DETAILED ACTION
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election with traverse of Group B, Claims 1, 3-6, 13, and 19-20 in the reply filed on 5/28/2026 is acknowledged. Applicant's traversal is persuasive: Claims 15-18, analogous to claims 3-6 in Group B, are joined with Group B.
Claims 2, 7-12, and 14 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected inventions, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Applicant timely traversed the restriction (election) requirement in the reply filed on 5/28/2026.
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-6 and 15-18 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.
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 13, 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Lan (NPL: “CNN FILTER FOR RPR-BASED SR IN VVC WITH WAVELET DECOMPOSITION,” 2023 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) ©2023 IEEE).
Regarding Claim 1, Lan (NPL: “CNN FILTER FOR RPR-BASED SR IN VVC WITH WAVELET DECOMPOSITION,” 2023 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) ©2023 IEEE) discloses a method of processing video data (reference picture resampling-based super-resolution, Abstract), the method comprising:
receiving encoded video data (bitstream, Fig. 1A), the encoded video data representing a block of the video data (prediction frame obtained after inter prediction, Fig. 1(b), Section 1);
reconstructing the block (prediction frame obtained after inter prediction, Fig. 1A-B, Section 1) based on the encoded video data to generate a reconstructed block (reconstructed block obtained by in-loop filtering, Fig. 1A-B, Section 1);
and performing a neural network-based filter process (CNN filter, Fig. 1B, Section 1; Section 2) on the reconstructed block (CNN filter takes the reconstructed frame RecLR as input, Sections 1-2) to generate a filtered block (output of the CNN filter, Fig. 1B), wherein the NN-based filter process comprises applying one or more residual groups (The proposed CNN filter is a residual network, Section 2; a residual spatial and channel attention block (RSCB), Section 1, Fig. 2) to a residual group input (RSCB combines residual blocks with spatial attention and channel attention, Section 1; output of the left-most convolution layer, Fig. 2), each of the residual groups comprising a respective attention block (each RSCB has at least one RSB, Fig. 2, and each RSB has an attention block, Fig. 3).
Regarding Claim 13, Lan discloses a device configured to process video data (video coding, Figs. 1A-B), the device comprising:
one or more memories configured to store a reconstructed block of the video data (inherent, because the method is implemented in PyTorch, Section 3.1, a software program);
and one or more processors in communication with the one or more memories, the one or more processors (implemented based on PyTorch v1.1.0 and trained on NVIDIA GTX 3090 GPU, Section 3.1)….
The remainder of Claim 13 is rejected on the grounds provided in Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 19, Lan discloses the device of claim 13, wherein the device is configured to decode the video data (decoded video sequence, Figs. 1A-B) and wherein the device further comprises:
a display configured to display a picture of the video data (Figs. 5 and 6 depicting images output by the decoder with CNN filter of Fig. 1).
Regarding Claim 20, Lan discloses an apparatus configured to process video data (video coding, Figs. 1A-B). The remainder of Claim 20 is rejected on the grounds provided in Claim 1.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Liu, “QA-Filter: A QP-Adaptive Convolutional Neural Network Filter for Video Coding” IEEE 2022
Galpin, "Algorithm Description for Neural Network-based Video Coding (NNVC-6.0)" JVET-AE2019-v2
CN 115409698 A - there is a spatial attention and a channel attention, in the spatial attention: many convolution layers, a couple of activation layers, a maximum pool layer
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHADAN E HAGHANI whose telephone number is (571)270-5631. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9AM - 5PM.
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, Jay Patel can be reached at 571-272-2988. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/SHADAN E HAGHANI/Examiner, Art Unit 2485
Prosecution Insights