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) 1-2, 9, 14-15 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Garrido et al (2004/0017853).
In regard to claim 1 Garrido discloses a method of video decoding (Garrido figs 2f-2i and pars 39-41 note in figs 2f-2i Garrido labels elements as e.g. 2(x)02 where (x) may be a number 4-9, Garrido uses each value of (x) interchangeably when discussing the drawings) comprising:
receiving a coded video bitstream comprising coded information of a current block in a picture, the coded information including quantized transform coefficients for a residual block of the current block, the residual block being transformed form a spatial domain to transform coefficients in a spectrum domain, the transform coefficients being quantized into the quantized transform coefficients (Garrido Figs 2f-i and par. 39 note input signal 2506 which has undergone Mpeg coding, further note par. 9 MPEG encoding operates using predicted P and B frames and hence uses residual blocks, further note par. 41 performing a discrete cosine transform converting spatial domain to a spectrum domain and quantizing the DCT coefficients, particularly note Fig. 2g the receiver beginning with the input block 2606 as indicated by pars 39 which indicates that a first index 2512/2612/2912 is generated at step 2608 and par. 40 indicating that an index calculation step is performed at a receiver);
forming a search key based on the coded information of the current block (Garrido pars. 40-41 note generating a codebook index 2612/2912);
searching a codebook using the search key to obtain a compensation term, the codebook comprises a plurality of codewords, a codeword of the plurality of codewords comprising a key and a predetermined compensation term associated with the key (Garrido par. 39 note index 2612/2912 s used to search a second codebook 2616/2716 to obtain a ‘compensation term’ or high resolution image sample); and
reconstructing the current block based on the compensation term (Garrido par. 39 note generating a ‘super-resolution’ image using the sample information of the second codebook).
In regard to claim 2 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Garrido further disclose that the reconstruction comprises:
generating reconstructed transform coefficients based on the quantized transform coefficients and the compensation term (Garrido Fig. 2a and par. 30 note inverse quantization);
performing an inverse transform on the reconstructed transform coefficients to obtain a reconstructed residual block (Garrido Fig. 2a and par. 30 note inverse DCT); and
reconstructing the current block based on the reconstructed residual block (Garrido Fig. 2a and par. 30 note reconstructing blocks using motion compensated prediction).
In regard to claim 9 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above. Garrido further discloses determining a candidate codeword from the plurality of codewords, the candidate codeword having a nearest kye to the search key (Garrido note codebooks are searched using a in index for a matching codeword).
In regard to claim 14 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 2 above. Garrido further discloses generating one or more reconstructed transform coefficients based on components of the compensation term (Garrido par. 30 note performing inverse quantizing to generate reconstructed transform coefficients).
In regard to claim 15 refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 2 above. Garrido discloses generating one or more reconstructed transform coefficients based on a combination of a component of the compensation term and a signaled value that is reconstructed based on a quantized coefficient (Garrido par. 39 note determining a value form a second codebook using quantized coefficients, the second codebook entry providing details to reconstruct a super-resolution image based on values received in the signal).
Claims 19-20 describe an encoding method and a non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions for performing a method corresponding to the decoding method described in claim 1 above. Refer to the statements made in the rejection of claim 1 above for the rejection of claims 19-20 which will not be repeated here for brevity.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 3-8, 10-13 and 16-18 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 following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Claims 3-8 each require determining a search key to be used in conjunction with a codebook to obtain a compensation term for reconstructing a current block and that the search key is formed based on a subset of quantized transform coefficients.
The closest art is Garrido which in par. 41 indicates that quantized coefficients may be packed to form an index, or key, that is used to obtain a compensation term form a codebook. However Garrido does not disclose using only a subset of quantized coefficients to form the index as required by each of claims 3-8.
Claims 10-13 and 18 each describe details of codebook searching algorithms including searching for plural matches, the closet art is Garrido which discloses using an index to find a matching entry in a codebook, however Garrido does not disclose any details of the search algorithm.
Claims 16-17 require generated reconstructed coefficients using a weighted combination of a compensation component and a signaled value reconstructed based on the quantized transform coefficient.
The closest art is Garrido which teaches using quantized transform coefficients as an index into a codebook to determine super-resolution details for modifying signaled values. However, Garrido does not disclose details of a weighted combination.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20250131930 A1 Sulewski; Michal et al.
US 20130114733 A1 Fukui; Masahiro et al.
US 20120278069 A1 SUNG; Ho-sang et al.
Gersho, "Optimal nonlinear interpolative vector quantization”
D. G. Sheppard, K. Panchapakesan, A. Bilgin, B. R. Hunt and M. W. Marcellin, "Lapped nonlinear interpolative vector quantization and image super-resolution,"
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/JEREMIAH C HALLENBECK-HUBER/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2481