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 .
Status of Claims
The following is a Non-Final Office Action in response to the correspondence filed on 04/11/2025.
Claims 1-16 are considered in this Office Action. Claims 1-16 are currently pending.
Information Disclosure Statement
The IDS received on date 04/11/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97, being reviewed and considered by the Examiner.
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.
The factual inquiries 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.
Claims 1, 7, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi-Wen Chen (US 20220094942 A1) (hereinafter Chen) in view of Geonjung KO (US 20210051329 A1) (hereinafter KO):
Regarding claim 1, Chen teaches a method of video coding, the method comprising: ([0002] teaches a method of subblock motion vector prediction during video data encoding and decoding)
receiving input data associated with a current block, wherein the input data comprise pixel data for the current block to be encoded at an encoder side ([0033] teaches the encoder receiving video data comprising pixel data partitioned into video blocks to be encoded) or encoded data associated with the current block to be decoded at a decoder side ([0051] teaches the decoder receiving an encoded video bitstream representing video blocks to be decoded);
determining one or more motion shift candidates based on one or more spatial neighbouring blocks of the current block ([0113], and [0123] teach determining motion shift candidates from the motion of spatial neighbouring blocks A1, A2, B1, or B2);
deriving subblock motion information for subblocks of the current block based on target motion information of corresponding subblocks of the target collocated reference block ([0123], and [0146] teach deriving subblock motion information from corresponding subblocks of the collocated block);
generating an SbTMVP (Subblock-based Temporal Motion Vector Prediction) candidate for the current block based on the subblock motion information for the subblocks of the current block ([0127] teaches generating the SbTMVP predictor added as the first entry of the subblock based merge candidate list); and
encoding or decoding the current block by using a motion prediction set comprising the SbTMVP candidate. ([0127], and [0086] teach encoding or decoding the block using a merge candidate list comprising the SbTMVP candidate).
Chen does not explicitly teach the following limitations; However, in an analogous art, KO teaches determining two or more collocated reference blocks in a collocated picture ([0125], and [0115] teach a plurality of merge candidate blocks located in the temporal collocated picture by applying a motion shift) based on said one or more motion shift candidates and said one or more spatial neighbouring blocks of the current block respectively ([0116], and [0117] teach obtaining each merge candidate block from the motion shift information of each searched neighbouring block respectively); End
determining a target collocated reference block from said two or more collocated reference blocks ([0125], and [0126] teach selecting the most suitable merge candidate block among multiple merge candidate blocks).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen to add the teachings of Ko as disclosed above to improve coding efficiency (KO [0047]).
Regarding claim 7, Chen in view of KO teaches the method of claim 1.KO further teaches wherein when two or more motion shift candidates based on two or more spatial neighbouring blocks of the current block are determined ([0116] teaches sequentially searching multiple neighbouring blocks L, A, BL, AR, AL to obtain motion shift information), said two or more collocated reference blocks in the collocated picture comprise one base collocated reference block from each of said two or more motion shift candidates ([0125], and [0116] teach first and second merge candidate blocks each obtained from the motion shift information of a neighbouring block), and said one base collocated reference block is located according to a location of each spatial neighbouring block of the current block and a target motion shift candidate associated with said one base collocated reference block ([0115], and [0131] teach locating each merge candidate block by applying the motion shift obtained from the respective spatial neighbouring block).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen to add the teachings of Ko as disclosed above to improve coding efficiency (KO [0047]).
Regarding claim 16, Chen teaches an apparatus for video coding, the apparatus comprising one or more electronic circuits or processors arranged to: ([0009], and [0029] teach a computing device with one or more processors and encoder circuitry performing the video coding operations)
receive input data associated with a current block, wherein the input data comprise pixel data for the current block to be encoded at an encoder side ([0033] teaches the encoder receiving video data comprising pixel data partitioned into video blocks to be encoded) or encoded data associated with the current block to be decoded at a decoder side ([0051] teaches the decoder receiving an encoded video bit stream representing video blocks to be decoded);
determine one or more motion shift candidates based on one or more spatial neighbouring blocks of the current block ([0113], and [0123] teach determining motion shift candidates from the motion of spatial neighbouring blocks A1, A2, B1, or B2);
derive subblock motion information for subblocks of the current block based on target motion information of corresponding subblocks of the target collocated reference block ([0123], and [0146] teach deriving subblock motion information from corresponding subblocks of the collocated block);
generate an SbTMVP (Subblock-based Temporal Motion Vector Prediction) candidate for the current block based on the subblock motion information for the subblocks of the current block ([0127] teaches generating the SbTMVP predictor added as the first entry of the subblock based merge candidate list); and
encode or decode the current block by using a motion prediction set comprising the SbTMVP candidate ([0127], and [0086] teach encoding or decoding the block using a merge candidate list comprising the SBT MVP candidate).
Chen does not explicitly teach the following limitations; However, in an analogous art, KO teaches determine two or more collocated reference blocks in a collocated picture ([0125], and [0115] teach a plurality of merge candidate blocks located in the temporal collocated picture by applying a motion shift) based on said one or more motion shift candidates and said one or more spatial neighbouring blocks of the current block respectively ([0116], and [0117] teach obtaining each merge candidate block from the motion shift information of each searched neighbouring block respectively);
determine a target collocated reference block from said two or more Collocated reference blocks ([0125], and [0126] teach selecting the most suitable merge candidate block among the multiple merge candidate blocks).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen to add the teachings of Ko as disclosed above to improve coding efficiency (KO [0047]).
Claims 2-3, 5 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi-Wen Chen (US 20220094942 A1) (hereinafter Chen) in view of Geonjung KO (US 20210051329 A1) (hereinafter KO) in view of Li Zhang (US 20210243435 A1) (hereinafter Zhang):
Regarding claim 2, Chen in view of KO teaches the method of claim 1; However do not explicitly teach wherein said two or more collocated reference blocks in the collocated picture are determined by locating a base collocated reference block according to a location of a target spatial neighbouring block of the current block and a target motion shift candidate associated with the target spatial neighbouring block of the current block, and one or more additional collocated reference blocks are located by adding one or more additional motion shifts to the base collocated reference block.
However, in an analogous art, Zhang teaches wherein said two or more collocated reference blocks in the collocated picture are determined by locating a base collocated reference block according to a location of a target spatial neighbouring block of the current block ([0144], and [0095] teach identifying the base temporal block in the collocated picture from a spatial neighbouring block of the current block) and a target motion shift candidate associated with the target spatial neighbouring block of the current block ([0153] teaches the base temporal block pointed by the motion vector from the first available merge candidate), and one or more additional collocated reference blocks are located by adding one or more additional motion shifts to the base collocated reference block ([0155], and [0153] teach locating additional temporal blocks at positions offset from the identified base temporal block).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen in view of KO to add the teachings of Zhang as disclosed above to simplify the generating of sub-block motion candidate lists (Zhang [0136]).
Regarding claim 3, Chen in view of KO and Zhang teaches the method of claim 2. KO further teaches wherein the target spatial neighbouring block of the current block corresponds to a bottom-left neighbouring block ([0116] teaches obtaining the motion shift information from a lower left block BL of the current block).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen to add the teachings of Ko as disclosed above to improve coding efficiency (KO [0047]).
KO does not explicitly teach the following limitations; however, in an analogous art, Zhang teaches three additional collocated reference blocks located on top side, left side and bottom side of the base collocated reference block respectively ([0155] teaches locating additional temporal blocks on the left, above, and bottom of the identified temporal block).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen in view of KO to add the teachings of Zhang as disclosed above to simplify the generating of sub-block motion candidate lists (Zhang [0136]).
Regarding claim 5, Chen in view of KO teaches the method of claim 1; However, do not explicitly teach wherein a first syntax is signalled or parsed to indicate whether said two or more collocated reference blocks are used.
However, in an analogous art, Zhang teaches wherein a first syntax is signalled or parsed to indicate whether said two or more collocated reference blocks are used ([0189], and [0151] teach signaling a flag indicating whether the ATMVP and in which blocks are used).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen in view of KO to add the teachings of Zhang as disclosed above to simplify the generating of sub-block motion candidate lists (Zhang [0136]).
Regarding claim 8, Chen in view of KO teaches the method of claim 7; However, do not explicitly teach wherein a first syntax is signalled or parsed to indicate whether said two or more motion shift candidates are used.
However, in an analogous art, Zhang teaches wherein a first syntax is signalled or parsed to indicate whether said two or more motion shift candidates are used ([0150]- [0151] teach signaling which neighbouring blocks are used for the adaptive ATMVP candidate derivation).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen in view of KO to add the teachings of Zhang as disclosed above to simplify the generating of sub-block motion candidate lists (Zhang [0136]).
Claims 4, 6, and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi-Wen Chen (US 20220094942 A1) (hereinafter Chen) in view of Geonjung KO (US 20210051329 A1) (hereinafter KO) in view of Li Zhang (US 20210243435 A1) (hereinafter Zhang) further in view of Hyeongmoon Jang (US 20210021860 A1) (hereinafter Jang):
Regarding claim 4, Chen in view of KO and Zhang teaches the method of claim 2; However, do not explicitly teach wherein the target collocated reference block is determined from said two or more collocated reference blocks according to Rate-Distortion costs associated with said two or more collocated reference blocks.
However, in an analogous art, Jang teaches wherein the target collocated reference block is determined from said two or more collocated reference blocks according to Rate-Distortion costs associated with said two or more collocated reference blocks ([0191] teaches selecting an optimal merge candidate among the merge candidates based on a rate distortion (Rd) cost).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen in view of KO and Zhang to further add the teachings of Jang as disclosed above to improve the motion vector prediction performance (Jang [0200]).
Regarding claim 6, Chen in view of KO and Zhang teaches the method of claim 5. Zhang further teaches wherein when the first syntax indicates said two or more collocated reference blocks being used ([0188] teaches signaling related information for a subblock only when the indication tells that it is not disabled).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen in view of KO to add the teachings of Zhang as disclosed above to simplify the generating of sub-block motion candidate lists (Zhang [0136]).
Zhang does not explicitly teach the following limitations; However, in an analogous art, Jang teaches a second syntax is signalled or parsed to indicate the target collocated reference block as selected ([0191] teaches signaling selection information indicating the selected merge candidate to the decoder).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen in view of KO and Zhang to further add the teachings of Jang as disclosed above to improve the motion vector prediction performance (Jang [0200]).
Regarding claim 9, Chen in view of KO and Zhang teaches the method of claim 8. Zhang further teaches wherein when the first syntax indicates said two or more motion shift candidates being used ([0188] teaches signaling related information for a subblock only when the indication tells that it is not disabled).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen in view of KO to add the teachings of Zhang as disclosed above to simplify the generating of sub-block motion candidate lists (Zhang [0136]).
Zhang does not explicitly teach the following limitations; However, in an analogous art, Jang teaches a second syntax is signalled or parsed to indicate which base collocated reference block is selected ([0191] teaches signaling selection information indicating the selected merge candidate to the decoder).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen in view of KO and Zhang to further add the teachings of Jang as disclosed above to improve the motion vector prediction performance (Jang [0200]).
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi-Wen Chen (US 20220094942 A1) (hereinafter Chen) in view of Geonjung KO (US 20210051329 A1) (hereinafter KO) in view of Li Zhang (US 20210243435 A1) (hereinafter Zhang) further in view of Hongbin Liu (US 20210227245 A1) (hereinafter Liu):
Regarding claim 10, Chen in view of KO and Zhang teaches the method of claim 8; However, do not explicitly teach wherein the first syntax is signalled or parsed only if affine MMVD is disabled for the current block
However, in an analogous art, Liu teaches wherein the first syntax is signalled or parsed only if affine MMVD is disabled for the current block ([0222], and [0225] teach parsing subsequent merge syntaxes only if the UMVE flag is not equal to 1, where UMVE extended to affine merge mode is the UMVE affine mode).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen in view of KO and Zhang to further add the teachings of Liu as disclosed above to reduce computational complexity (Liu [0068]).
Claims 11, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi-Wen Chen (US 20220094942 A1) (hereinafter Chen) in view of Geonjung KO (US 20210051329 A1) (hereinafter KO) in view of Borivoje Furht (US 20200396476 A1) (hereinafter Furht):
Regarding claim 11, Chen in view of KO teaches the method of claim 1. KO further teaches wherein corresponding SbTMVP candidates associated with said two or more collocated reference blocks ([0125], and [0133] teach multiple merge candidate blocks each satisfying the condition to be used for SbTMVP).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen to add the teachings of Ko as disclosed above to improve coding efficiency (KO [0047]).
KO does not explicitly teach the following limitations; However, in an analogous art, Furht teaches reference blocks are reordered according to ARMC-TM (Adaptive Reordering of Merge Candidates with Template Matching) ([0038] teaches adjusting the order of each merge candidate according to a template matching cost).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen in view of KO to further add the teachings of Furht as disclosed above to improve compression efficiency (Furht [0068]).
Regarding claim 14, Chen in view of KO and Furht teaches the method of claim 11. KO further teaches wherein one or more templates of the current block and one or more corresponding templates of the target collocated reference block are used for the ARMC-TM ([0126] teaches comparing the template of the current block with the templates of the first and second merge candidate blocks).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen to add the teachings of Ko as disclosed above to improve coding efficiency (KO [0047]).
Claims 12- 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi-Wen Chen (US 20220094942 A1) (hereinafter Chen) in view of Geonjung KO (US 20210051329 A1) (hereinafter KO) in view of Borivoje Furht (US 20200396476 A1) (hereinafter Furht) further in view of Hyeongmoon Jang (US 20210021860 A1) (hereinafter Jang):
Regarding claim 12, Chen in view of KO and Furht teaches the method of claim 11. Furht further teaches wherein after the corresponding SbTMVP candidates are reordered, N best candidates are used ([0038] teaches selecting a limited set of lowest cost candidates using a template matching cost), and wherein N is smaller than or equal to a total number of the corresponding SbTMVP candidates ([0038] teaches selecting a set of four lowest cost candidates among five originally generated candidates).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen in view of KO to further add the teachings of Furht as disclosed above to improve compression efficiency (Furht [0068]).
Furht does not explicitly teach the following limitations; However, in an analogous art, Jang teaches for further rate-distortion cost evaluation ([0191] teaches selecting an optimal merge candidate among the merge candidates based on a rate distortion (RD) cost).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen in view of KO and Furht to further add the teachings of Jang as disclosed above to improve the motion vector prediction performance (Jang [0200]).
Regarding claim 13, Chen in view of KO, Furht, and Jang teaches the method of claim 12. Chen further teaches wherein a set of indexes is used to indicate the N best candidates ([0086] teaches encoding an index of best merge candidate for the candidate list), and a smaller index value is signalled using a shortened codeword ([0086] teaches the merge index encoded using truncated unary binarization).
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi-Wen Chen (US 20220094942 A1) (hereinafter Chen) in view of Geonjung KO (US 20210051329 A1) (hereinafter KO) in view of Borivoje Furht (US 20200396476 A1) (hereinafter Furht) further in view of Hongbin Liu (US 20210227245 A1) (hereinafter Liu):
Regarding claim 15, Chen in view of KO and Furht teaches the method of claim 11; However, do not explicitly teach wherein one or more templates of the current block and one or more corresponding templates of subblocks associated with the target collocated reference block are used for the ARMC-TM, and wherein the subblocks of the target collocated reference block are located based on subblock motions.
However, in an analogous art, Liu teaches wherein one or more templates of the current block and one or more corresponding templates of subblocks associated with the target collocated reference block are used for the ARMC-TM ([0151], and [0148] teach template matching between the current template and reference templates further refined at sub CU level), and wherein the subblocks of the target collocated reference block are located based on subblock motions ([0103] teaches identifying a corresponding block of each sub CU in the motion source picture by the temporal vector).
It would have been obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the video coding and decoding method and system as disclosed by Chen in view of KO and Furht to further add the teachings of Liu as disclosed above to reduce computational complexity (Liu [0068]).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MAHMOUD KAMAL ABOUZAHRA whose telephone number is (703)756-1694. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jamie Atala can be reached at (571) 272-7384. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MAHMOUD KAMAL ABOUZAHRA/ Examiner, Art Unit 2486
/JAMIE J ATALA/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2486
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