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
Applicant's arguments filed on June 22, 2026, have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that the cited references fail to teach, disclose or suggest all limitations of claim 1. In particular, Applicant asserts that the cited references fail to disclose “determining, for a first conversion between a first point cloud (PC) sample of a point cloud sequence and a bitstream of the point cloud sequence, a prediction of a first coefficient for attribute information of a first node in the first PC sample based on a second coefficient for attribute information of a reference node in a reference PC sample associated with the first PC sample.”
Applicant argues that Yea does not disclose determining a prediction of a first coefficient for attribute information based on a second coefficient for attribute information. The prior Office Action acknowledged this point. Accordingly, Flynn was relied upon for the coefficient prediction feature, while Yea was relied upon as set forth in the rejection.
Applicant further argues that Flynn performs prediction in the original attribute domain rather than in the transform domain. However, this argument does not address the full disclosure of Flynn. As explained in the prior Office Action, Flynn, in ¶[0096], discloses applying a transform to predicted geometry-weighted sums of attributes to obtain predicted coefficients. Flynn, in ¶[0101], further discloses transforming the predicted geometry weighted sums to obtain predicted transform domain coefficients. Likewise, Flynn, in ¶[0107], discloses that the output of transform operator 908 is a set of predicted AC coefficients.
Flynn further explains, in ¶[0113], that the known DC coefficients of the parent node and neighboring nodes are equivalent to their respective geometry weighted sums of attributes. Those values may then be converted to mean sums of attributes for use in the prediction process. Thus, the information used in the prediction process is derived from known transform coefficients.
Moreover, claim 1 does not require that each intermediate prediction operation occur entirely in the transform domain. Rather, claim 1 requires a prediction of a first coefficient based on a second coefficient. Therefore, the use of an intermediate mean attribute representation does not distinguish the claimed subject matter from the combined teachings relied upon in the rejection.
Accordingly, Applicant’s argument does not overcome the rejection of claim 1 over Yea in view of Flynn.
Regarding Chou, Applicant argues that Chou does not remedy the alleged deficiency of Yea. However, Chou was not relied upon to supply the disputed limitation of claim 1. Rather, Chou was relied upon for the additional limitations of claims 2 and 7, as set forth in the prior Office Action. Therefore, Applicant’s argument regarding Chou does not overcome the rejection of claims 2 and 7.
Applicant further asserts that the remaining claims are patentable because they depend from or otherwise include the subject matter of claim 1. However, for the reasons discussed above, Applicant has not overcome the rejection of claim 1. Therefore, this argument does not overcome the rejections of all the other claims, including newly added claim 21.
Accordingly, the claims remain rejected for the reasons set forth above
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 by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 3-6, 8-19 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yea et al. (US20200304823A1), hereinafter referred to as Yea, in view of Flynn et al. (US20200302651A1), hereinafter referred to as Flynn.
Regarding claim 1, Yea discloses method for point cloud coding (¶[0002]), comprising:
determining, for a first conversion between a first point cloud (PC) sample of a point cloud sequence and a bitstream of the point cloud sequence (Figs. 4 and 5, ¶[0061] and Abstract disclose a coding flow between point cloud (PC) sample and a bitstream), in a reference PC sample associated with the first PC sample (¶[0065] discloses a prediction that employs nearest neighbor point clouds as in G-PCC can consider neighbor samples from other frames as additional candidates; [0066] discloses an original point cloud and a reference point cloud are sorted using the Morton code. See also ¶¶[0083]-[0085]; and
Yea does not explicitly disclose a prediction of a first coefficient for attribute information of a first node in the first PC sample based on a second coefficient for attribute information of a reference node; and performing the first conversion based on the prediction.
However, Flynn from the same or similar endeavor of image processing discloses a prediction of a first coefficient for attribute information of a first node in the first PC sample (¶[0096] discloses that a transform is applied to the predicted geometry-weighted sums of attributes to obtain predicted coefficient. See also ¶¶[0101] and [0106]) based on a second coefficient for attribute information of a reference node (¶[0107] discloses that The same transform operator 908 is applied to predicted geometry-weighted sum of attributes obtained from a prediction/up-sampling operator 910 that uses as its inputs the geometry-weighted sum of attributes from a parent node and one or more of its neighbours, i.e. at a depth; and ¶[0098] disclosing that the encoder determines the geometry-weighted sum of attributes, Ai/√{square root over (wi)}, for the parent node and each of the neighbouring nodes) and
performing the first conversion based on the prediction (¶[0107] discloses that the residual AC coefficients are quantized and encoded by a quantizer and encoder 920 to produce an output bitstream of compressed point cloud attribute data; and ¶[0110] discloses that the decoder 1000 includes a decoder and inverse quantizer 1002 to decode and inverse quantize the residual AC coefficients encoded in the bitstream).
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings disclosed by Yea to add the teachings of Flynn as above, in order to efficiently and/or effectively compress attribute data for point clouds (Flynn, [0006]).
Regarding claim 3, Yea and Flynn disclose all the limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim.
Furthermore, Yea discloses the method of claim 1, wherein each of the first coefficient and the second coefficient is an alternating current (AC) coefficient, or each of the first coefficient and the second coefficient is a direct current (DC) coefficient, or wherein the first node comprises the first PC sample and is a root node of a tree structure for spatial partition of the first PC sample, and the reference node comprises the reference PC sample and is a root node of a tree structure for spatial partition of the reference PC sample, or wherein the first node comprises a part of the first PC sample and is a non-root node of a tree structure for spatial partition of the first PC sample, or wherein the reference node comprises a part of the reference PC sample and is a non-root node of a tree structure for spatial partition of the reference PC sample (¶¶[0107] and [0108]).
Regarding claim 4, Yea and Flynn disclose all the limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim.
Yea does not explicitly disclose the method of claim 1, wherein a time stamp of the reference PC sample is the same as the first PC sample, or wherein a time stamp of the reference PC sample is different from the first PC sample, or wherein determining the prediction comprises: determining the second coefficient as the prediction of the first coefficient, or wherein determining the prediction comprises: obtaining a plurality of candidate predictions of the first coefficient, one of the plurality of candidate predictions being the second coefficient; and determining the prediction of the first coefficient from the plurality of candidate predictions, or wherein determining the prediction comprises: determining the prediction based on a further processing of the second coefficient, or wherein the prediction of the first coefficient is determined at an encoder, or wherein the prediction of the first coefficient is determined at a decoder, or wherein a residual between the first coefficient and the prediction of the first coefficient is determined at a decode.
However, Flynn from the same or similar endeavor of image processing discloses the method of claim 1, wherein a time stamp of the reference PC sample is the same as the first PC sample, or wherein a time stamp of the reference PC sample is different from the first PC sample, or wherein determining the prediction comprises: determining the second coefficient as the prediction of the first coefficient, or wherein determining the prediction comprises: obtaining a plurality of candidate predictions of the first coefficient, one of the plurality of candidate predictions being the second coefficient; and determining the prediction of the first coefficient from the plurality of candidate predictions, or wherein determining the prediction comprises: determining the prediction based on a further processing of the second coefficient, or wherein the prediction of the first coefficient is determined at an encoder, or wherein the prediction of the first coefficient is determined at a decoder, or wherein a residual between the first coefficient and the prediction of the first coefficient is determined at a decode (¶¶[0061], [0065] and [0083]-[0085]).
The motivation for combining Yea and Flynn has been discussed in connection with claim 1, above.
Regarding claim 5, Yea and Flynn disclose all the limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim.
Furthermore, Yea discloses the method of claim 1, wherein a residual between the first coefficient and the prediction of the first coefficient is determined at an encoder, or wherein the residual is indicated in the bitstream (¶¶[0107] and [0110]).
Regarding claim 6, Yea and Flynn disclose all the limitations of claim 5, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim.
Furthermore, Yea discloses the method of claim 5, wherein the residual is coded with one of the following: a fixed-length coding, a unary coding, or a truncated unary coding, or wherein the residual is quantized at the encoder, or wherein the residual is de-quantized at a decoder (¶¶[0107] and [0110]).
Regarding claim 8, Yea and Flynn disclose all the limitations of claim 2, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim.
Furthermore, Yea discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising: determining, for a second conversion between a second point cloud (PC) sample of a point cloud sequence and a bitstream of the point cloud sequence, a prediction of attribute information of a second node in the second PC sample based on attribute information of at least one reference node, wherein the at least one reference node is in the second PC sample or in a reference PC sample associated with the second PC sample; and performing the second conversion based on the prediction of the attribute information (¶¶ [0031], [0045], [0057], [0065], [0083] and [0085] describe predicting attribute information for a current point cloud sample using attribute values from neighboring nodes within the same frame and candidate nodes from other frames).
Regarding claim 9, Yea and Flynn disclose all the limitations of claim 8, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim.
Furthermore, Yea discloses the method of claim 8, wherein the second node comprises the second PC sample and is a root node of a tree structure for spatial partition of the second PC sample, and the reference node comprises the reference PC sample and is a root node of a tree structure for spatial partition of the reference PC sample, or wherein the second node comprises a part of the second PC sample and is a first non-root node of a tree structure for spatial partition of the second PC sample, or wherein the reference node comprises a part of the second PC sample and is a second non-root node of the tree structure for spatial partition of the reference PC sample, the second non-root node being different from the first non-root node, or wherein the reference node comprises a part of the reference PC sample and is a non-root node of a tree structure for spatial partition of the reference PC sample (¶¶[0066]-[0068]).
Regarding claim 10, Yea and Flynn disclose all the limitations of claim 8, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim.
Furthermore, Yea discloses the method of claim 8, wherein a time stamp of the reference PC sample is the same as the second PC sample, or wherein a time stamp of the reference PC sample is different from the second PC sample (¶¶[0061], [0065], [0083] and [0085]).
Regarding claim 11, Yea and Flynn disclose all the limitations of claim 8, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim.
Furthermore, Yea discloses the method of claim 8, wherein the at least one reference node comprises a single reference node in the reference PC sample (¶¶[0083]-[0085]).
Regarding claim 12, Yea and Flynn disclose all the limitations of claim 11, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim.
Furthermore, Yea discloses the method of claim 11, wherein a node location of the single reference node is the same as the second node (¶¶[0066]-[0068]).
Regarding claim 13, Yea and Flynn disclose all the limitations of claim 12, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim.
Furthermore, Yea discloses the method of claim 12, wherein the node location of the single reference node is indicated by at least one indication (¶¶[0066]-[0068]).
Regarding claim 14, Yea and Flynn disclose all the limitations of claim 13, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim.
Furthermore, Yea discloses the method of claim 13, wherein the at least one indication comprises a Morton code of the single reference node, or wherein the at least one indication comprises at least one of a node index of the single reference node or an octree depth index of the single reference node, or wherein the at least one indication is determined at an encoder, or wherein the at least one indication is determined at a decoder (¶¶[0066]-[0068]).
Regarding claim 15, Yea and Flynn disclose all the limitations of claim 11, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim.
Furthermore, Yea discloses the method of claim 11, wherein determining the prediction of the attribute information comprises: determining the attribute information of single reference node as the prediction of attribute information of the second node, or wherein determining the prediction of the attribute information comprises: obtaining a plurality of candidate predictions of attribute information of the second node, one of the plurality of candidate predictions being the attribute information of single reference node; and determining the prediction of attribute information of the second node from the plurality of candidate predictions, or wherein determining the prediction of the attribute information comprises: determining the prediction based on a further processing of the attribute information of single reference node, or wherein determining the prediction of the attribute information comprises: obtaining a plurality of candidate predictions of attribute information of the second node, one of the plurality of candidate predictions being the attribute information of single reference node; and determining the prediction of attribute information of the second node based on an average weighted sum of the plurality of candidate predictions (¶¶[0083]-[0085]).
Regarding claim 16, Yea and Flynn disclose all the limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim.
Furthermore, Yea discloses the method of claim 1, wherein a PC sample is one of the following: a frame, a picture, a slice, a sub-frame, a sub-picture, a tile, or a segment (¶¶[0031], [0061] and [0065]).
Regarding claim 17, Yea and Flynn disclose all the limitations of claim 8, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim.
Furthermore, Yea discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the conversion includes encoding the first PC sample into the bitstream, or wherein the conversion includes decoding the first PC sample from the bitstream (¶¶[0046], [0048] and [0049]).
Regarding claim 18, this claim is rejected based on the same art and evidentiary limitations applied to the method of claim 1, since it claims analogous subject matter in the form of an apparatus for performing the same or equivalent functionality.
Furthermore, Yea discloses the apparatus for point cloud coding comprising a processor and a non-transitory memory with instructions thereon, wherein the instructions upon execution by the processor, cause the processor to perform acts (¶¶[0020] and [0093]).
Regarding claim 19, this claim is rejected based on the same art and evidentiary limitations applied to the method of claim 1, since it claims analogous subject matter in the form of an apparatus for performing the same or equivalent functionality.
Furthermore, Yea discloses the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that cause a processor to perform acts (¶¶[0020] and [0093]).
Regarding claim 21, this claim is rejected based on the same art and evidentiary limitations applied to the method of claim 1, since it claims analogous subject matter in the form of an apparatus for performing the same or equivalent functionality.
Furthermore, Yea discloses a method for storing a bitstream of a point cloud (PC) comprising: generating the bitstream based on the prediction (¶¶[0046]-[0049]); and storing the bitstream in a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium. (¶¶[0035] and [0036]).
Claims 2 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yea, in view of Flynn, and further, in view of Chou (US20170347100A1), hereinafter referred to as Chou
Regarding claim 2, Yea and Flynn disclose all the limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim.
Yea does not explicitly disclose the method of claim 1, wherein the first coefficient is obtained by performing a region-adaptive hierarchical transform (RAHT) on the attribute information of the first node, and the second coefficient is obtained by performing the RAHT on the attribute information of the reference node.
However, Chou from the same or similar endeavor of image processing discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the first coefficient is obtained by performing a region-adaptive hierarchical transform (RAHT) on the attribute information of the first node, and the second coefficient is obtained by performing the RAHT on the attribute information of the reference node (¶¶[0007] and [0008]).
It would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings disclosed by Yea and Flynn to add the teachings of Chou as above, in order to provide a very compact way to represent the attributes of occupied points in the point cloud data, followed by quantization and adaptive entropy coding of transform coefficients. (Chou, [0006]).
Regarding claim 7, Yea, Flynn and Chou disclose all the limitations of claim 2 and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim.
Yea does not explicitly disclose the method of claim 2, wherein the RAHT is performed at an encoder, or wherein the RAHT is performed at a decoder.
However, Chou from the same or similar endeavor of image processing discloses the method of claim 2, wherein the RAHT is performed at an encoder, or wherein the RAHT is performed at a decoder (¶¶[0007] and [0008]).
The motivation for combining Yea, Flynn and Chou has been discussed in connection with claim 2, above.
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.
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/FABIO S LIMA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2486
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