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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 03/28/2025 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement(s) is/are being considered by the examiner.
Response to Amendment
The amendment filed on 06/18/2026 has been entered. Claims 1-10 and 12 remain pending in the application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the 35 U.S.C. 103 rejections for claims 1-10 and 12 have been considered but are moot because the arguments are directed towards amended claim language, addressed on new grounds of rejection below.
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 taught 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.
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) 1-10 and 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jung et al. (US 20220210451) (hereinafter Jung) in view of Moon et al. (US 20210021847) (hereinafter Moon), further in view of Rosewarne (US 20220394311) (hereinafter Rosewarne).
Regarding claim 1, Jung teaches An image decoding method, the method comprising:
deriving transform coefficients of a current block from a bitstream; performing a dequantization and an inverse transform on the transform coefficients of the current block to derive residual samples of the current block; and reconstructing the current block based on the residual samples of the current block (see Jung paragraphs 5-6, 9-10, 31, 61, 71, 113, 129, 145, 148, 156, and 244 regarding bitstream with transform coefficients, where dequantization and inverse transform is performed on coefficients to derive residual sample of current block and current block is reconstructed, and the inverse transform includes a non-separable primary inverse transform kernel in partitioned sub-block unit), wherein performing the inverse transform includes:
However, Jung does not explicitly teach partitioning as needed for the limitations of claim 1.
Moon, in a similar field of endeavor, teaches partitioning the current block into a plurality of sub-blocks (see Moon paragraphs 197 and 263 regarding partitioning sub-blocks based on size and horizontal or vertical coordinate, including reference differences to whether a sample line is odd or even- in combination with Jung, the partitioning and reference method of Moon may be incorporated into the coding method of Jung); and
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to modify the teaching of Jung to include the teaching of Moon so that in combination with Jung, the partitioning and reference method of Moon may be incorporated into the coding method of Jung.
One would be motivated to combine these teachings in order to provide methods for increasing coding efficiency through treatment of sub-blocks for more accurate processing (see Moon paragraphs 197 and 263)
However, Jung and Moon does not explicitly teach independently performing an inverse transform per sub-block as needed for the limitations of claim 1.
Rosewarne, in a similar field of endeavor, teaches independently performing, for each of the plurality of sub-blocks, the inverse transform based on a non-separable primary inverse transform kernel (see Rosewarne paragraphs 16, 22, 99-100, and 144 regarding a sub-block by sub-block progressive approach to performing an inverse transform based on a non-separable inverse transform kernel- in combination with Jung and Moon, which already teaches a non-separable primary inverse transform kernel, the inverse transform may be performed for each of the plurality of sub-blocks).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to modify the teaching of Jung to include the teaching of Moon so that in combination with Jung and Moon, which already teaches a non-separable primary inverse transform kernel, the inverse transform may be performed for each of the plurality of sub-blocks.
One would be motivated to combine these teachings in order to provide methods for increasing coding efficiency through treatment of sub-blocks during an inverse transform process (see Rosewarne paragraphs 16, 22, 99-100, and 144).
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Jung, Moon, and Rosewarne teaches all aforementioned limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed.
Furthermore, the combination of Jung, Moon, and Rosewarne teaches wherein partitioning the current block into the plurality of sub-blocks is performed by partitioning the current block into the plurality of sub-blocks based on whether horizontal and vertical coordinates of each sample of the current block are odd or even (see Moon paragraphs 197 and 263 regarding partitioning sub-blocks based on size and horizontal or vertical coordinate, including reference differences to whether a sample line is odd or even- in combination with Jung, the partitioning and reference method of Moon may be incorporated into the coding method of Jung).
One would be motivated to combine these teachings in order to provide methods for increasing coding efficiency through treatment of sub-blocks for more accurate processing (see Moon paragraphs 197 and 263).
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Jung, Moon, and Rosewarne teaches all aforementioned limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed.
Furthermore, the combination of Jung, Moon, and Rosewarne teaches wherein partitioning the current block into the plurality of sub-blocks is performed by partitioning the current block in a predetermined size in at least one of a horizontal or vertical direction (see Moon paragraphs 197 and 263 regarding partitioning sub-blocks based on size and horizontal or vertical coordinate, including reference differences to whether a sample line is odd or even- in combination with Jung, the partitioning and reference method of Moon may be incorporated into the coding method of Jung).
One would be motivated to combine these teachings in order to provide methods for increasing coding efficiency through treatment of sub-blocks for more accurate processing (see Moon paragraphs 197 and 263).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Jung, Moon, and Rosewarne teaches all aforementioned limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed.
Furthermore, the combination of Jung, Moon, and Rosewarne teaches wherein the non-separable primary inverse transform kernel is a kernel in which N transform coefficients are input and M transform coefficients are output, and wherein N is smaller than M (see Jung paragraphs 5-6, 9-10, 31, 61, 71, 113, 129, 145, 148, 156, and 244 regarding bitstream with transform coefficients, where dequantization and inverse transform is performed on coefficients to derive residual sample of current block and current block is reconstructed, and the inverse transform includes a non-separable primary inverse transform kernel in partitioned sub-block unit and N is the number of input coefficients and M is output coefficients greater than N).
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Jung, Moon, and Rosewarne teaches all aforementioned limitations of claim 4, and is analyzed as previously discussed.
Furthermore, the combination of Jung, Moon, and Rosewarne teaches wherein the N is variably determined based on a predefined encoding parameter (see Jung paragraphs 5-6, 9-10, 31, 61, 71, 113, 129, 145, 148, 156, and 244 regarding bitstream with transform coefficients, where dequantization and inverse transform is performed on coefficients to derive residual sample of current block and current block is reconstructed, and the inverse transform includes a non-separable primary inverse transform kernel in partitioned sub-block unit and N is the number of input coefficients determined by the scaling parameters in the quantization process).
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Jung, Moon, and Rosewarne teaches all aforementioned limitations of claim 5, and is analyzed as previously discussed.
Furthermore, the combination of Jung, Moon, and Rosewarne teaches wherein the encoding parameter includes at least one of a block size, inter prediction information, intra prediction information or a quantization parameter (see Jung paragraphs 5-6, 9-10, 31, 61, 71, 113, 129, 145, 148, 156, and 244 regarding bitstream with transform coefficients, where dequantization and inverse transform is performed on coefficients to derive residual sample of current block and current block is reconstructed, and the inverse transform includes a non-separable primary inverse transform kernel in partitioned sub-block unit and N is the number of input coefficients determined by the scaling parameters in the quantization process).
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Jung, Moon, and Rosewarne teaches all aforementioned limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed.
Furthermore, the combination of Jung, Moon, and Rosewarne teaches wherein deriving the residual samples includes: determining a transform set for a non-separable primary inverse transform based on an intra prediction mode of the current block; and deriving the non-separable primary inverse transform kernel from the transform set (see Jung paragraphs 5-6, 9-10, 31, 61, 71, 113, 129, 145, 148, 156, and 244 regarding bitstream with transform coefficients, where dequantization and inverse transform is performed on coefficients to derive residual sample of current block and current block is reconstructed, and the inverse transform includes a non-separable primary inverse transform kernel in partitioned sub-block unit with a determination of transform set of the non-separable primary inverse transform kernel).
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Jung, Moon, and Rosewarne teaches all aforementioned limitations of claim 7, and is analyzed as previously discussed.
Furthermore, the combination of Jung, Moon, and Rosewarne teaches wherein the transform set is determined based on the intra prediction mode of the current block and a pre-defined mapping table (see Jung paragraphs 5-6, 9-10, 31, 61, 71, 113, 129, 145, 148, 156, and 244 regarding bitstream with transform coefficients, where dequantization and inverse transform is performed on coefficients to derive residual sample of current block and current block is reconstructed, and the inverse transform includes a non-separable primary inverse transform kernel in partitioned sub-block unit and the transform set is determined based on the mapping of the intra prediction mode).
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Jung, Moon, and Rosewarne teaches all aforementioned limitations of claim 8, and is analyzed as previously discussed.
Furthermore, the combination of Jung, Moon, and Rosewarne teaches wherein the method further includes performing an intra prediction in the partitioned sub-block unit based on the intra prediction mode of the current block (see Jung paragraphs 5-6, 9-10, 31, 61, 71, 113, 129, 145, 148, 156, and 244 regarding bitstream with transform coefficients, where dequantization and inverse transform is performed on coefficients to derive residual sample of current block and current block is reconstructed, and the inverse transform includes a non-separable primary inverse transform kernel in partitioned sub-block unit and an intra prediction is performed on the partitioned sub-block unit).
Independent claim(s) 10 is/are analogous in scope to claim(s) 1, albeit in inverse encoding form, and is/are rejected according to the same reasoning.
Independent claim(s) 12 is/are analogous in scope to claim(s) 1, albeit in a method form additionally regarding a method of generating a bitstream as taught by Jung paragraphs 9-10, and is/are rejected according to the same reasoning.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/MATTHEW DAVID KIM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2483
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