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 § 102
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 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) 1-3, 4-8, 10-16 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Zhang et al (2021/0076043).
In regard to claim 6 Zhang discloses a method for video encoding comprising:
determining whether transform type information is to be inherited by a current block that is to be predicted according to a merge mode (Zhang pars 191-192 note flag indicating whether transform information is inherited for a current block, also note pars 162-171 note par. 170 transform information may be inherited using a merge mode), and
when the transform type information is determined to be inherited by the current block,
adding the transform type information of a merge candidate and one of motion information and a block vector (BV) information of the merge candidate into a merge candidate list of the current block (Zhang par. 166 note transform information is stored along with motion information); and
encoding, in a bitstream, the current block based on the merge candidate list including the transform type information of the merge candidate and the one of the motion information and the BV information of the merge candidate (Zhang par 150 note encoding a current block using implicit transform matrix selection, further note pars 166 including transform information with motion information, also note par. 192 encoding a flag indicating whether transform information is inherited).
In regard to claim 7 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 6 above. Zhang further discloses that the transform type information is to be inherited when multiple transform selection (MTS) is available to the current block (Zhang pars 150-161 note enabling or disabling MTS at various coding levels, further note pars 191-192 using a flag to indicate inheritance also note par. 46 indicating the equivalence of AMT and MTS).
In regard to claim 8 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 6 above. Zhang further discloses that the merge mode is an inter merge mode, the motion information of the merge candidate indicates a motion vector (MV) and a reference picture, and the reference picture is different form a current picture of the current block (Zhang par. 167 and 170 note inheriting transform information in a merge mode, further note par. 166 transform information is stored with motion information including reference picture information).
In regard to claim 10, refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 6 above. Zhang further discloses determining that the transform type information of the merge candidate is included in the merge candidate list when one of an area, a width and a height of the current block satisfies a predefined condition (Zhang par. 118 note AMT (MTS) is only applied to CU’s with width and height less than or equal to 64).
In regard to claim 11 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 6 above. Zhang further discloses encoding, in the bitstream, a first syntax element indicating that the transform type information is to be inherited by the current block (Zhang pars 191-192 note a flag indicating whether transform information is inherited from a neighboring block).
In regard to claim 12 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 6 above. Zhang further discloses encoding a first syntax element indicating whether the transform type information is to be inherited by the current block (Zhang pars 191-192 note a flag indicating whether transform information is inherited from a neighboring block), and
when the transform type information is not to be inherited by the current block, encoding a second syntax element indicating a transform type of the current block (Zhang par. 192 note if the flag indicates that transform information is not inherited AMT (MTS) flags and indexes are signaled).
In regard to claim 13 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 12 above. Zhang further discloses that MTS is available to the current block (Zhang par 192 note application of AMT, further note par. 46 that AMT and MTS are used interchangeably).
Claims 1-3, 5. 14-16 and 18-20 relate to a non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions, and an apparatus which implement processes corresponding to the method described in claims 6-8 and 10-13 above. Refer to the statements made in regard to claims 6-8 and 10-13 above for the rejection of claims 1-4, 5, 14-16 and 18-20 which will not be repeated here for brevity. Zhang further discloses a non-transitory computer readable medium and a decoding apparatus (Zhang par. 150 note encoding and decoding further note Fig. 30 for an apparatus including a non-transitory memory 3004).
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 (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.
Claim(s) 4, 9 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang in view of Naser et al (20250039357).
In regard to claims 4, 9 and refer to the statements made in the rejection of claims 1, 6 and 14 above. Zhang discloses that the mode may be a merge mode and that transform information is included with motion information of the merge mode (Zhang pars 162-171). Zhang further discloses that the transform type information includes a transform type of the neighboring block (Zhang par. 162 note inheriting transform information from a neighboring block).
It is noted that Zhang does not disclose details regarding an IBC merge mode.
However, Naser discloses
a merge mode that is an intra block copy (IBC) merge mode (Naser pars. 58-63 note IBC merge mode that uses conventional merge mode techniques applied to the IBC prediction mode also note IBC-TM merge that further utilizes template matching refinement);
a merge candidate is from a neighboring intra template matching prediction (IntraTMP) (Naser pars 59-63 note IBC-TM used with IntraTMP, further note par. 93 IBC_TM merge may use neighboring IntraTMP blocks as candidates); and
the motion information includes a BV of the neighboring IntraTMP block (Naser par. 93 note block vectors from the neighboring IntraTMP block are included as candidates).
It is therefore considered obvious that one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention would recognize the advantage of including the IBC merge mode as taught by Naser as a merge mode for transform inheritance in Zhang in order to gain the advantage of improved screen content coding as suggested by Naser (Naser pars. 55-58).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20220295061 A1 ZHANG; Li et al.
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/JEREMIAH C HALLENBECK-HUBER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2481
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