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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d).
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.
Claims 10, 18 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Holliman et al (US 2004/0179608) (IDS). a) Regarding claim 10, Holliman et al disclose a decoding method (Fig. 5), comprising:
obtaining a quantized signal from a received target bitstream (312; Pub [0037]; “randomly or pseudo-randomly varying quantization scale”; “304 and 308 include quantizers”), wherein the quantized signal comprises at least one of a first quantized signal or a second quantized signal, the first quantized signal is obtained by performing first quantization on a first multiple description signal, the second quantized signal is obtained by performing second quantization on a second multiple description signal, and the first multiple description signal and the second multiple description signal are obtained from a same signal (312; Pub [0037]; and
obtaining a decoded signal based on at least one of the first quantized signal or the second quantized signal (316; Pub [0038]). b) Regarding claim 18, Holliman et al disclose an electronic device (Fig. 5), comprising: one or more processing apparatus; and a storage apparatus configured to store one or more programs, which when executed by the one or more processing apparatus (Pub [0033]), cause the one or more processing apparatus to implement a decoding method according to claim 10 (please see rejection for claim 10 above) or an encoding method, comprising:
obtaining at least two multiple description signals according to a to-be-coded signal, the at least two multiple description signals comprising a first multiple description signal and a second multiple description signal;
performing first quantization on the first multiple description signal to obtain a first candidate quantized signal set, and performing second quantization on the second multiple description signal to obtain a second candidate quantized signal set;
obtaining a first quantized signal corresponding to the first multiple description signal and a second quantized signal corresponding to the second multiple description signal according to the first candidate quantized signal set and the second candidate quantized signal set; and
encoding the first quantized signal and the second quantized signal to generate a target bitstream corresponding to the to-be-coded signal (underlined portion is not given patentable weight because “or” is an optional phrase). c) Regarding claim 19, Holliman et al disclose a non-transitory storage medium comprising computer-executable instructions, which when executed by a computer processor (Pub [0033]), perform a decoding method claim 10 (please see rejection for claim 10 above) or an encoding method, comprising:
obtaining at least two multiple description signals according to a to-be-coded signal, the at least two multiple description signals comprising a first multiple description signal and a second multiple description signal;
performing first quantization on the first multiple description signal to obtain a first candidate quantized signal set, and performing second quantization on the second multiple description signal to obtain a second candidate quantized signal set;
obtaining a first quantized signal corresponding to the first multiple description signal and a second quantized signal corresponding to the second multiple description signal according to the first candidate quantized signal set and the second candidate quantized signal set; and
encoding the first quantized signal and the second quantized signal to generate a target bitstream corresponding to the to-be-coded signal (underlined portion is not given patentable weight because “or” is an optional phrase).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-9 are allowed.
Claims 11-17 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.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: The present invention is directed to encoding and decoding in bitstreams forms of signals. The closest prior art, Holliman et al (US 2004/0179608) disclose coding utilize quantizer (Fig. 5). However, none of the prior art tech or suggest obtaining at least two multiple description signals according to a to-be-coded signal, the at least two multiple description signals comprising a first multiple description signal and a second multiple description signal; performing first quantization on the first multiple description signal to obtain a first candidate quantized signal set, and performing second quantization on the second multiple description signal to obtain a second candidate quantized signal set; obtaining a first quantized signal corresponding to the first multiple description signal and a second quantized signal corresponding to the second multiple description signal according to the first candidate quantized signal set and the second candidate quantized signal set; and encoding the first quantized signal and the second quantized signal to generate a target bitstream corresponding to the to-be-coded signal (emphasis added).
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 2022/0020385 Beack et al disclose encoding, decoding and quantization. US 2011/0164672 Jiang et al disclose orthogonal multiple description coding.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Eva Y Puente whose telephone number is 571-272-3049. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F, 7:30 AM to 5:00 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chieh Fan can be reached on 571-272-3042. 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).
July 15, 2026
/EVA Y PUENTE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2632
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