predict the current pixel block [See Paragraphs 5-6].
Regarding Claims 5, 12 and 18, Sizuki doesn’t explicitly disclose wherein a fractional portion of the motion vector is omitted where the outline of the location resides within a threshold number of pixels of an edge of the same block.
However, Wu discloses wherein a fractional portion of the motion vector is omitted where the outline of the location resides within a threshold number of pixels of an edge of the same block [See Paragraphs 47-60 and 84-96].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at time of invention to modify the system disclosed by Sizuki to add the teachings in Wu as above, to provide a method that improve coding efficiency by reducing bits of side information used to predict the current pixel block [See Paragraphs 5-6].
Regarding Claim 6, 13 and 19, Sizuki doesn’t explicitly disclose wherein the motion vector is restricted to the set of blocks, the set of blocks includes multiple rows of blocks, and the same block is located in a bottom-most row of the multiple rows of blocks.
However, Wu discloses wherein the motion vector is restricted to the set of blocks, the set of blocks includes multiple rows of blocks, and the same block is located in a bottom-most row of the multiple rows of blocks [See Paragraphs 57-67].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at time of invention to modify the system disclosed by Sizuki to add the teachings in Wu as above, to provide a method that improve coding efficiency by reducing bits of side information used to predict the current pixel block [See Paragraphs 5-6].
Regarding Claim 7, 14 and 20, Sizuki doesn’t explicitly disclose wherein one or more first blocks preceding the same block in a scan order are recently coded blocks and one or more second blocks following the same block in the scan order correspond to a lookahead window of a hardware coder.
However, Wu discloses wherein one or more first blocks preceding the same block in a scan order are recently coded blocks and one or more second blocks following the same block in the scan order correspond to a lookahead window of a hardware coder [See Paragraphs 58-60].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at time of invention to modify the system disclosed by Sizuki to add the teachings in Wu as above, to provide a method that improve coding efficiency by reducing bits of side information used to predict the current pixel block [See Paragraphs 5-6].
Regarding Claim 8, Sizuki doesn’t explicitly disclose wherein the generated reference frame is a temporally interpolated picture frame.
However, Wu discloses wherein the generated reference frame is a temporally interpolated picture frame [See abstract and Paragraphs 75-86, 109-127 and 146-153].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at time of invention to modify the system disclosed by Sizuki to add the teachings in Wu as above, to provide a method that improve coding efficiency by reducing bits of side information used to predict the current pixel block [See Paragraphs 5-6].
Regarding Claim 9, the limitations claimed are substantially similar to claim 1 above, therefore the ground for rejecting claim l also applies here.
Regarding Claim 10, Sizuki doesn’t explicitly wherein a location of the same block within the portion of the generated reference frame corresponds to a location of the current block within the current frame.
However, Wu discloses wherein a location of the same block within the portion of the generated reference frame corresponds to a location of the current block within the current frame [See Paragraphs 83-118 and 91--102].
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art at time of invention to modify the system disclosed by Sizuki to add the teachings in Wu as above, to provide a method that improve coding efficiency by reducing bits of side information used to predict the current pixel block [See Paragraphs 5-6].
Regarding Claim 15, the limitations claimed are substantially similar to claim 1 above, therefore the ground for rejecting claim l also applies here.
Regarding Claim 16, Sizuki discloses wherein the portion of the generated reference frame is determined using forward and backward reference frames for the current frame [See Paragraphs54-62, 69-75 and Figs. 13-17].
Conclusion
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/TSION B OWENS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487
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