DETAILED ACTION
1. The communication is in response to the application received 06/10/2025, where Claims 1-15 are pending and are examined as follows.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
2. 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
3. The information disclosure statement (IDS) was submitted on 06/10/2025. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Priority
4. Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Examiner’s notes
5. Upon examination of independent claim 15 (“A computer-readable storage medium storing a bitstream for image information, wherein the image information is generated by an image encoding method comprising:”), this is a product by process claim limitation where the product is a bitstream and the process is the method steps to generate the bitstream. MPEP §2113 recites “Product-by-Process claims are not limited to the manipulations of the recited steps, only the structure implied by the steps”. Thus, the scope of the claim is the storage medium storing the bitstream (with the structure implied by the method steps). The structure includes the information and samples manipulated by the steps. “To be given patentable weight, the printed matter and associated product must be in a functional relationship. A functional relationship can be found where the printed matter performs some function with respect to the product to which it is associated”. MPEP §2111.05(I)(A). When a claimed “computer-readable medium merely serves as a support for information or data, no functional relationship exists. MPEP §2111.05(III). The storage medium storing the claimed bitstream in claim 15 merely serves as a support for the storage of the bitstream and provides no functional relationship between the stored bitstream and storage medium. Therefore the structure bitstream, which scope is implied by the method steps, is non-functional descriptive material and given no patentable weight. MPEP §2111.05(III). Thus, the claim scope is just a storage medium storing data and is anticipated by any prior art which recites a storage medium storing a bitstream. Please see details below with respect to the prior art rejection of claim 15 under 35 U.S.C. 102.
Specification
6. The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed. Please include relevant terms from the claim (e.g. invalid region, filling, etc.) in the title, to more clearly describe the invention.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
7. 35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim does not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the “computer readable storage medium” can include transmission type and signal type media. As such, the claim is drawn to a form of energy and can therefore be interpreted as a signal per se. Hence, claim 15 is rejected as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
The rejection above can be overcome by amending the claim to include the limitation "non-transitory" as indicated in ¶001197 of the filed specification. The applicant is directed to guidance provided in the document titled "Subject Matter Eligibility of Computer Readable Media" dated January 26, 2010 and available on the USPTO public website at
https://www.uspto.gov/patents/laws/patent-related-notices/patent-related-notices-2010
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
8. 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)(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 1-9 and 12-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Zhang et al. US 2025/0317558 A1 (with reference to Foreign Application Priority Data PCT/CN2022/141515 – see attached), hereinafter referred to as Zhang, where Zhang’s techniques are directed to video processing, particularly related to intra block copy (IBC) and intra template matching prediction (TMP) mode enhancement (¶0002) which can help improve coding effectiveness and coding efficiency (¶0005). See details below. Corresponding support can be found throughout the referenced priority document (for e.g. figs. 11A-C and 12A-D).
Regarding Claim 1, Given the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) of the following limitations, Zhang teaches and/or suggests “An image decoding method [See video decoder 300 (fig. 3)] comprising: deriving a prediction mode of a current block [Regarding a prediction mode, see for e.g. ¶0078, ¶0143-¶0154, ¶0181, and ¶0338]; generating a prediction block of the current block based on the prediction mode [Based on the prediction mode above, a prediction block can be generated, see for e.g. ¶0078 and ¶0150]; and generating a recovered block of the current block based on the prediction block [See for e.g. ¶0079 with respect to the reconstruction unit], wherein the generating of the prediction block includes filling an invalid region overlapping a region occupied by the current block when a reference block of the prediction mode includes the invalid region.” [Given the BRI of “invalid region”, see for e.g. figs. 14A-C and 15A-D of Zhang, where overlapped areas of a current block and reference block contain unreconstructed samples which are understood to be unavailable (diagonal stripe regions). Since ¶00822 of the filed specification shows unavailable pixels may be referred to as an invalid region, Zhang is deemed relevant. As shown, unreconstructed samples in the reference block may be filled via horizontal/vertical padding]
Regarding Claim 2, Zhang teaches and/or suggests all the limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim. Zhang further teaches and/or suggests “wherein the generating of the prediction block includes determining the invalid region based on a motion vector pointing to the reference block [Please refer to figs. 14A-C and
15A-D. For e.g., in fig. 15D (e.g. ¶0207-¶0212 and ¶0337), see block vector (BV) extending along the same line towards the overlapped area, which points to the reference block] and a size of the current block.” [Figs. 14A-suggest the current unit (CU) will be of a given size. Also please note for e.g. ¶0150-¶0154 and ¶0272. Further, ¶0165 shows a current block with dimensions BWxBH. Estimating unreconstructed samples via the prediction samples (figs. 14A-D) depends on whether the horizontal/vertical components of the BV are larger than negative BW/BH, respectively]
Regarding Claim 3, Zhang teaches and/or suggests all the limitations of claim 2, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim. Zhang further teaches and/or suggests “wherein the generating of the prediction block includes determining a method for filling the invalid region based on the motion vector and the size of the current block. [With respect to the figures above (e.g. figs. 14-15), a BV (i.e. motion vector) is extended along the same line towards the overlapped area and splits said area into two regions which can be padded according which region the reference samples are found, i.e. horizontal or vertical padding. See for e.g. ¶0211-¶0217. As to the size of the current block, please refer to claim 2 for support]
Regarding Claim 4, Zhang teaches and/or suggests all the limitations of claim 3, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim. Zhang further teaches and/or suggests “wherein a template used in the method for filling the invalid region comprises pixels neighboring the invalid region or the current block.” [See figs. 15A-15D with reference to the template in ¶0220-¶0230. Also please refer to figs. 16-17, where pixels/samples of the template neighbor the unreconstructed region/current block]
Regarding Claim 5, Zhang teaches and/or suggests all the limitations of claim 4, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim. Zhang further teaches and/or suggests “wherein the template is selected as one of an L-shaped template consisting of pixels neighboring top and left of the invalid region or the current block [Figs. 16-17 both depict an L-shaped template that neighbors for e.g. the current block], a horizontal template consisting of pixels neighboring the top of the invalid region or the current block [Same figures as above], and a vertical template consisting of pixels neighboring the left of the invalid region or the current block.” [Same figures as above]
Regarding Claim 6, Zhang teaches and/or suggests all the limitations of claim 3, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim. Zhang further teaches and/or suggests “wherein the method for filling the invalid region includes one or more of vertical filling, horizontal filling, average filling, planar filling, intra-picture template matching-based filling, DIMD-based filling, TIMD-based filling, and copy filling.” [See vertical and horizontal filling with respect to figs. 14A-C and 15A-D (e.g. ¶0211)]
Regarding Claim 7, Zhang teaches and/or suggests all the limitations of claim 2, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim. Zhang further teaches and/or suggests “wherein the generating of the prediction block includes filling the invalid region by using pixels of a region corresponding to a relative position of the invalid region in the current block or a relative position of the invalid region in the reference block [Please see figs. 14A-C and 15A-D, where padding is performed in the overlapped area (unreconstructed pixels) using pixels of a region relative to said overlapped area] within an intra-picture template matching block having a template most similar to the template of the invalid region or the template of the current block. [With reference to figs. 15A-15D, ¶0221-¶0243 describe the template cost. Various metrics (e.g. SAD) may be employed as a cost function, where a minimum cost determines the optimal solution]
Regarding Claim 8, Zhang teaches and/or suggests all the limitations of claim 2, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim. Zhang further teaches and/or suggests “wherein the generating of the prediction block includes filling pixels within the invalid region using pixels obtained by moving pixels in the invalid region by the motion vector within the reference block.” [Please refer to the padding process depicted in figs. 14A-C and 15A-D (and corresponding text), where pixels can be moved/copied to fill unreconstructed samples in the overlapping area. The foregoing is based on the BV (e.g. ¶0211-¶0212)]
Regarding Claim 9, Zhang teaches and/or suggests all the limitations of claim 8, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim. Zhang further teaches and/or suggests “wherein both a horizontal component and a vertical component of the motion vector have negative values [See for e.g. ¶0183-¶0186 and ¶0192-¶0193 regarding horizontal and vertical BV components that may be smaller than 0], and sizes thereof are larger than or equal to half horizontal and vertical sizes of the current block, respectively. [Said horizontal and vertical BV components may be larger than negative BW (width of CB) and BH (height of CB), respectively (e.g. ¶0187-¶0188 and ¶0194-¶0195)]
Regarding Claim 12, Zhang teaches and/or suggests all the limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim. Zhang further teaches and/or suggests “wherein the prediction mode is one of an IBC mode and an intra- picture template matching prediction mode.” [See for e.g. ¶0338, i.e. coding a current video block with at least one of an IBC mode or an intra TMP mode]
Regarding claim 13, claim 13 is rejected under the same art and evidentiary limitations as determined for decoding method of Claim 1, since encoding and decoding are inverse operations that enable compressed video data to be decompressed at a destination device. This is illustrated in Zhang’s figs. 2 and 3, respectively.
Regarding Claim 14, Zhang teaches and/or suggests all the limitations of claim 13, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim. Zhang further teaches and/or suggests “wherein the determining of the prediction mode includes searching up to a region overlapping at least part of the current block when searching for a region similar to the current block within a current picture including the current block as the reference block.” [In the context of Intra TMP, Zhang describes intra template matching (¶0143 and fig. 11). Regarding the overlapped areas, please refer to figs. 14A-14C and 15A-15D]
Regarding claim 15, claim 15 is rejected under the same art and evidentiary limitations as determined for decoding method of Claim 1. As to a computer readable storage medium, see ¶0460 of Zhang for example.
9. 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 15 is further rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Regunathan et al. US 9,571,840 B2, hereinafter referred to as Regunathan, since this is a product by process claim limitation where the product is a bitstream and the process is the method steps to generate the bitstream (MPEP §2113). For the reasons previously presented, the storage medium storing the claimed bitstream in claim 15 merely serve as a support for the storage of the bitstream and provides no functional relationship between the stored bitstream and storage medium. Thus, the claim scope is just a storage medium storing data and is anticipated by Regunathan below which recites a storage medium storing a bitstream.
Regarding claim 15, Given the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) of the following limitations, Regunathan discloses and/or suggests “A computer-readable storage medium storing a bitstream for image information, wherein the image information is generated by an image encoding method comprising [See claim 33 which recites a computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon encoded data in a bitstream for video]: determining a prediction mode of a current block; generating a prediction block of the current block according to the prediction mode; and generating a residual block of the current block based on the prediction block, wherein the generating of the prediction block includes filling an invalid region overlapping a region occupied by the current block when a reference block of the prediction mode includes the invalid region.” [The aforementioned limitation is not given patentable weight for the reasons previously discussed. See MPEP §2111.05(III)]
To help advance prosecution, it is recommended that “A computer-readable storage medium storing a bitstream for image information, wherein the image information is generated by an image encoding method” be rewritten to also include instructions executed by a processor which cause the processor to perform the image encoding method that generates the bitstream.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
10. 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 10-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang, in view of Rosewarne US 2016/0227244 A1 , hereinafter referred to as Rosewarne.
Regarding Claim 10, Zhang teaches and/or suggests all the limitations of claim 1, and is analyzed as previously discussed with respect to that claim. Zhang however does not appear to address the features of claim 10. Rosewarne on the other hand from the same or similar field of endeavor is relied on to teach and/or suggest “wherein the generating of the prediction block further includes filtering pixels corresponding to a boundary of the invalid region within the reference block.” [With reference to fig. 8A, see ¶0178. Although Rosewarne dos not explicitly refer to “filtering pixels” as claimed, sample values at the edge (i.e. boundary) of the region deemed unavailable within reference block 806 (construed as invalid) may be clipped, which can be understood as a means for filtering those sample values] Given Rosewarne’s teachings, it would have therefore been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the video processing techniques of Zhang related to intra block copy (IBC) and intra template matching prediction (TMP) mode enhancement (¶0002), to add the teachings of Rosewarne as above for providing methods for encoding and decoding video data that can improve or maintain compression performance while reducing algorithmic complexity (e.g. ¶0008).
Regarding claim 11, claim 11 is rejected under the same art and evidentiary limitations as determined for the method of Claim 10 above, since fig. 8A of Rosewarne teaches/suggests the clipping of samples/pixels within reference block 806 (i.e. are filtered) that neighbor unavailable region 810 (i.e. invalid region) of said reference block and samples of the unavailable region.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Please see PTO 892 for additional references. For example, see the abstract of Chuang et al. US 2018/0152727 A1 which describes methods for padding reference pixels of a reference block that overlaps an unavailable area.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RICHARD A HANSELL JR. whose telephone number is (571)270-0615. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Fri 10 am- 7 pm.
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/RICHARD A HANSELL JR./Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2486
Prosecution Insights