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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 3-11, 15-16, 19-20 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claim(s) 1-2, 13-14, 17-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being clearly anticipated by Savchenkov U.S. Patent/PG Publication 20200234690.
Regarding claim 1 (independent):
A video generation method, performed by an electronic device, the method comprising: (Savchenkov [0097] As shown in FIG. 11, the hardware components of the computing system 1100 may include one or more processors 1110 and memory 1120. Memory 1120 stores, in part, instructions and data for execution by processor 1110. Memory 1120 can store the executable code when the system 1100 is in operation. The system 1100 may further include an optional mass storage device 1130, optional portable storage medium drive(s) 1140, one or more optional output devices 1150, one or more optional input devices 1160, an optional network interface 1170, and one or more optional peripheral devices 1180. The computing system 1100 can also include one or more software components 1195 (e.g., ones that can implement the method for portrait animation as described herein).)
obtaining an initial image, and obtaining a plurality of pieces of description text, each piece of description text describing a frame image in a frame image sequence to be generated (Savchenkov [0038] As shown in FIG. 3, the face reenactment system 220 can be configured to receive, as an input, a target image 125 and an input text 310. The target image 125 may include a target face 140.)
iteratively generating, by using the initial image as a 1st frame image and based on the 1st frame image and the plurality of pieces of description text, (Savchenkov [0039] Based on the sequence of sets of acoustic features, the face reenactment system 220 may generate a sequence of sets of scenario data. Each set of the scenario data may indicate modifications of the target face 140 in at least one of the frames 345. Each of the sets of scenario data may include a set of mouth key points, a mouth texture image, and a set of facial key points. The mouth key points may represent facial landmarks located substantially around a mouth region of a model face. The facial key points may represent facial landmarks located at least around face shape, in regions of nose, eyes, and brows of the model face. Thus, each of the sets of the scenario data may represent a facial expression and head movement of the model face.)
at least one frame image located after the 1st frame image, to obtain a frame image sequence comprising the 1st frame image and the at least one frame image and performing video synthesis on each frame image in the frame image sequence, to obtain a target video (Savchenkov [0093] In block 1025, the method 1000 may include generating, by the computing device and based on the sequence of frames, an output video.)
Regarding claim 2:
The method according to claim 1, has all of its limitations taught by Savchenkov. Savchenkov further teaches wherein the iteratively generating, by using the initial image as a 1st frame image and based on the 1st frame image and the plurality of pieces of description text, at least one frame image located after the 1st frame image comprises:
generating an ith frame image based on the 1st frame image, each frame image that is in the frame image sequence and that is located before the ith frame image, and a description text of each frame image located before the ith frame image, i being a positive integer greater than 1 and less than or equal to a preset quantity and traversing i, to obtain each frame image that is in the frame image sequence and that is located after the 1st frame image (Savchenkov [0091] In block 1015, the method 1000 may include generating, by the computing device and based on the sequence of sets of acoustic features, a sequence of sets of scenario data. The sets of scenario data may indicate modifications of the target face for pronouncing the input text. [0092] In block 1020, the method 1000 may include generating, by the computing device and based on the sequence of sets of scenario data, a sequence of frames. Each of the frames may include the target face modified based on at least one set of scenario data of the sequence of sets of scenario data.)
Regarding claim 13 (independent):
The claim is a parallel version of claim 1. As such it is rejected under the same teachings.
Regarding claim 14:
The claim is a parallel version of claim 2. As such it is rejected under the same teachings.
Regarding claim 17 (independent):
The claim is a parallel version of claim 1. As such it is rejected under the same teachings.
Regarding claim 18:
The claim is a parallel version of claim 2. As such it is rejected under the same teachings.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claim(s) 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Savchenkov U.S. Patent/PG Publication 20200234690 in view of Ma U.S. Patent/PG Publication 20130019273.
Regarding claim 12:
The method according to claim 1, has all of its limitations taught by Savchenkov. Savchenkov further teaches wherein after the performing video synthesis on each frame image in the frame image sequence, to obtain a target video, the method further comprises:
obtaining a frame rate of the target video, the frame rate indicating a quantity of consecutive frame images played per second in the target video (Savchenkov In some embodiments, the output video 340 can be generated at a rate of an N frames per second (for example, 30 frames per second). Thus, the number of sets in the sequence of the sets of acoustic features can be determined based on a desired frame rate of the output video. Additionally, the number of sets can be also determined based on the desired duration of an audio representing the input text.).
Savchenkov does not teach duration as an attribute. In a related field of endeavor, Ma teaches:
obtaining a frame rate of the target video, the frame rate indicating a quantity of consecutive frame images played per second in the target video (Ma [0004] In another embodiment, the playout rate is described in terms of frame rate (e.g., 60 fps, 120 fps, 15 fps, etc.), which can be calculated as the nominal frame rate times the trick play multiplier.)
and determining a ratio of a quantity of frame images in the frame image sequence to the frame rate as duration of the target video, and determining the duration as attribute information of the target video (Ma [0005] In one embodiment, the client extracts independently renderable key frames (e.g., MPEG I-frames, JPEG images, etc.) from the segment. The inter-key-frame gaps are referred to herein as a group of pictures (GOP) size (the number of frames between key frames) or GOP duration (the amount of wall clock time between key frames, also calculated as the GOP size divided by the frame rate). In one embodiment, fixed GOP sizes are provided to the client in the response to the playback request. In another embodiment, fixed GOP sizes are denoted in the manifest file describing the content requested. In another embodiment, GOP sizes are determined when separating out the key frames from a segment, referred to herein is "parsing". If fixed sized GOPs are used, the GOP is determined once and stored for future use. If variable sized GOPs are used, a trailing history of key frame locations and durations is maintained. In one embodiment, these key frames are used to implement trick play functionality.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include duration as taught by Ma. The rationale for doing so would have been that it combines prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results where Savchenkov generates an output video with a frame rate, and Ma has a video which specifically has duration as an attribute, where it is merely adding additional metadata information to the video, and as such would have predictable results. Therefore it would have been obvious to combine Ma with Savchenkov to obtain the invention.
Conclusion
For the prior art referenced and the prior art considered pertinent to Applicant’s disclosure but not relied upon, see PTO-892 “Notice of References Cited”.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JASON PRINGLE-PARKER whose telephone number is (571) 272-5690 and e-mail is jason.pringle-parker@uspto.gov. The examiner can normally be reached on 8:30am-5:00pm est Monday-Friday. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, King Poon can be reached on (571) 270-0728. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JASON A PRINGLE-PARKER/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2617
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