BLOCK PARTITIONING METHODS FOR VIDEO CODING

Application No. 19/258,442

• Filed: Jul 02, 2025
• Priority: Aug 15, 2019 — provisional 62/887,039
  • Sep 23, 2019 — provisional 62/903,970
  • Jul 22, 2020 — continuation of 11/356,677
  • Apr 19, 2022 — continuation of 11/949,888
  • Feb 23, 2024 — continuation of 12/363,320
• Examiner: PHAM, NAM D
• Art Unit: 2482
• Tech Center: 2400 — Computer Networks
• Assignee: Alibaba Group Holding Limited
• OA Round: 1 (Non-Final)

Office Action

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

Summary

This office action for US Patent application 19/258442 is responsive to communications filed on July 02, 2025. Currently, claims 1-18 are pending are presented for examination.

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.

Claims 1-4, 7-10, 13-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C §102 (a)(1) as being anticipated by Poirier et al. (US 11218738 B2 with its priority date 2016/10/05).

Regarding claim 1, Poirier et al. (US 11218738 B2) meets the claim limitations, as follows:
A video decoding method, comprising:
decoding a bitstream comprising a first flag indicative of whether a geometric partitioning mode is applied to a first block of a picture [i.e. decode a first flag to determine whether a block is to be split; col. 1, ll. 55-65, Fig. 13]; and
reconstructing the first block based on a value of the first flag [i.e. encode/decode the block based on a value of the first flag, usually 0 (false) or 1 (true) in the art; col. 1, ll. 55-65],
wherein the reconstructing of the first block based on the value of the first flag comprises:
determining whether a size of the first block satisfies a given condition [i.e. determine whether the block is enabled to undergo binary splitting by checking syntax elements representative of a minimum block size and splitting constraints; col. 1, ll. 55-65, col. 4, ll. 5-10]; and
in response to a determination that the size of the first block does not satisfy the given condition [i.e. if the binary splitting is not enabled by checking the minimum block size and the splitting constraints], determining that a first value of the first flag indicates that the first block is not coded using the geometric partitioning mode [i.e. do not decode any further split mode flags for the block (no spit for the block). The first flag can be set as 0 or false (this is well-known in the art); col. 4, ll. 5-10, Fig. 13].

Regarding claim 2, Poirier et al. (US 11218738 B2) discloses the following claim limitations as set forth in claim 1.

Furthermore, Poirier et al. (US 11218738 B2) discloses the claim limitations as follows:
The method of claim 1, the first value is 0 [i.e. this is a trivial feature and can be easily inferred from Fig. 6-7].
Regarding claim 3, Poirier et al. (US 11218738 B2) discloses the following claim limitations as set forth in claim 1.

Furthermore, Poirier et al. (US 11218738 B2) discloses the claim limitations as follows:
The method of claim 1, wherein the given condition comprises: a width of the first block is greater than or equal to 8 [i.e. width > minBTSize. According to another embodiment, an asymmetric splitting of a CU is allowed given that a size higher than or equal to 8; col. 4, ll. 55-60, col. 5, ll. 55-60, Fig. 14].

Regarding claim 4, Poirier et al. (US 11218738 B2) discloses the following claim limitations as set forth in claim 1.

Furthermore, Poirier et al. (US 11218738 B2) discloses the claim limitations as follows:
The method of claim 1, wherein the given condition comprises: a height of the first block is greater than or equal to 8 [i.e. height > minBTSize. According to another embodiment, an asymmetric splitting of a CU is allowed given that a size higher than or equal to 8; col. 4, ll. 55-60, col. 5, ll. 55-60, Fig. 14].

Regarding claims 7-10, all the claim limitations which are set forth and rejected as per discussion for claims 1-4 respectively.

Regarding claims 13-16, all the claim limitations which are set forth and rejected as per discussion for claims 1-4 respectively.

Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-6, 11-12, 17-18 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.

Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications form the examiner should be directed to Nam Pham, whose can be contacted by phone at [phone]. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon—Thurs.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, CZEKAJ DAVID, can be reached on [phone].
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/NAM D PHAM/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487

Prosecution Timeline

• Jul 02, 2025: Application Filed
• Sep 01, 2026: Non-Final Rejection mailed — §102 (current)