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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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)(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(s) 1-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Xu et al. (US 20210021873 A1).
Regarding claims 1 and 18, Xu discloses an electronic apparatus comprising:
a video coder circuit configured to perform operations of a video coding method (fig. 7) comprising:
receiving data to be encoded or decoded as a current block of pixels of a current picture of a video (724 of fig. 7, [0091] encoding the block within a current video picture, [0097] the residue encoder (724) is configured to convert the residue data from a spatial domain to a frequency domain, and generate the transform coefficients. The transform coefficients are then subject to quantization processing to obtain quantized transform coefficients, [0135] for predicting the current block for a current CTU to be encoded);
encoding or decoding the current block by partitioning the current block based on a block partitioning information ([0117] and [0124] a current block split structure for a current CTU (e.g., a CTB, a luma CTB, chroma CTB(s), and/or the like) in a current picture can be determined based on reference partitioning information of a previously decoded CTU decoded prior to the current CTU in a decoding order; [0157] and [0158] the reference partitioning information); and
entropy coding one or more syntax elements specifying the block partitioning information of the current block (725 of fig. 7, [0098] entropy coding, [0114] an example syntax table for a block structure with recursive partitioning (e.g., a function coding_tree( )). The function coding tree( ) can be called depending on a type of a split flag. When there is no split, a coding_unit( ) function can be called to further parse syntax elements inside a CU. Certain flags (e.g., split_cu_flag, split_qt_flag, mtt_split_cu_vertical_flag, mtt_split_cu_binary_flag) in Table 1 can be signaled),
wherein the entropy coding is performed based on information regarding one or more reference regions of the current block ([0134] and [0135] an example of using temporal neighboring CTU(s) to predict the current block split structure for a current CTU (1111) according to an embodiment of the disclosure. The current CTU (1111) is in a current picture (1101). In an example, a reference picture (1102) is determined. For example, the reference picture (1102) is a collocated picture used to derive a TMVP MV predictor. A CTU (1121) is a collocated CTU of the current CTU (1111). The temporal neighboring CTU(s) used to predict the current block split structure for the current CTU (1111) can include any suitable CTU(s) in the reference picture (1102). In an example, the temporal neighboring CTU(s) include the collocated CTU (1121) and one or more of neighboring CTUs (1122)-(1129) of the collocated CTU (1121). The temporal neighboring CTU(s) can also be referred to as reference CTU(s)).
Regarding claim 2, Xu teaches the video coding method of claim 1, Xu further teaches wherein the one or more syntax elements are entropy coded with context modeling selected based on the information regarding the one or more reference regions ([0098] the entropy encoder (725) is configured to include various information according to a suitable standard, such as the HEVC standard, wherein the entropy encoder (725) is configured to include the general control data, the selected prediction information (e.g., intra prediction information or inter prediction information), the residue information, and other suitable information in the bitstream; [0108] in HEVC and VVC as context models; [0114] and [0115]).
Regarding claim 3, Xu teaches the video coding method of claim 1, Xu further teaches wherein the one or more reference regions comprise one or more blocks that spatially neighbor the current block ([0127] The spatial prediction may be determined from the information of spatial neighboring CTU(s) of the current CTU, for example, a left CTU or a left coded CTU that is a CTU to the left of the current CTU, a top CTU (also referred to as an above CTU) or a top coded CTU that is on top of the current CTU, and/or a top-left CTU (also referred to as an above-left CTU) or a top-left coded CTU that is the CTU on a left top corner of the current CTU. Accordingly, the spatial neighboring CTU(s) of the current CTU can include but are not limited to, the left coded CTU, the top coded CTU, and/or the top-left coded CTU).
Regarding claim 4, Xu teaches the video coding method of claim 1, Xu further teaches wherein the one or more reference regions comprise one or more blocks that are in the current picture but not adjacent to the current block ([0128] the previously coded CTU(s) for the history-based buffer can include CTU(s) that are adjacent to the current CTU and/or CTU(s) that are not adjacent to the current CTU).
Regarding claim 5, Xu teaches the video coding method of claim 1, Xu further teaches wherein the one or more reference regions comprise one or more collocated temporal reference blocks in one or more coded reference picture ([0135] collocated CTUs).
Regarding claim 6, Xu teaches the video coding method of claim 1, Xu further teaches wherein the syntax element being entropy coded is used to indicate whether the current block is further partitioned (fig. 9, [0114] split_cu_flag ae(v) if(cu_qp_delta_enabled_flag && qgOn && cb Subdiv <= cu_qp_delta_subdiv) { IsCuQpDeltaCoded = 0 CuQpDeltaVal = 0 CuQgTopLeftX = x0 CuQgTopLeftY = y0 } if( split_cu_flag ) { if( ( allowSplitBtVer | | allowSplitBtHor | | allowSplitTtVer | | allowSplitTtHor) && allowSplitQT ) split_qt_flag ae(v) if( !split_qt_flag ) { if( ( allowSplitBtHor | | allowSplitTtHor) && ( allowSplitBtVer | | allowSplitTtVer ) ) mtt_split_cu_vertical_flag ae(v) if( ( allowSplitBtVer && allowSplitTtVer && mtt_split_cu_vertical_flag) | | ( allowSplitBtHor && allowSplitTtHor && !mtt_split_cu_vertical_flag ) ) mtt_split_cu_binary_flag ae(v)).
Regarding claim 7, Xu teaches the video coding method of claim 6, Xu further teaches wherein the syntax element being entropy coded is used to indicate whether the current block is further partitioned by a quad tree (QT) split or a multi- type tree split (MTT) ([0107] A block partition structure (e.g., in VVC) can include a quad-tree (QT) and multi-type tree (MTT). A block partitioning strategy called QT plus MTT can be used and can be referred to as QT+MTT).
Regarding claim 8, Xu teaches the video coding method of claim 6, Xu further teaches wherein the syntax element is entropy coded with context modeling selected based on QT or MTT split depth statistics ([0098] the entropy encoder (725) is configured to include various information according to a suitable standard, such as the HEVC standard, wherein the entropy encoder (725) is configured to include the general control data, the selected prediction information (e.g., intra prediction information or inter prediction information), the residue information, and other suitable information in the bitstream; [0108] in HEVC and VVC as context models; [0107] and [0108] the QT split can be used).
Regarding claim 9, Xu teaches the video coding method of claim 6, Xu further teaches wherein the syntax element is entropy coded with context modeling selected based on a comparison of a QT depth of the current block with a minimum, a maximum, or an average of QT depths of the one or more reference regions ([0098] the entropy encoder (725) is configured to include various information according to a suitable standard, such as the HEVC standard, wherein the entropy encoder (725) is configured to include the general control data, the selected prediction information (e.g., intra prediction information or inter prediction information), the residue information, and other suitable information in the bitstream; [0107] in VCC, each time a split occurs, a depth of the smaller block from a corresponding parent block can be increased by 1. The split can continue from the root of the CTU (e.g., depth=0) to a certain defined maximum depth or until a minimum allowed block size (e.g., 4 samples each side) is reached. When the defined maximum depth or the minimum allowed block size is reached, the split flag is not signaled but can be inferred to be 0. On the other hand, at the root of the CTU, in some examples, the split can be inferred to be 1, such as for an I slice, it is implicitly inferred that each 128×128 samples can be split into four 64×64 samples at a first depth to incorporate a maximum transform size of 64×64; [0108] in HEVC and VVC as context models).
Regarding claim 10, Xu teaches the video coding method of claim 7, Xu further teaches wherein the syntax element is entropy coded with context modeling selected based on a comparison of a QT depth of the current block with a QT depth of a collocated temporal reference block ([0107], [0108], and [0111] HEVC and VVC as context models, [0109] and [0110] comparison).
Regarding claim 11, Xu teaches the video coding method of claim 6, Xu further teaches wherein the syntax element is entropy coded with context modeling selected based on blocks sizes of the one or more reference regions ([0107], [0108], [0111] HEVC and VVC as context models, and [0116] size of a CU).
Regarding claim 12, Xu teaches the video coding method of claim 1, Xu further teaches wherein the syntax element being entropy coded is used to indicate whether a current CU is further partitioned by a vertical split or a horizontal split (fig. 9, [0114]).
Regarding claim 13, Xu teaches the video coding method of claim 12, Xu further teaches wherein the syntax element is entropy coded with context modeling selected based on information regarding block shapes, split directions, or block sizes of the one or more reference regions (fig. 9, [0114]).
Regarding claim 14, Xu teaches the video coding method of claim 12, Xu further teaches wherein the syntax element is entropy coded with context modeling selected based on whether vertical split or horizontal split is ever applied in the one or more reference regions (fig. 9, [0114]).
Regarding claim 15, Xu teaches the video coding method of claim 1, Xu further teaches wherein the syntax element being entropy coded is used to indicate a set of partitioning constraint parameters that is enforced upon the block partitioning structure of the current block (fig. 9, [0111] The block partitioning operation can be constrained by a maximum number of splits allowed (e.g., a split depth) from the CTU root and a minimum block height and width for a leaf CU).
Regarding claim 16, Xu teaches the video coding method of claim 15, Xu further teaches wherein the syntax element is entropy coded with context modeling selected based on partitioning constraint parameters of the one or more reference regions ([0111] the block partitioning operation can be constrained by a maximum number of splits allowed (e.g., a split depth) from the CTU root and a minimum block height and width for a leaf CU).
Regarding claim 17, Xu teaches the video coding method of claim 15, Xu further teaches wherein the set of partitioning constraint parameters of the current block is derived based on block partition information of the one or more reference regions ([0111] The block partitioning operation can be constrained by a maximum number of splits allowed (e.g., a split depth) from the CTU root and a minimum block height and width for a leaf CU, [0121] a first number of high-level block split structures is shared by a second number of CTUs in the same high level where the second number can be much larger than the first number).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Hsiang (US 20200014928 A1) discloses the context model for entropy coding a partitioning indicator is selected based on a number of neighboring blocks of pixels having quad-tree depths greater than the current block of pixels.
Li et al. (US 20160219276 A1) discloses a video encoder 20 and/or video decoder 30 may be configured to entropy code the syntax element based on the selected context. As used herein, CU depth may refer to quad-tree depth of a CU.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TUNG T VO whose telephone number is (571)272-7340. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 6:30 AM - 5:00 PM.
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TUNG T. VO
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2425
/TUNG T VO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2425
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