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 § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential steps, such omission amounting to a gap between the steps. See MPEP § 2172.01. The omitted steps are: transmitting steps as the method is a method of transmitting.
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Lee et al. (US 2021/0227222) (hereinafter Lee).
In regard to claim 11, claim 11 is directed to a non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored therein a bitstream generated by acts. Significantly, the claimed non-transitory computer readable medium is NOT implementing any actual method; no instructions/steps are being executed. Instead, the claimed storage medium merely stores the data output from and/or generated by a series of acts. In other words, these claims are directed to a mere machine-readable medium storing data content (a bitstream generated by a method).
Applicant therefore seeks to patent the storage of a bitstream in the abstract. In other words, the claim seeks to patent the content of the information (bitstream comprising video information) and not the process itself. Moreover, this stored bitstream does not impose any definitive physical organization on the data as there is no functional relationship between the bitstream and the storage medium. In conclusion, claim 11 and any claims depending therefrom are directed to mere data content (bitstream generated by a series of acts) stored as a bitstream on a computer-readable storage medium. Under MPEP 2111.05(III), such claims are merely machine-readable media. Furthermore, the Examiner found and continues to find that there is no disclosed or claimed functional relationship between the stored data and medium. Instead, the medium is merely a support or carrier for the data being stored. Therefore, the data stored and the way such data is generated should not be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.05 applying In re Lowry, 32 F.3d 1579, 1583-84, 32 USPQ2d 1031, 1035 (Fed. Cir. 1994) and In re Ngai, 367 F.3d 1336, 70 USPQ2d 1862 (Fed. Cir. 2004). As such, this claim is subject to a prior art rejection based on any non-transitory computer readable medium known before the earliest effective filing date of the present application. Therefore, claim 11 is anticipated by Lee, as Lee discloses a computer readable medium storing a coded bitstream. Lee discloses:
a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored therein a bitstream comprising video information generated by acts [¶0024; computer-readable recording medium storing a bitstream generated by a video coding method] comprising:
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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 of this title, 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1,2,5,6, and 10-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kang US 20220210435 in view of Ding US 20220405979.
Regarding claim 1, Kang disclose(s) the following claim limitations:
A feature decoding method performed by a feature decoding apparatus, the feature decoding method comprising:
training a prediction model (i.e. machine learning models trained used for compression of the video data) [54-55,66,95];
predicting a current block by using the trained prediction model [38,92,95,105,120; fig. 6]; and
reconstructing the current block based on residual information of the current block and the predicted current block [105,120].
Kang do/does not explicitly disclose(s) the following claim limitations:
training a prediction model based on reconstructed neighbor samples;
However, in the same field of endeavor Ding discloses the deficient claim limitations, as follows:
training a prediction model based on reconstructed neighbor samples (i.e. model trained using data dependent on input block x. this data is processed into reconstructed data. When iteratively performed, the previously processed blocks would be from neighboring blocks) [148];
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify the teachings of Kang with Ding to have training a prediction model based on reconstructed neighbor samples.
It would be advantageous because "[0005] One purpose of image and/or video coding and decoding can be the reduction of redundancy in the input image and/or video signal, through compression. Compression can help reduce the aforementioned bandwidth and/or storage space requirements, in some cases by two orders of magnitude or more. Although the descriptions herein use video encoding/decoding as illustrative examples, the same techniques can be applied to image encoding/decoding in similar fashion without departing from the spirit of the present disclosure. Both lossless compression and lossy compression, as well as a combination thereof can be employed. Lossless compression refers to techniques where an exact copy of the original signal can be reconstructed from the compressed original signal. When using lossy compression, the reconstructed signal may not be identical to the original signal, but the distortion between original and reconstructed signals is small enough to make the reconstructed signal useful for the intended application. In the case of video, lossy compression is widely employed. The amount of distortion tolerated depends on the application; for example, users of certain consumer streaming applications may tolerate higher distortion than users of television distribution applications. The compression ratio achievable can reflect that: higher allowable/tolerable distortion can yield higher compression ratios.”.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art at the time of filing, to modify the teachings of Kang with Ding to obtain the invention as specified in claim 1.
Regarding claim 2, Kang meets the claim limitations, as follows:
The feature decoding method of claim 1, wherein the training comprises: predicting the current block based on the reconstructed neighbor samples and a first prediction model; and training the first prediction model such that a value derived based on a difference between the predicted current block and the reconstructed neighbor samples is reduced (i.e. loss function used to train model. This uses a reference feature map, a target feature map and an actual transmitted feature map) [96-97].
Regarding claim 5, Kang meets the claim limitations, as follows:
The feature decoding method of claim 1, wherein training is performed based on prediction mode information that is obtained from a bitstream and indicates that a prediction mode of the current block is training-based prediction (i.e. VCM encoder shares the parameters of the trained predictive model with the VCM decoder. Additionally, when the parameters of the predictive model are updated, the VCM encoder may transmit the updated parameters to the VCM decoder) [100].
Regarding claim 6, Kang meets the claim limitations, as follows:
The feature decoding method of claim 2, wherein the first prediction model is a prediction model indicated by prediction model information obtained from a bitstream, among at least one or more candidate prediction models (i.e. a plurality of deep learning models are included.) [45].
Claim 10 is rejected using similar rationale as claim 1. This is the encoder of the decoder of claim 1 which is shown in fig. 3.
Claim 11 is rejected using similar rationale as claim 1.
Claim 12 is rejected using similar rationale as claim 1.
Claim(s) 3-4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kang and Ding in view of Lee KR20210066707.
Regarding claim 3, Kang and Ding do/does not explicitly disclose(s) the following claim limitations:
wherein the first prediction model is trained as many times as derived based on information on a number of times, and wherein the information on the number of times is obtained from a bitstream.
However, in the same field of endeavor Lee discloses the deficient claim limitations, as follows:
wherein the first prediction model is trained as many times as derived based on information on a number of times, and wherein the information on the number of times is obtained from a bitstream (i.e. NN information includes number of times of learning and would be included in the bitstream) [43,97].
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify the teachings of Kang and Ding with Lee to have the first prediction model is trained as many times as derived based on information on a number of times, and wherein the information on the number of times is obtained from a bitstream.
It would be advantageous because signaling information saves computation time at the decoder side.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art at the time of filing, to modify the teachings of Kang and Ding with Lee to obtain the invention as specified in claim 3.
Regarding claim 4, Lee meets the claim limitations, as follows:
The feature decoding method of claim 3, wherein the information on the number of times indicates a number of times, which is obtained by subtracting a predetermined default number of times from the times the first prediction model is trained (i.e. NN information includes number of times of learning and would be included in the bitstream. A preset number of groups can be used. It would be obvious to subtract the number of times from the predetermined groups of training information to determine the number of training information remaining) [43,97].
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kang and Ding in view of Li US 20220394308.
Regarding claim 7, Kang and Ding do/does not explicitly disclose(s) the following claim limitations:
wherein, the first prediction model is determined based on one of a prediction model candidate list or a predetermined prediction model (i.e. candidate list contains multiple models for the coding block) [208].
However, in the same field of endeavor Li discloses the deficient claim limitations, as follows:
wherein, the first prediction model is determined based on one of a prediction model candidate list or a predetermined prediction model (i.e. candidate list contains multiple models for the coding block) [208].
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify the teachings of Kang and Ding with Li to have wherein, the first prediction model is determined based on one of a prediction model candidate list or a predetermined prediction model.
It would be advantageous because "[0004] An object of the present disclosure is to provide an image encoding/decoding method and apparatus with improved encoding/decoding efficiency.”.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art at the time of filing, to modify the teachings of Kang and Ding with Li to obtain the invention as specified in claim 7.
Claim(s) 8-9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kang, Li and Ding in view of Pffaf KR20200128586.
Regarding claim 8, Kang, Li and Ding do/does not explicitly disclose(s) the following claim limitations:
wherein the first prediction model is determined based on the prediction model candidate list based on a value of a first flag being obtained from a bitstream and being a first value, and wherein the first prediction model is determined based on the predetermined prediction model based on the value of the first flag being a second value
However, in the same field of endeavor Pffaf discloses the deficient claim limitations, as follows:
wherein the first prediction model is determined based on the prediction model candidate list based on a value of a first flag being obtained from a bitstream and being a first value, and wherein the first prediction model is determined based on the predetermined prediction model based on the value of the first flag being a second value (i.e. flag in the side information indicating a mode or none of the modes) [185].
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify the teachings of Kang, Li and Ding with Pffaf to have the first prediction model is determined based on the prediction model candidate list based on a value of a first flag being obtained from a bitstream and being a first value, and wherein the first prediction model is determined based on the predetermined prediction model based on the value of the first flag being a second value.
It would be advantageous because signaling information saves computation time at the decoder side.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art at the time of filing, to modify the teachings of Kang Li, and Ding with Pffaf to obtain the invention as specified in claim 8.
Regarding claim 9, Pffaf meets the claim limitations, as follows:
The feature decoding method of claim, 7 wherein the prediction model candidate list includes at least one prediction model candidate that is used to predict at least one neighbor block, and wherein the first prediction model is determined as a prediction model candidate indicated by selection information obtained from a bitstream among the at least one prediction model candidate (i.e. index used to indicate prediction candidates. This would be included in the bitstream) [185,203; fig 7a].
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JARED T WALKER whose telephone number is (571)272-1839. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 8:00 - 4:30 Mountain.
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, Nasser Goodarzi can be reached on 571-272-4195. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Jared Walker/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2426
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