DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
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 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) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for a patent.
(b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of application for patent in the United States.
(e) the invention was described in (1) an application for patent, published under section 122(b), by another filed in the United States before the invention by the applicant for patent or (2) a patent granted on an application for patent by another filed in the United States before the invention by the applicant for patent, except that an international application filed under the treaty defined in section 351(a) shall have the effects for purposes of this subsection of an application filed in the United States only if the international application designated the United States and was published under Article 21(2) of such treaty in the English language.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(b) as being anticipated by Marpe et al. (US 20050038837 Al), hereinafter referred to as Marpe.
Regarding claims 12, this claim is directed to a non-transitory computer-readable medium for storing data associated with a video, comprising: a data stream generated by the feature encoding method (operations) which is a product by process claim limitation where the product is the data stream and the process is the method steps to generate the data stream. 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 non-transitory computer-readable medium storing the data stream (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 “non-transitory computer-readable medium” merely serves as a support for information or data, no functional relationship exists. MPEP §2111.05(III). The non-transitory computer-readable medium storing the claimed data stream in claim 12 merely serves as a support for the storage of the data stream and provides no functional relationship between the stored data stream and storage medium. Therefor the data stream, 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 non-transitory computer-readable medium storing data and is anticipated by Marple which recites a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a data stream (See Marple, ¶[0137] ).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2- 11 are allowed.
The following is an Examiner's statement of reasons for allowance:
The instant invention is related to an entropy-coding concept for coding video media content.
Applicant uniquely claimed a distinct feature in the independent claim 2. The feature is wherein the selection depends on the activated one of the low-complexity mode and the high-efficiency mode, wherein the entropy decoder is configured such that each of the plurality of entropy decoding schemes involves arithmetic decoding of the symbols the respective entropy decoding scheme has been selected for, with the plurality of entropy decoding schemes differing from each other in using a different probability estimate in the arithmetic decoding and such that the plurality of entropy decoding schemes perform their probability sub-division on a common probability interval so as to decode the symbols from one common bitstream, wherein the entropy decoder is configured such that merely one probability interval width value R and offset state value V is managed for the plurality of entropy decoding schemes, wherein each symbol of the sequence of symbols is associated with a respective one of a plurality of symbol types, wherein for each symbol of a predetermined symbol type, in both the low-complexity mode and the high-efficiency mode, one of the plurality of entropy decoding schemes is selected, and the selection depends on a probability model associated with the predetermined symbol type and the probability model is updated depending on the symbols of the predetermined symbol type at a first update rate in case of the high-efficiency mode being activated, and at a second update rate lower than the first update rate in case of the low-complexity mode being activated.
The closest prior art found were Marpe and Sole Rojas et al. (US 8,902,988 B2), hereinafter referred to as Sole Rojas.
Marpe pertains to binarization schemes and coding schemes, in particular, to binarization and arithmetic coding schemes for use in video coding applications comprising a context modeler that adapts an actual bit or bin value probability distribution estimation in accordance with a predetermined context model type, which is associated with that bit, or bin (Marpe [0046]). Sole Rojals is directed to video coding and, more particularly, entropy coding for video coding comprising a context-modeling unit that updates the probability estimate associated with an assigned context in a joint context model within joint context model store. By continually updating the probability estimates of the joint context model to reflect the actual decoded values of the coefficients, the probability estimates for future coefficients assigned to the same contexts in the joint context model may be more accurate and result in further reduced bit decoding by arithmetic decoding unit (Sole Rojals Col. 26:34-43). However, the above prior art, either, singularly or in combination, fail to anticipate or render the above underlined limitations obvious.
Independent claim 5, 8 and 11 recite limitations similar to the limitations, in question, discussed above. Therefore, independent claim 37 is allowable for analogous reasons.
Dependent claims 2-4, 6, 7, 9 and 10 are allowed for the reasons concerning the independent claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892 for additional references.
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/FABIO S LIMA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2486