DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. 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 § 102
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Claims 1,8 and 12-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Liu, Zizheng (WO 2024/078066).
Regarding claim 1, Liu discloses an image data decoding method performed by an image data
decoding apparatus (e.g., fig. 1, abstract) comprising; obtaining image purpose information for the
image data from a bitstream (e.g., indication of, Obtaining media application scenarios, e.g., purpose, and video content features, for video coding, disclosed throughout the disclosure, also abstract, figs. 1,3 and 6), and reconstructing the image data by performing dequantization based on the image purpose information (e.g., decoding process/ inverse quantization for reconstruction of image data, based on the scenario disclosed throughout the disclosure, also abstract, fig. 6), wherein the image purpose information indicates at least one of whether the image data is for human perception or for machine perception (e.g., indication of, obtain the media application scenario of the video data, which may include a user viewing scenario, a machine recognition scenario, scenarios are different, such as the video perception characteristics of the target user for video data in the user viewing scenario, and the video perception characteristics of the target machine for video data in the machine recognition
scenario are different, disclosed throughout the disclosure consider equivalent).
Regarding claims 8 and 12-13, the limitation as claimed are substantially similar and the exact inverse/encoding process of image data, of claim 1. Liu, throughout the disclosure also discloses the encoding process of image data including transform and quantization, therefore, the ground for rejecting claim 1 also applies here, also see figs. 1,3,6.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Claims 2-5 and 9-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu, Zizheng (WO 2024/078066) in view of Jung et al. (KR 20180070329).
Regarding claim 2, Liu teaches the image data decoding method of claim 1, wherein based on
the image purpose information indicating that the image data for human perception or machine process, as discussed in claim 1 above.
Liu, is silent to explicitly teach, a frequency sensitivity level reference value of the image data is derived.
Jung, in the same field of endeavor and throughout the disclosure determines frequency sensitivity as a reference, by quantization module, for processing image data, thus considered to be equivalent to the above claimed limitation.
In view of the above, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the teaching of Jung, into the video processing of Liu, in order to improve image quality, as suggested by the reference.
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Liu and Jung teach the image data decoding method of claim 2, wherein the frequency sensitivity level reference value is derived based on a dequantization method indicator (e.g., fig. 19, also inverse quantization and frequency sensitivity disclosed throughout the disclosure of Jung).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Liu and Jung teach the image data decoding method of claim 2, with frequency sensitivity reference level value, as discussed in the above claim 1.
The combination is silent in regards to, including at least one of a low level frequency sensitivity threshold or a high level frequency sensitivity threshold.
However, examiner takes official notice to indicate that the above claimed limitation is known and used in the conventional prior art of video/image compression, and is not specific to the current 9invention, as evidenced by Yu et al. (CN 16647683). Yu, in the video/image encoding/decoding process and throughout the disclosure determines a single frequency perceptual sensitivity threshold and based on that determines quantization step size to process image, thus considered to be equivalent to the above claimed limitation. In view of the above, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to implement such known teaching.
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Liu and Yung teach the image data decoding method of claim 2, wherein the frequency sensitivity reference level value is signaled from a bitstream (e.g., indication of pars or extract encoding information necessary for decoding from bitstream, in Yung).
Regarding claims 9-11, the limitations claimed are substantially similar to claims 2 and 4-5 above, and has been addressed in the above claims 2 and 4-5.
Allowable Subject Matter
8. Claims 6-7 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.
Contact Information
9. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner
should be directed to Behrooz Senfi, whose telephone number is (571)272-7339. The examiner can
normally be reached on Monday-Friday 10:00-6:00.
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,
Christopher Kelley can be reached on 571 272 7331. The fax phone number for the organization where
this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application
Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained
from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available
through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see
http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact
the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a
USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-
9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571 -272-1000.
/BEHROOZ M SENFI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2482
Prosecution Insights