DETAILED ACTION
1. This is a first office action in response to application no. 19/268,132 filed on July 14, 2025 in which claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
2. 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 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.
3. Claims 1-3, 6, 10, 12-14 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Koo et al. (US Patent Application no. 2022/0109879) in view of Yoo et al. (US Patent Application Publication no. 2021/0274185).
Regarding claim 1, Koo discloses a decoding method, applied to a decoder (See Koo Fig. 1, decoder 20), wherein the method comprises: parsing a bitstream to determine first syntax element information of a current block (See Koo Fig. 26, step 260, and [0338]); determining a coefficient region where to-be-decoded coefficients of the current block are located based on an end of block of the current block indicated by the first syntax element information (See Koo’s Abstract, [0008], and [0013]); wherein the coefficient region comprises one or more coefficient regions, and scanning orders of respective coefficient regions are continuous (See Koo [0006], [0009], [0013]); determining second syntax element information of the coefficient region (See Koo [0340]-[0341]); wherein the second syntax element information indicates whether coefficient decoding is required to be performed on the coefficient region (See Koo [0078] “the entropy decoding unit 210 can parse the bitstream to derive information (e.g., video/image information) necessary for image reconstruction (or picture reconstruction). For example, the entropy decoding unit 210 can decode information in the bitstream on the basis….”).
It is noted that Koo is silent about determining a quantization coefficient value of the current block based on the second syntax element information.
However, Yoo teaches a decoding method including the step of determining a quantization coefficient value of the current block based on the second syntax element information (See Yoo [0015]).
Therefore, it is considered obvious that one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize the advantage of modifying Koo to incorporate Yoo’s teachings to determine a quantization coefficient value of the current block based on the second syntax element information. The motivation for performing such a modification in Koo is to effectively compress high resolution and high-quality images showing various characteristics.
As per claims 2 and 13, the combination of Koo and Yoo further teaches wherein determining the second syntax element information of the coefficient region comprises: parsing the bitstream to determine the second syntax element information corresponding to the coefficient region (See Koo [0078, [0340]-[0341]).
As per claims 3 and 14, the combination of Koo and Yoo further teaches wherein the method further comprises: partitioning the current block according to a scanning order of the current block, to determine at least one coefficient region (See Koo [0063]); wherein each of the at least one coefficient region corresponds to multiple to-be-decoded coefficients (See Koo [00387]), and scanning order indexes corresponding to the to-be- decoded coefficients in each of the at least one coefficient region are continuous; and determining a region index of each of the at least one coefficient region according to a region arrangement order (See Koo [0013] and [0015]).
As per claims 6 and 17, the combination of Koo and Yoo further teaches wherein determining the second syntax element information of the coefficient region comprises: determining a number of coefficient regions of the coefficient region where the to-be-decoded coefficients of the current block are located; and determining pieces of second syntax element information of the respective coefficient regions based on the number of coefficient regions (See Koo [0008] and [0229]).
As per claim 10, Koo discloses an encoding method, applied to an encoder (See Koo Fig. 2, encoder 100, [0020]), wherein the method comprises: partitioning a current block according to a scanning order of the current block, to determine at least one coefficient region (See Koo Fig. 2, item 110, [0063]); wherein each coefficient region corresponds to multiple to-be-encoded coefficients, and scanning order indexes corresponding to to-be-encoded coefficients in the each coefficient regions are continuous (See Koo [0367]-[0368], and [0359]); determining pieces of second syntax element information of respective coefficient regions (See Koo [0314]-[0342]); wherein second syntax element information indicates whether coefficient coding is required to be performed on a coefficient region(See Koo [0164]-[0165]).
It is noted that Koo is silent about performing entropy coding on a quantization coefficient of at least one coefficient region based on the pieces of second syntax element information of the respective coefficient regions, to write encoded quantization coefficient into a bitstream.
However, Yoo teaches performing entropy coding on a quantization coefficient of at least one coefficient region based on the pieces of second syntax element information of the respective coefficient regions, to write encoded quantization coefficient into a bitstream (Yoo [0016]-[0017]).
Therefore, it is considered obvious that one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize the advantage of modifying Koo to incorporate Yoo’s teachings in performing entropy coding on a quantization coefficient of at least one coefficient region based on the pieces of second syntax element information of the respective coefficient regions, to write encoded quantization coefficient into a bitstream. The motivation for performing such a modification in Yoo is to provide a method and apparatus which improve coding efficiency.
As per claim 12, Koo discloses a decoder, comprising: a first memory and a first processor; wherein the first memory is configured to store a computer program executable on the first processor; and the first processor is configured to invoke the computer program stored in the first memory and run the computer program (See Koo [0015]) to perform: parsing a bitstream to determine first syntax element information of a current block (See Koo Fig. 26, step 260, and [0338]); determining a coefficient region where to-be-decoded coefficients of the current block are located based on an end of block of the current block indicated by the first syntax element information (See Koo’s Abstract, [0008], and [0013]); wherein the coefficient region comprises one or more coefficient regions, and scanning orders of respective coefficient regions are continuous (See Koo [0006], [0009], [0013]); determining second syntax element information of the coefficient region (See Koo [0340]-[0341]); wherein the second syntax element information indicates whether coefficient decoding is required to be performed on the coefficient region (See Koo [0078] “the entropy decoding unit 210 can parse the bitstream to derive information (e.g., video/image information) necessary for image reconstruction (or picture reconstruction). For example, the entropy decoding unit 210 can decode information in the bitstream on the basis….”).
It is noted that Koo is silent about determining a quantization coefficient value of the current block based on the second syntax element information.
However, Yoo teaches a decoding method including the step of determining a quantization coefficient value of the current block based on the second syntax element information (See Yoo [0015]).
Therefore, it is considered obvious that one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, would recognize the advantage of modifying Koo to incorporate Yoo’s teachings to determine a quantization coefficient value of the current block based on the second syntax element information. The motivation for performing such a modification in Koo is to effectively compress high resolution and high-quality images showing various characteristics.
4. Claims 4-5, 7-9, 11, 15, 17-20 are 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.
The claims are allowable over the prior art of record since the cited references taken alone or individually fail to teach or suggest, in addition with the independent claims “wherein determining the coefficient region where the to- be-decoded coefficients of the current block are located based on the end of block of the current block indicated by the first syntax element information comprises: determining a first scanning order index where a last non-zero coefficient is located based on the end of block of the current block indicated by the first syntax element information; determining a first coefficient region to which the first scanning order index belongs based on a correspondence between a scanning order index and a coefficient region; and in a case where the first coefficient region is not a last scan region, determining a second coefficient region to be scanned after the first coefficient region according to a region arrangement order; wherein the first coefficient region and the second coefficient region are coefficient regions where the to-be-decoded coefficients of the current block are located.”
5. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
See the Notice of References Cited (PTO-892).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GIMS S PHILIPPE whose telephone number is (571)272-7336. The examiner can normally be reached Maxi Flex.
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/GIMS S PHILIPPE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2424
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