CTNF 19/290,282 CTNF 90018 DETAILED ACTION Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia 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 06-52 2. The information disclosure statement (IDS) was submitted on11/07/2025. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner. Double Patenting 3. Claim 1 of the instant Application is patentably indistinct from claims 1 of the issued patent, US 12,401,796 pursuant to 37 CFR 1.78(f) or pre-AIA 37 CFR 1.78(b). The nonstatutory obviousness double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. When two or more applications filed by the same applicant contain patentably indistinct claims, elimination of such claims from all but one application may be required in the absence of good and sufficient reason for their retention during pendency in more than one application. Applicant is required to either cancel the patentably indistinct claims from all but one application or maintain a clear line of demarcation between the applications. See MPEP § 822 08-33 AIA A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the claims at issue are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg , 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman , 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi , 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum , 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel , 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); and In re Thorington , 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969). A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with this application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b). The USPTO internet Web site contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit http://www.uspto.gov/forms/. The filing date of the application will determine what form should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to; http://www.uspto.gov/patents/process/file/efs/guidance/eTD-info-I.jsp. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other as explained below; Examiner’s Reasoning for the provisional Obviousness Double Patenting determination is based on the examination rules set below. “A generic claim cannot be allowed to an applicant if the prior art discloses a species falling within the claimed genus.” The species in that case will anticipate the genus. In re Slayter , 276 F.2d 408, 411, 125 USPQ 345, 347 (CCPA 1960). See MPEP 2131.02 . Instant Application vs. Conflicting Patent - claim analysis Specifically, all the components of the method of the instant application claim 1, are defined and encompass the limitations claimed by the conflicting pending application. It has been held by the Court that the generic invention is “anticipated” by the “species”. See In re Goodman , 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Since the instant application claim 1 is anticipated by claim 1 of the conflicting pending application for patent, it is deemed patentably indistinct from the named claim 1 of the conflicting patent, according to the rationale below. The difference between the instant application at claim 2 and the pending application at claim 1, lies in the fact that the instant claim addresses the same scope by reciting its limitations in verbatim with the conflicting patent, where the disclosed process is identically recited and performed at the prediction loop of an encoding method and/or apparatus. Furthermore, the application at preamble reciting; “2. (New) A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions which , when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method of encoding a bitstream, the method comprising:….”, where the program code instructions storage medium represents nothing more than write/read, “printed matter” which is devoid of processing capability other than be part of a processor executing the respective instructions. The instant claim fails to disclose any of the storage device control syntax, e.g., as hardware/firmware peripherals for memory management by which the process may be executed. Therefore the “non-transitory computer-readable storage medium” recited does not carry patentable weight in lieu of; 07-37-10 MPEP 707.07(f) Limitations in Preamble. A preamble is generally not accorded any patentable weight where it merely recites the purpose of a process or the intended use of a structure, and where the body of the claim does not depend on the preamble for completeness but, instead, the process steps or structural limitations are able to stand alone. See In re Hirao , 535 F.2d 67, 190 USPQ 15 (CCPA 1976) and Kropa v. Robie, 187 F.2d 150, 152, 88 USPQ 478, 481 (CCPA 1951). Claims 3-10, are analyzed and interpreted under the same premises, based on their dependency from the independent claim 2. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-06 AIA 15-10-15 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. 07-20-aia AIA 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. 07-23-aia AIA 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. 4. Claims 2-10, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Jiangle Chen et al., (hereinafter Chen ); “Algorithm description for Versatile Video Coding and Test Model 10 (VTM 10), JVET-S2002-v1, June-July 2020 and Zhipin Deng et al., (hereinafter Deng ) (US 2024/0244222) . 1. (Canceled). Re Claim 2. (New) Chen discloses, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions which (am on-chip memory Sec.3.9.1.1) , when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method of encoding a bitstream (encoder-side of VVC coding standard, at Abstract and VTM encoder and method, Sec.5) , the method comprising: determining that a current block in a current picture is to be coded in a subblock-based temporal motion vector prediction (SbTMVP) mode (by using a sub-block position information (SBT) at encoder Sec.3.5.4 and obtaining SbTMVP motion information Sec.3.4.5 and Fig.34) , wherein a subblock in a plurality of subblocks of the current block is bi-predicted (applying bi-prediction mode of two prediction signals, in VVC, Sec.3.4.8 or Eq. 3-24) ; determining motion information of the subblock based on the SbTMVP mode (determining motion information under the constraint that sub-blocks SbTMVP are bi-predicted i.e., the CU coding used “bi-prediction” mode Sec.3.4.8 - 3.4.9, Pg.49) ; applying at least one of (i) a bilateral matching (BM)-based motion vector (MV) refinement (apply bilateral matching motion vector refinement i.e., decoder side motion vector refinement, (DMVR) Sec.3.4.10 and Fig.36) or (ii) a sample-based bi-directional optical flow (BDOF) mode to the subblock to refine the motion information of the subblock (applying sample L0, L1, on two reference picture MV based prediction per Fig.26, Sec.3.4.3, as bi-directional optical flow, BDOF Sec.3.4 or Sec.3.4.4.4 and 3.4.9 and Fig.35) , wherein the BM-based MV refinement includes a decoder- side motion vector refinement (DMVR) (including decoder side motion vector refinement, Sec.3.4.10) or a multi-pass decoder-side motion vector refinement (MP-DMVR), and encoding the current block in the bitstream based on the refined motion information of the subblock in the plurality of subblocks (encoding the refined blocks at Sec.5, of the coding tree structure, Sec.5.1) ; and transmitting the encoded bitstream (transmitting data and relevanr information to decoder, Sec.3.2.3) . In an analogous art, Deng , teaches about, A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium (non-transitory memory with instructions, Par.[0005]) which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method of encoding a bitstream (performing data encoding per Fig.1 the video encoder 114, Par.[0035-0039], or encoder 200 in Fig.2 Par.[0012, 0040-0041] etc.) , the method comprising: determining that a current block in a current picture is to be coded in a subblock-based temporal motion vector prediction (SbTMVP) mode (applying among other prediction modes the temporal motion vector prediction to partitioned sub-blocks, SbTMVP, Par.[0290, 0292, 0311]) , wherein a subblock in a plurality of subblocks of the current block is bi-predicted (predicting he starting MV in bi-prediction MVs, Par.[0098-0099, 0101, 0122, 0143, 0147, 0169, 0220, 0266, 0331] according to different prediction modes) ; determining motion information of the subblock based on the SbTMVP mode (based on motion information of the current video block, Par.[0050] or the sub-block Par.[0145] for the respective refinement mode, Par.[0297-0298]) ; applying at least one of (i) a bilateral matching (BM)-based motion vector (MV) refinement (the presented embodiments relate more particularly to bilateral matching Par.[0001] or Sec.2.1.3 Par.[0099, 0143] or sub-block based bilateral matching (BM)) or (ii) a sample-based bi-directional optical flow (BDOF) mode to the subblock to refine the motion information of the subblock (of the sample based bi-directional optical flow (BDOF) Par.[0146, 0155, 0292]) , wherein the BM-based MV refinement includes a decoder- side motion vector refinement (DMVR) (as disclosed MV refinement by applying BM, and DMVR, at Par.[0147] ) or a multi-pass decoder-side motion vector refinement (MP-DMVR), and the BDOF mode is applied after applying the BM-based MV refinement when the BM-based MV refinement and the BDOF mode are applied (the BDOF is applied after applying the BM-based MV refinement, Sec.2.6 Par.[0146]) ; encoding the current block in the bitstream based on the refined motion information of the subblock in the plurality of subblocks (encoding the current block and performed refined motion information, Par.[0538]) ; and transmitting the encoded bitstream (encoding the target video block onto the bitstream, Par.[0598]) . The ordinary skilled in the art would have found obvious before the effective filing date of invention to consider the anticipative disclosure in Chen , and in in search for explanatory details of the prediction process based on smaller CU block partitions, of SbTMVP sub-blocks, to apply the refinement methods set by a bi-directional optical flow prediction, to reconstruct the current block based on the refined MVs taught in detail by Deng, motion vector refinement (DMVR) processing, and to further indicate the signaling of the SbTMVP mode used in refining the data based on BM and BDOF methods by which improving coding efficiency and performance (Deng: Par.[0540]), of the compression model, hence indicating the process as predictable. Re Claim 3. (New) Chen and Deng disclose, the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 2, Deng teaches that, wherein the applying includes applying the BM-based MV refinement to determine the refined motion information of the subblock, and the encoding includes encoding the subblock based on the refined motion information (applying the BM-based MV refinement, Par.[0148, 0151-0152]) . Re Claim 4. (New) Chen and Deng disclose, the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 3, Deng teaches that, wherein the refined motion information of the subblock includes one or more first refined MV pairs of respective one or more areas in the subblock, the applying further includes applying the BDOF mode after applying the BM-based MV refinement, a refined MV pair of each sample in an area in the one or more areas is determined based on the BDOF mode and the first refined MV pair corresponding to the area (the BDOF is applied after applying the BM-based MV refinement, Sec.2.6 Par.[0146]) , and the encoding includes encoding each sample in the area based on the refined MV pair of the respective sample (encoding the current block and performed refined motion vector pair of the BM, Par.[0150-0152]) . Re Claim 5. (New) Chen and Deng disclose, the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 3, wherein Deng teaches about, the motion information includes an initial MV pair of the subblock, the BM-based MV refinement includes the DMVR, the applying includes applying the DMVR to an area in the subblock to determine a refined MV pair of the area based on the initial MV pair, the area being less than or equal to an area of the subblock (the BM based MV refinement includes DMVR, as relating to the two (MV0 and MV1) in the reference picture L0 and L1, Par.[0147]) , and the encoding includes encoding the area in the subblock based on the refined MV pair (encoding the current block and performed refined motion vector pair of the BM, Par.[0150-0152]) . Re Claim 6. (New) Chen and Deng disclose, the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 3, wherein Deng teaches about, the motion information includes an initial MV pair of the subblock, the BM-based MV refinement includes the MP-DMVR, and when a subblock size of the subblock is larger than a first threshold MixNi, the method comprises (applying the multi-pass DMVR, at second pass the BM is applied for MixNi = 16x16 being larger than the third pass of 8x8 refined subblock in BDOF mode, Par.[0146]) : applying at least one DMVR to the subblock to determine a first refined MV pair of the subblock (the DMVR at Par.[0147]) ; and applying the BDOF mode to an area in the subblock to determine a second refined MV pair of the area based on the first refined MV pair, the area being smaller than or equal to an area of the subblock (the BDOF applied for smaller 8x8 size subblocks Par.[0146, 0155]) . Re Claim 7. (New) Chen and Deng disclose, the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 2, wherein Deng teaches about, the motion information includes an initial MV pair of the subblock (including the two initial MVs, Par.[0147] etc.,) ; the applying includes applying the BDOF mode to each sample in the subblock to determine a refined MV pair of the respective sample (at Par.[0155]) ; and the encoding includes encoding each sample in the subblock based on the refined MV pair of the respective sample (encoding according to the refined MVs, Par.[0156]) . Re Claim 8. (New) Chen and Deng disclose, the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 2, wherein Deng teaches about, the bitstream includes prediction information indicating that the at least one of (i) the BM-based MV refinement or (ii) the BDOF mode is applied to the subblock. (including prediction information for BDOF mode, applied to the GPM subblocks, Par.[0220, 0292]) Re Claim 9. (New) Chen and Deng disclose, the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 2, wherein Deng teaches about, the bitstream includes a flag indicating that the at least one of (i) the BM-based MV refinement or (ii) the BDOF mode is applied to the subblock (BDOF mode, applied to the GPM subblocks, Par.[0220, 0292]) . Re Claim 10. (New) Chen and Deng disclose, the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 2, wherein Deng teaches about, the BM-based MV refinement or the BDOF mode is applied based on a first reference picture and a second reference picture of the current picture (the BM is applied based on the first and second reference pictures L0 and L1, Par.[0410-0412]) ; the first reference picture is prior to the current picture in a display order, and the second reference picture is after the current picture in the display order (first reference is L0 i.e., the “first” and second is L1 i.e., after the current picture as it is clear to ordinary skilled indicated by a bi-directional by-prediction at Par.[0099, 0410] and Fig.9) ; and distances from the first reference picture and the second reference picture to the current picture are identical (distance between POC at Par.[0453]) . Conclusion 07-96 AIA 5. The prior art made of record and not relied upon, is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Other close arts; US 2022/0159277; US 2022/0417522; US 2022/0201315; US 2020/0228815. See PTO-892 form. Applicant is required under 37 C.F.R. 1.111(c) to consider these references when responding to this action . Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DRAMOS KALAPODAS whose telephone number is (571)272-4622. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 8am-5pm. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, David Czekaj can be reached on 571-272-7327. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /DRAMOS KALAPODAS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2487 Application/Control Number: 19/290,282 Page 2 Art Unit: 2487 Application/Control Number: 19/290,282 Page 3 Art Unit: 2487 Application/Control Number: 19/290,282 Page 4 Art Unit: 2487 Application/Control Number: 19/290,282 Page 5 Art Unit: 2487 Application/Control Number: 19/290,282 Page 6 Art Unit: 2487 Application/Control Number: 19/290,282 Page 7 Art Unit: 2487 Application/Control Number: 19/290,282 Page 8 Art Unit: 2487 Application/Control Number: 19/290,282 Page 9 Art Unit: 2487 Application/Control Number: 19/290,282 Page 10 Art Unit: 2487 Application/Control Number: 19/290,282 Page 11 Art Unit: 2487 Application/Control Number: 19/290,282 Page 12 Art Unit: 2487 Application/Control Number: 19/290,282 Page 13 Art Unit: 2487 Application/Control Number: 19/290,282 Page 14 Art Unit: 2487
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