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)(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.
4. Claims 1,6-8,10,15-17,21-24, and 26-29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Yang et al. (TINC: Tree structured Implicit Neural Compression, provided in the IDS).
Regarding claim 1, Yang discloses a method of decoding video data representative of an image or a 3D scene (e.g., fig. 1), comprising; obtaining parameters of at least a first INR (Implicit Neural Representation) network for a reference block of a block of the video data (e.g., each block in fig. 1 can be representation with an implicit neural function, and for any two leaf nodes sharing the same ancestor nodes, their output information have flown through the same hyper layers contained in the ancestor nodes. In other words, the MLPs of these two leaf nodes will share a part of hidden layers, last paragraph in section 3.3), decoding a signal indicative of which one or more neural layers of the at least a first INR network are reused by at least a second INR network (e.g., section 3.3, last paragraph, also first paragraph of section 5.1 discloses, "[a]t the same level, all sibling nodes share the same parent node and thus take the same information as input. Therefore, for any two leaf nodes sharing the same ancestor nodes, their output information have flown through the same hyper layers contained in the ancestor nodes. In other words, the MLPs of these two leaf nodes will share a part of hidden layers" and “[t]here are also some information that need to be saved for data decompression, such as MLP structure", considered equivalent), obtaining parameters associated with the at least a second INR network for the block of the video data (e.g., last paragraph in section 3.3, "for any two leaf nodes sharing the same ancestor nodes, their output information have flown through the same hyper layers contained in the ancestor nodes. In other words, the MLPs of these two leaf nodes will share a part of hidden layers"), based on the one or more neural layers of the at least a first INR network for the reference block (e.g., tree structured as shown in fig. 1), obtaining coordinates for the block of the video data (e.g., section 3.1), and reconstructing said block corresponding to the coordinates for the block, based on the at least a second INR network for the block (e.g., implicit in the image/video processing of TINC, also see section 6).
Regarding claim 6, Yang discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the signal indicates a number of first one or more neural layers of the at least a first INR network to be used by the at least a second INR network (e.g., section 3.3, "[a]t the same level, all sibling nodes share the same parent node and thus take the same information as input. Therefore, for any two leaf nodes sharing the same ancestor
nodes, their output information have flown through the same hyper layers contained in the ancestor nodes. In other words, the MLPs of these two leaf nodes will share a part of hidden layers", also, "[t]here are also some information that need to be saved for data decompression, such as MLP structure" in section 5.1 first paragraph).
Regarding claim 7, Yang discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the signal indicates a number
of last one or more neural layers of the at least a first INR network to be used by the at least a second INR network (e.g., section 3.3, "[a]t the same level, all sibling nodes share the same parent node and thus take the same information as input. Therefore, for any two leaf nodes sharing the same ancestor
nodes, their output information have flown through the same hyper layers contained in the ancestor nodes. In other words, the MLPs of these two leaf nodes will share a part of hidden layers", also “[t]here are also some information that need to be saved for data decompression, such as MLP structure" in section 5.1 first paragraph).
Regarding claim 8, Yang discloses the method of claim l, further comprising; decoding data indicating which block is used as the reference block for the block (e.g., section 3.3, "[a]t the same
level, all sibling nodes share the same parent node and thus take the same information as input. Therefore, for any two leaf nodes sharing the same ancestor nodes, their output information have flown through the same hyper layers contained in the ancestor nodes. In other words, the MLPs of these two leaf nodes will share a part of hidden layers", and "[t]here are also some information that need to be saved for data decompression, such as MLP structure" in section 5.1 first paragraph).
Regarding claims 10,21 and 26, the limitations claimed are substantially similar to claim 1 above, and has been addressed in the above claim 1. It is noted that, the encoding is a reverse process and is covered by the reference.
Regarding claims 15-17, the limitations claimed has been addressed in the above claims 6-8.
Regarding claims 22-24 and 27-29, the limitations claimed are substantially similar to claims 6-8 above, and has been addressed in the above claims.
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 9,18,25 and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yang et al., as applied in the above action.
Regarding claim 9, Yang teaches the method of claim l; but is silent to explicitly teach, wherein said block and said reference block are allowed to have different block sizes.
However, Yang teaches equal size blocks via octree partitioning (e.g., fig. 1). Examiner take official notice to indicate that, block are allowed to have equal and/or different sizes, is not specific to the current invention, and it is notoriously well known in the process of block partitioning based on the desired application of video/image processing, therefore it is considered as an obvious alternative design option.
Regarding claim 18,25 and 30, the limitations claimed are substantially similar to claim 9 above, and has been addressed in the above claim.
Contact Information
8. 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
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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.
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/BEHROOZ M SENFI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2482
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