DETAILED ACTION
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4, 9-11, and 16-18 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.
(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) 1, 8, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Leleannec (US PG Publication 2025/0227281).
Regarding Claim 1, Leleannec (US PG Publication 2025/0227281) discloses a method of video decoding at a decoder (method 200 of video decoding, Fig. 6 [0058]), comprising:
decoding prediction information (prediction information data [0063]) of a current block (current block [0062]) in a current picture (inherent) of a video sequence (video picture VP [0058]), the prediction information indicating a bi-directional prediction for the current block (bi-directional motion-compensated prediction of a current block [0067], Fig. 7);
determining two reference blocks (first reference block of a reference picture list L0, second reference block of a reference picture list L1 [0067]) of the bi-directional prediction for the current block (bi-directional motion-compensated prediction of a current block [0067], Fig. 7);
in response to both the reference blocks of the bi-directional prediction being across boundaries (if both prediction samples are OOB [0125]) of reference pictures of the reference blocks (OOB reference blocks are outside of the reference picture boundaries [0105]), determining a part (sample position i,j within the current block [0073]) of the current block (within the current block [0073]) that corresponds to two parts of the two reference blocks each outside the boundary of the respective reference picture (first and second uni-predicted samples are both OOB [0125]);
and decoding the current block (the decoded prediction residual block and the prediction block are then combined [0064]) by predicting the part of the current block (prediction block obtained through motion compensated temporal prediction [0063]) based on one of a uni-prediction and a bi-prediction (inherent: all temporal prediction is either uni-predicted or bi-predicted), the uni-prediction using samples of a predictor from one of the two reference blocks inside the boundary of one of the reference pictures (P(i,j) = one of L1 or L0 if the other one has OOB samples, Fig. 13 steps 3053, 3055), and the bi-prediction using samples of predictors from the two reference blocks inside the boundaries of the reference pictures (weighted average of L0 and L1 if neither reference block as OOB samples 3056, Fig. 13).
Regarding Claim 8, the claim is rejected on the grounds provided in Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 15, the claim is rejected on the grounds provided in Claim 1.
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 (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 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.
Claim(s) 5-6, 12-13, 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Leleannec (US PG Publication 2025/0227281) in view of Yasugi (US PG Publication 2024/0098272).
Regarding Claim 5, Leleannec (US PG Publication 2025/0227281) discloses the method of claim 1.
Leleannec does not disclose but Yasugi (US PG Publication 2024/0098272) teaches wherein the decoding comprises:
in response to two uni-predictions being available for the current block, decoding the current block by predicting the part of the current block based on a comparison of sizes of two out-of-boundary areas each corresponding to one of the two uni-predictions (OOB determination for the reference picture having a larger valid area is invalidated [0155]).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the application was filed would have been motivated to invalidate the OOB determination of the block that has a larger non-OOB area of Leleannec, as in Yasugi, because Yasugi teaches that sample-wise uni-predicting individual pixels based on OOB reference status is computationally expensive, and simplifying prediction based on relative sizes of in-bound pixels simplifies coding and improves efficiency [0009]-[0012].
Regarding Claim 6, Leleannec (US PG Publication 2025/0227281) discloses the method of claim 5.
Leleannec does not disclose but Yasugi (US PG Publication 2024/0098272) teaches further comprising:
in response to the sizes of the two OOB areas corresponding to the two uni-predictions being the same, decoding the current block by predicting the part of the current block based on one of the two uni-predictions that is predetermined (sizes of the valid regions InsideArea related to two reference images are equal to each other, the OOB determination unit 30921 may invalidate the OOB determination for both of the reference images [0163]).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the application was filed would have been motivated to invalidate the OOB determination of the block that has a larger non-OOB area of Leleannec, as in Yasugi, because Yasugi teaches that sample-wise uni-predicting individual pixels based on OOB reference status is computationally expensive, and simplifying prediction based on relative sizes of in-bound pixels simplifies coding and improves efficiency [0009]-[0012].
Regarding Claim 12, the claim is rejected on the grounds provided in Claim 5.
Regarding Claim 13, the claim is rejected on the grounds provided in Claim 6.
Regarding Claim 19, the claim is rejected on the grounds provided in Claim 5.
Regarding Claim 20, the claim is rejected on the grounds provided in Claim 6.
Claim(s) 7, 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Leleannec (US PG Publication 2025/0227281) in view of Deng (US PG Publication 2024/0388731).
Regarding Claim 7, Leleannec (US PG Publication 2025/0227281) discloses the method of claim 1.
Leleannec does not disclose but Deng (US PG Publication 2024/0388731) teaches further comprising:
determining that at least one of multi-pass decoder-side motion vector refinement tool or bi-directional optical flow tool is disallowed for the current block (BDOF is disabled [0158]).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the application was filed would have been motivated to disable BDOF in the out of boundary condition of Leleannec because Deng suggests that disabling BDOF in certain flexibly weighted bi-prediction cases improves compression performance and video quality [0158], [0005].
Regarding Claim 14, the claim is rejected on the grounds provided in Claim 7.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
US 20240430448 – Out of boundary masking in AV1
US 20250039364 – Bi-predicting geometric partition
Gao, “Joint Proposal of CWG-D057 and CWG-D062,” Alliance for Open Media Codec Working Group (2023) – masking of out of boundary samples
Gao, “Implicit Masked Blending Mode,” Alliance for Open Media Codec Working Group (2023) – masking of out of boundary samples
JVET-Y0125 – out of boundary processing
JVET-Z0136 – out of boundary processing
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