DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the RCE filed on 03/18/2026. Claims 1-3, 5, 7-9, and 11-14 have been amended. Claims 1-14 have been examined.
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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 8-13, filed on 03/18/2026, with respect to claims 1-13 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 U.S.C. 103 of claims 1-4, 6-10 and 12-13 has been withdrawn.
Examiner’s note:
Machine readable media: when determining the scope of a claim directed to a computer-readable medium containing certain programming, the examiner should first look to the relationship between the programming and the intended computer system. Where the programming performs some function with respect to the computer with which it is associated, a functional relationship will be found. For instance, a claim to computer-readable medium programmed with attribute data objects that perform the function of facilitating retrieval, addition, and removal of information in the intended computer system, establishes a functional relationship such that the claimed attribute data objects are given patentable weight. See Lowry, 32 F.3d at 1583-84, 32 USPQ2d at 1035. However, where the claim as a whole is directed to conveying a message or meaning to a human reader independent of the intended computer system, and/or the computer-readable medium merely serves as a support for information or data, no functional relationship exists. For example, a claim to a memory stick containing tables of batting averages, or tracks of recorded music, utilizes the intended computer system merely as a support for the information. Such claims are directed toward conveying meaning to the human reader rather than towards establishing a functional relationship between recorded data and the computer. See section 2111.05 of MPEP.
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)(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) 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Comer (US 2005/0185937).
Regarding claim 14, Comer discloses a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a bitstream, wherein the bitstream includes a neural-network post-filter characteristics (NNPFC) supplemental enhancement information (SEI) message as which neural-network to be used as a neural-network post-filter (NNPF) is encoded and a neural-network post-filter activation (NNPFA) SEI message as which whether activating a target NNPF to be applied to a current picture or not is encoded, wherein the NNPFA SEI message includes a NNPFA target flag indicating whether the target NNPF is a base NNPF or another NNPF, [[and]] wherein the NNPFC SEI message includes a NNPFC base flag indicating whether the NNPF is the base NNPF or the another NNPF, andwherein a NNPFA target pictures for which the target NNPF is activated by the NNPFA SEI message is included in a NNPFC target pictures, to which the NNPFC SEI message corresponding to the target NNPF indicated by the NNPFA target flag pertains, and the target NNPF is indicated as the base NNPF by a value of the NNPFA target flag and a value of the NNPFC base flag or the another NNPF by the value of the NNPFA target flag and the value of the NNPFC base flag (Examiner’s note: the “non-transitory computer readable medium” does not establish a functional relationship between the recorded bitstream data and the computer readable medium, therefore the claim will be interpreted as a tangible device being able to store bitstream data; Comer, paragraph 29 discloses the base data bitstream can be recorded onto the DVD as a base layer and assigned a stream identification of 0xE0… the enhancement data bitstream can be recorded onto the DVD as an enhancement layer and assigned a stream identification of 0xBF, 0xFA, 0xFB, 0xFC, 0xFD or 0xFE).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-13 are allowed.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JERRY T JEAN BAPTISTE whose telephone number is (571)272-6189. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9-5PM EST.
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/JERRY T JEAN BAPTISTE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2481
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