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.
Claims 10-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 10, this claim depends from claim 6, and recites “a second flag,” however there is no “first flag” recited previously in its dependency tree. It is unclear if this claim was intended depend from claim 7, which recites “a first flag,” or if this claim was indeed intended to depend from claim 6, in which case each mention of the first flag or second flag should be amended to remove the “first” and “second” from the terms (otherwise it would be unclear how many flags are required). Accordingly, the scope of the claim cannot be readily ascertained. For the purposes of examination, the former interpretation will be applied, where claim 10 depends from claim 7.
Regarding claims 11 and 12, these claims are rejected because they inherit, and do not resolve, the deficiencies of the claim(s) from which they depend.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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)(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.
Claims 1-6, 13, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Park et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2025/0373850), referred herein as Park.
Regarding claim 1, Park teaches a mesh compression method, comprising: reconstructing a base mesh based on geometry information obtained from a base mesh bitstream (paragraph 193, lines 1-6; paragraph 195; paragraph 196, lines 1-3; a base mesh is reconstructed based on mesh geometry information from a bitstream);
performing a surface division on the reconstructed base mesh (paragraph 199, lines 1-6; the reconstructed base mesh is subdivided);
obtaining a displacement vector for at least one of a vertex of the reconstructed base mesh and a sub-vertex generated by the surface division (paragraph 193, lines 1-6; paragraph 197; paragraph 198, lines 1-6; displacement vectors are obtained for vertices of the mesh);
reconstructing an enhancement mesh based on the reconstructed base mesh and the obtained displacement vector (paragraph 199, the last 5 lines; a final [enhancement] mesh is reconstructed based on the reconstructed based mesh and displacement vectors); and
obtaining a texture image associated with a surface of the reconstructed enhancement mesh (paragraphs 200 and 201; a texture image is obtained that is associated with the enhancement mesh).
Regarding claim 2, Park teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the geometry information is coded based on a first prediction mode, the displacement vector is coded based on a second prediction mode, and the texture image is coded based on a third prediction mode (paragraph 202; paragraphs 204 and 205).
Regarding claim 3, Park teaches the method of claim 2, wherein the first prediction mode, the second prediction mode, and the third prediction mode are one of an inter prediction mode or an intra prediction method (paragraph 202; paragraphs 204 and 205).
Regarding claim 4, Park teaches the method of claim 2, wherein at least one of the first prediction mode, the second prediction mode, or the third prediction mode is determined in a predetermined coding unit (paragraphs 179 and 180; paragraph 189, lines 1-5).
Regarding claim 5, Park teaches the method of claim 4, wherein the coding unit is at least one of a frame, a patch, a surface or a vertex (paragraph 170; paragraphs 179 and 180).
Regarding claim 6, Park teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising: reconstructing a current frame based on the reconstructed enhancement mesh and the texture image (paragraphs 200 and 201).
Regarding claim 13, Park teaches the method of claim 1, wherein obtaining the texture image includes obtaining a texture index indicating a texture image in a texture video including a plurality of texture images (paragraphs 187 and 188; paragraphs 200 and 204).
Regarding claim 14, the limitations of this claim substantially correspond to the limitations of claim 1 (except for the device, processor, and memory, which are taught by Park, fig 14 [inter alia] and paragraph 445); thus they are rejected on similar grounds.
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 7-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park, in view of Rondao et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2025/0259335), referred herein as Rondao.
Regarding claim 7, Park teaches the method of claim 6, further comprising: obtaining a first flag indicating whether a motion vector compression is used for the current frame (paragraphs 275 and 279), and further teaches using texture image compression for the current frame (paragraphs 187 and 200; paragraphs 202 and 204)
Park does not explicitly teach a flag that indicates whether the texture image compression is used.
However, in a similar field of endeavor, Rondao teaches a method comprising reconstructing a base mesh from geometry information obtained from a bitstream, performing surface division on the mesh and obtaining displacement vectors for vertices of the mesh, reconstructing an enhancement mesh, and obtaining a texture image associated with the enhancement mesh (paragraphs 81 and 87; paragraph 103; paragraphs 104-107; paragraphs 109-112; paragraphs 119-121), and further comprising utilizing a flag indicating whether texture image compression is used (paragraph 116).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the texture compression flag signaling of Rondao with the flag signaling of Park because this helps to readily recognize the compression scheme such that meshes can be reconstructed more accurately and efficiently, thus providing higher quality mesh processing, storage, and transmission (see, for example, Rondao, paragraph 48; paragraph 103).
Regarding claim 8, Park in view of Rondao teaches the method of claim 7, wherein the first flag is signaled in a frame group unit including at least one frame (Park, paragraphs 187 and 200; paragraphs 202 and 204; paragraph 275; Rondao, paragraphs 116 and 134; the motivation to combine is similar to that discussed above in the rejection of claim 7).
Regarding claim 9, Park in view of Rondao teaches the method of claim 7, wherein when the texture image compression is used for the current frame, the texture image is obtained by referring to a texture image of a frame coded before the current frame (Park, paragraphs 187 and 188; paragraph 190, lines 1-10; paragraphs 202 and 204; Rondao, paragraphs 158 and 159; the motivation to combine is similar to that discussed above in the rejection of claim 7).
Regarding claim 10, Park in view of Rondao teaches the method of claim [7; please note the interpretation discussed in the 112 rejection above], further comprising: obtaining a second flag indicating whether to code a texture image for the current frame (Park, paragraphs 187 and 188; paragraphs 202 and 204; paragraphs 275 and 280; Rondao, paragraph 116; the motivation to combine is similar to that discussed above in the rejection of claim 7).
Regarding claim 11, Park in view of Rondao teaches the method of claim 10, wherein the second flag is signaled in a frame unit (Park, paragraphs 204 and 275; Rondao, paragraphs 116 and 134; the motivation to combine is similar to that discussed above in the rejection of claim 7).
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park, in view of Rondao, and further in view of Mammou et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0090301), referred herein as Mammou.
Regarding claim 12, Park in view of Rondao teaches the method of claim 10, wherein when a coding of the texture image for the current frame is omitted, the texture image is obtained by referring to a texture image of a frame that is closest to the current frame among frames coded before the current frame (Park, paragraphs 187 and 188; paragraph 190, lines 1-10; paragraphs 202 and 204; Rondao, paragraph 116; paragraphs 158 and 159; the motivation to combine is similar to that discussed above in the rejection of claim 7).
Park in view of Rondao does not explicitly teach utilizing a picture order count (POC) value.
However, in a similar field of endeavor, Mammou teaches a method comprising reconstructing a base mesh from geometry information in a bitstream, performing surface division on the mesh, reconstructing an enhancement mesh, and obtaining a texture image associated with the enhancement mesh (paragraph 400, the last 16 lines; paragraphs 522 and 523; paragraph 555), and further comprising referring to a picture order count (POC) value to obtain the texture image (fig 7B and paragraph 61; paragraphs 410 and 411; paragraphs 433 and 435).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the POC value texture image obtaining of Mammou with the texture image obtaining of Park in view of Rondao because this helps to more efficiently decode and reconstruct the mesh information, thereby improving the memory and processing requirements without sacrificing quality (see, for example, paragraph 403; paragraph 493).
Conclusion
The following prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Mammou (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0290063); Adaptive tessellation for efficient dynamic mesh encoding, decoding, processing, and rendering.
Graziosi (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2024/0153147); V3c syntax extension for mesh compression.
Nguyen canh (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2024/0040148); Methods for instance-based mesh coding.
Huang (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2024/0064334); Motion field coding in dynamic mesh compression.
Nguyen canh (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2024/0015289); Adaptive quantization for instance-based mesh coding.
Huang (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0412849); Mesh vertex displacements coding.
Huang (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2024/0007670); Dynamic mesh vertex displacements coding.
Nguyen canh (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2024/0089499); Displacement coding for mesh compression.
Yoon (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2026/0134577); 3D data transmission apparatus, 3D data transmission method, 3D data reception apparatus, and 3D data reception method.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID T WELCH whose telephone number is (571)270-5364. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday, 8:30-5:30 EST, and alternate Fridays, 9:00-2:30 EST.
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DAVID T. WELCH
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2613
/DAVID T WELCH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2613
