DETAILED 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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 02/13/2026 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 § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected as failing to define the invention in the manner required by 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, second paragraph.
The claim(s) are narrative in form and replete with indefinite language. The structure which goes to make up the device must be clearly and positively specified. The structure must be organized and correlated in such a manner as to present a complete operative device. The claim(s) must be in one sentence form only. Note the format of the claims in the patent(s) cited.
Regarding claims 1-20, the phrase "the video bitstream including flag information when" renders the claim indefinite because it is unclear whether the limitation(s) following the phrase are part of the claimed invention. See MPEP § 2173.05(d). In this case it is also unclear that the flag information is only included when one of the following conditions is met, or if the flag is included and the operation proceeds to perform the conditional elements afterwards.
Applicant is required to correct these issues to more clearly claim their invention.
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Chen et al. (US 20160219283 A1).
Regarding Claim 17, Chen et al. teaches a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions which when executed by a processor cause the processor to perform an encoding method (Abstract; Paragraph 41) comprising:
when (i) intra template matching prediction (intraTMP) is applied to both a luma component and a chroma component of a current block or (ii) a luma coded block flag (Cbf) indicates that the luma component of the current block is associated with zero transform coefficients, determining whether cross-component residual model (CCRM) is applied to the current block (Paragraphs 42-48; Paragraphs 77-88);
when the CCRM is determined to be applied to the current block, encoding chroma samples of the chroma component of the current block into a bitstream based on reconstructed luma samples of the luma component of the current block (Paragraphs 42-48; Paragraphs 77-88; Paragraph 112);
encoding flag information into the bitstream, the flag information including a first syntax element indicating whether the CCRM is applied to a Cb component of the chroma component and a second syntax element indicating whether the CCRM is applied to a Cr component of the chroma component (Paragraphs 42-48; Paragraphs 77-88; Paragraph 105; Paragraph 112; Paragraph 123); and
transmitting the encoded bitstream (Paragraph 89-91).
Regarding Claim 18, Chen et al. teaches the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the flag information is encoded into the bitstream when: the intraTMP is applied to both the luma component and the chroma component of the current block, the chroma component and the luma component of the current block are in a single tree structure, and a block vector (BV) of the chroma component is derived from a BV of the luma component (Paragraphs 42-48; Paragraphs 77-88; Paragraphs 105-112; Paragraph 123).
Regarding Claim 19, Chen et al. teaches the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the encoding the chroma samples further comprises: deriving filters based on prediction samples of the Cb component, prediction samples of the Cr component, and prediction samples of the luma component; applying the filters to the reconstructed luma samples of the luma component to generate filtered samples of the luma component; and encoding (i) samples of the Cb component based on a sum of the filtered samples of the luma component and a residual of the Cb component and (ii) samples of the Cr component based on a sum of the filtered samples of the luma component and a residual of the Cr component (Paragraphs 42-48; Paragraphs 77-91; Paragraphs 105-113; Paragraph 123).
Regarding Claim 20, Chen et al. teaches the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein the encoding the chroma samples further comprises: when filter coefficients of the filters are not derivable for the Cb component, encoding the samples of the Cb component based on a sum of the prediction samples of the Cb component and the residual of the Cb component (Paragraphs 42-48; Paragraph 69; Paragraphs 74-91; Paragraphs 105-113; Paragraph 123).
Method Claims 9-12 are drawn to the method of using corresponding apparatus of claims 17-20 and are rejected for the same reasons as used above.
Regarding Claim 13, Chen et al. teaches the method of claim 11, wherein the encoding the chroma samples further comprises: when filter coefficients of the filters are not derivable for the Cr component, encoding the samples of the Cr component based on a sum of the prediction samples of the Cr component and the residual of the Cr component (Paragraphs 42-48; Paragraph 69; Paragraphs 74-91; Paragraphs 105-113; Paragraph 123).
Regarding Claim 14, Chen et al. teaches the method of claim 9, further comprising: encoding transform syntax information into the video bitstream after the flag information is encoded in the video bitstream, the transform syntax information indicating a transformation kernel and a quantization parameter for the current block (Paragraphs 42-48; Paragraphs 67-69; Paragraphs 74-91; Paragraphs 105-113; Paragraph 123).
Regarding Claim 15, Chen et al. teaches the method of claim 9, wherein the flag information comprises respective flags for a plurality of subblocks of the current block, a flag for a subblock in the plurality of subblocks indicating whether the CCRM is applied to the subblock (Paragraphs 42-48; Paragraph 59; Paragraphs 74-91; Paragraphs 105-113; Paragraph 123).
Regarding Claim 16, Chen et al. teaches the method of claim 9, wherein the flag information further indicates whether the CCRM is applied to each of a plurality of subblocks of the current block (Paragraphs 42-48; Paragraph 59; Paragraphs 74-91; Paragraphs 105-113; Paragraph 123).
Method claims 1-8 are drawn to the decoding method corresponding to the encoding method and apparatus of claims 9-16 and perform substantially the same limitations merely performed in the inverse and are rejected for the same reasons as used above. Chen et al. further teaches a decoding method corresponding to the encoding method (Abstract; Paragraph 11).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FARHAN MAHMUD whose telephone number is (571)272-7712. The examiner can normally be reached 10-7.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Joseph Ustaris can be reached at 5712727383. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/FARHAN MAHMUD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2483
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