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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
2. The information disclosure statement (IDS) was submitted on 05/12/2026. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application does not currently name joint inventors.
3. Claims 1-20, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Toshyasu Sugio et al., (hereinafter Sugio) (US 12,200,254) and Ohji Nakagami et al., (hereinafter Nakagami) (EP 3989176A1).
Re Claim 1. Sugio discloses, a point cloud encoding method (a point cloud encoder, Fig.21, Col.22 Lin.46-54), comprising:
obtaining, by an encoder, geometry information of a to-be-encoded point cloud (geometry information at input of unit 4911 Fig.21 or Figs.5, or 6, or 10, etc.);
determining, by the encoder, at least one point cloud slice corresponding to the to-be-encoded point cloud (determining the slice data of the divided geometry information, being included in the NAL header syntax i.e., slice_type , identified by the slice_index, geometry information, per Col.28 Lin.55-67 and Col.29 Lin.1-3) based on the geometry information of the to-be-encoded point cloud (dividing the geometry information into data slices at block 4931 of Fig.23 Col.24 Lin.9-11, Lin.50-67 and Col.25 Lin.1-3, etc.),
wherein the point cloud slice is generated based on block partition of a bounding box corresponding to the to-be- encoded point cloud (the 3D point cloud data is divided slice-by-slice as part of the bounding box after division, Col.25 Lin.4-19, Fig.24); and
for a point cloud slice meeting a single-point encoding condition (the point cloud slice is encoded according to the leaf node of the octree data including at least one point from the frame to be encoded, based on the bitstream obtained syntax by the geometry parameter set (GPS) for, single_point_per_leaf, including a single point Col.57 Lin.1-21 as listed at code lines for single_point_per_leaf, to be encoded, at Figs.98 and 112-114), performing, by the encoder based on first indication information corresponding to each to-be-encoded layer in the point cloud slice, encoding on the to-be-encoded layer to generate a target bitstream (generating the point three-dimensional cloud bitstream Col.55 Lin.4-10, at encoder 4910 unit 4915 in Fig.21),
wherein the to-be-encoded layer is determined based on multi-branch tree partition of the point cloud slice (the encoding of the current point i.e., the current node, to be processed based on the octree structure Col.13 Lin.46-60, generated by the geometry information encoder 4631, at Col.14 Lin.1-5), and
the first indication information is used to determine whether the corresponding to-be-encoded layer meets the single-point encoding condition (the single point encoding condition is determined, at Col.13 Lin.46-67, Col.14 Lin.1-5 and for the single point condition per Col.57 Lin.1-29 and Fig.99 Col.57 Lin.32-52, etc.).
Within an analogous art, Nakagami teaches about the point cloud encoding method (point cloud encoding Par.[0009]); obtaining, by an encoder, geometry information of a to-be-encoded point cloud (based on geometry positional information Par.[0002, 0004, 0102] Fig.1); determining, by the encoder, at least one point cloud slice corresponding to the to-be-encoded point cloud based on the geometry information of the to-be-encoded point cloud (a point cloud slice Par.[0098]),wherein the point cloud slice is generated based on block partition of a bounding box (bounding box, Pr.[0112-0113], Fig.7) corresponding to the to-be- encoded point cloud (the slice is divided in small three dimensional regions, Par.[0022]); and for a point cloud slice meeting a single-point encoding condition (per Fig. 10 and the octree Par.[0115-0116]), performing, by the encoder based on first indication information corresponding to each to-be-encoded layer in the point cloud slice, encoding on the to-be-encoded layer to generate a target bitstream (by selecting at mode selection portion, 113, for octree mode for encoding or the Direct Coding method (DCM), Par.[0062, 0116]), wherein the to-be-encoded layer is determined based on multi-branch tree partition of the point cloud slice (the encoding layer is based on the tree partition structure, e.g., the octree data, Par.[0115-0121, 0129, 0150, 0176-0179, 0191, 0193, 0226]), and the first indication information is used to determine whether the corresponding to-be-encoded layer meets the single-point encoding condition (from sparsity predetermined condition at Par.[0062, 0116, 0147]).
The art to Sugio teaches a similar video data coding based on geometry and attribute information of the point cloud being performed at the leaf node on partitioned octree of the bonding box of eight sub-cubes occupancy, by which generating three-dimensional data points having the same geometry, according to point indices belonging to the same point cloud data, in order to reduce the data volume of the (en)coded data per Summary, where the ordinary skilled in the art would have found obvious before the effective filing date on invention, to seek other improving coding methods teaching specific details of single point geometric cloud coding, as those found in Nakagami, in order to obtain a reduced amount of information (Par.[0022]) by which to associate the possible embodiments of the invention disclosed with the claimed limitations while considering the claim in whole, hence determining the claimed scope to be predictable.
Re Claim 2. Sugio and Nakagami disclose, the method according to claim 1, wherein the performing, based on first indication information corresponding to each to-be-encoded layer in the point cloud slice, encoding on the to-be-encoded layer comprises:
Sugio teaches about, performing, by the encoder, encoding on each single point in each to-be-encoded layer and geometry encoding on each non-single point in each to-be-encoded layer in a case that the first indication information is used to indicate that each to-be-encoded layer in the point cloud slice meets the single-point encoding condition (encoding single point of layer according to the geometry, the non-single point, based on occupancy code information for a plurality of frames indicating a node includes a point cloud condition having the number of points being less than or equal to a threshold, determined at Fig.35 Col.14 Lin. 8-16, or Col.13 Lin.46-60 and where the single-point encoding is based on the syntax information single_point_per_leaf, of including a single point condition, Col.57 Lin.1-21 and determining whether each leaf node of the octree includes a single point per Col.57 Lin.22-29).
Nakagami, teaches the claimed condition at (as eligibility to use DCM for an occupied node Par.[0062], is determined based on occupancy information from other nodes, according to a flag for DCM applicability Par.[0079] and Fig.3 showing the slices and the respective layers).
Re Claim 3. Sugio and Nakagami disclose, the method according to claim 1, wherein the performing, based on first indication information corresponding to each to-be-encoded layer in the point cloud slice, encoding on the to-be-encoded layer comprises:
Sugio teaches about, performing, by the encoder, single-point encoding on each single point in the to-be-encoded layer and geometry encoding on each non-single point in the to-be-encoded layer in a case that the first indication information corresponding to the to-be-encoded layer indicates that the single-point encoding condition is met (the single point condition is met at the syntax for the geometry parameter set (GPS) for, single_point_per_leaf, including a single point Col.57 Lin.1-21 as listed at code lines for single_point_per_leaf, to be encoded, at Figs.112-114); or
performing, by the encoder, geometry encoding on each to-be-encoded point in the to-be- encoded layer in a case that the first indication information corresponding to the to-be-encoded layer indicates that the single-point encoding condition is not met (otherwise, encoding Geometry_data (), per code at tFig.93 according to the geometry index gps_idx at Fig.94, or Fig.77 Col.46, Embodiment 6).
Re Claim 4. Sugio and Nakagami disclose, the method according to claim 3, wherein the method further comprises:
Sugio teaches about, obtaining, by the encoder, a first number of to-be-encoded points comprised in the to-be-encoded layer and a second number of nodes comprised in the to-be-encoded layer; and
in a case that a ratio between the first number and the second number is less than or equal to a first preset threshold, determining, by the encoder, that the first indication information corresponding to the to-be-encoded layer indicates that the single-point encoding condition is met (determining a condition to the number of point clouds included in each node being encoded to be less or equal than a threshold for Geometry information encoder, Col.13 Lin. 46-60).
Re Claim 5. Sugio and Nakagami disclose, the method according to claim 1, Sugio teaches about, wherein the first indication information is indication information agreed in a protocol (the first information to determine the number of three-dimensional points, Col.70 Lin.58-67), or the first indication information is determined based on the number of to-be- encoded points comprised in the corresponding to-be-encoded layer and the number of nodes comprised in the corresponding to-be-encoded layer (information determining the number of three-dimensional points for reducing the code amount of the bitstream, Col.70 Lin.1-30).
Re Claim 6. This claim represents the point cloud decoding method, where the “ “second indication information” performs the same function as the “first indication information” for the single point at the encoder’s prediction loop, along with each and every limitation of the method claim 1, hence it is rejected on the same mapped evidence mutatis mutandis.
Re Claim 7. This claim represents the point cloud decoding method, where the “ “second indication information” performs the same function as the “first indication information” for the non-single point at the encoder’s prediction loop, along with each and every limitation of the method claim 2, hence it is rejected on the same mapped evidence mutatis mutandis.
Re Claim 8. This claim represents the point cloud decoding method, where the “ “second indication information” performs the same function as the “first indication information” for the non-single point at the encoder’s prediction loop, along with each and every limitation of the method claim 3, hence it is rejected on the same mapped evidence mutatis mutandis.
Re Claim 9. This claim represents the point cloud decoding method, performing the cloud point decoding functions at the encoder’s prediction loop, along with each and every limitation of the method claim 4, hence it is rejected on the same mapped evidence mutatis mutandis.
Re Claim 10. This claim represents the point cloud decoding method, where the “ “second indication information” performs the same function as the “first indication information” at the encoder’s prediction loop, along with each and every limitation of the method claim 5, hence it is rejected on the same mapped evidence mutatis mutandis.
Re Claim 11. This claim represents the three-dimensional, sensor based (e.g., LIDAR) terminal, comprising a processor and a memory, (Sugio: an encoder system 4601, and a terminal along with a memory and processor per Fig.1 Col.9 Lin.47-67 and Col.10 Lin.1-44) wherein the memory stores a program or instructions capable of running on the processor, and when the program or instructions are executed by the processor, the steps of the point cloud encoding method are implemented according to claim 1, hence it is rejected on the same mapped evidence mutatis mutandis.
Re Claim 12. This claim represents the three-dimensional, sensor based (e.g., LIDAR) terminal, comprising a processor and a memory, (Sugio: a decoding system 4622 and a decoder 4624, of the terminal comprising memory and processor per Fig.1 Col.10 Lin.45-67 and Col.11 Lin.1-) wherein the memory stores a program or instructions capable of running on the processor, and when the program or instructions are executed by the processor, the steps of the point cloud coding method are implemented according to claim 1, hence it is rejected on the same mapped evidence mutatis mutandis.
Re Claim 13. This claim represents the point cloud decoding method, where the “ “second indication information” performs the same function as the “first indication information” for the non-single point at the encoder’s prediction loop, along with each and every limitation of the method claim 3, hence it is rejected on the same mapped evidence mutatis mutandis.
Re Claim 14. This claim represents the point cloud decoding method, where the “ “second indication information” performs the same function as the “first indication information” for the single point at the encoder’s prediction loop, along with each and every limitation of the method claim 4, hence it is rejected on the same mapped evidence mutatis mutandis.
Re Claim 15. This claim represents the point cloud decoding method, where the “ “third indication information” performs the same function as the “first indication information” for the single point at the encoder’s prediction loop, in consideration to comprising a subsequently decoding layer having a third number of nodes similarly addressing the number of point clouds constrained by a threshold, performing each and every limitation of the method claim 4, hence it is rejected on the same mapped evidence mutatis mutandis.
Re Claim 16. This claim represents the three-dimensional, sensor based (e.g., LIDAR) terminal, comprising a processor and a memory, (Sugio: a decoding system 4622 and a decoder 4624, of the terminal comprising memory and processor per Fig.1 Col.10 Lin.45-67 and Col.11 Lin.1-) wherein the second indication information is indication information obtained by performing decoding on the target bitstream, the steps of the point cloud coding method are implemented according to claim 5, hence it is rejected on the same mapped evidence mutatis mutandis.
Re Claim 17. This claim represents the non-transitory readable storage medium, (Sugio: the storage memory at Col.9 Lin.1-3) implementing the steps of the point cloud encoding method according to claim 1, hence it is rejected on the same mapped evidence mutatis mutandis.
Re Claim 18. This claim represents the non-transitory readable storage medium, (Sugio: the storage memory at Col.9 Lin.1-3) implementing the steps of the point cloud decoding method according to claim 6, hence it is rejected on the same mapped evidence mutatis mutandis.
Re Claim 19. This claim represents the system integrated on a chip, (Sugio: the single chip dedicated circuit at Col.71 Lin.36-50) implementing each and every steps of the point cloud encoding method according to claim 1, hence it is rejected on the same mapped evidence mutatis mutandis.
Re Claim 20. This claim represents the system integrated on a chip, (Sugio: the single chip dedicated circuit at Col.71 Lin.36-50) implementing each and every steps of the point cloud decoding method according to claim 6, hence it is rejected on the same mapped evidence mutatis mutandis.
Conclusion
4. The prior art made of record and not relied upon, is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 10,897,269; US 2020/0396489; US 2021/0329052;
See PTO-892 form. Applicant is required under 37 C.F.R. 1.111(c) to consider these references when responding to this action.
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/DRAMOS KALAPODAS/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487
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