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 .
Response to Arguments/Amendments
Presented arguments have been fully considered, but are rendered moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection necessitated by amendment(s) initiated by the applicant(s).
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 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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 of this title, 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.
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.
Claim(s) 1,8,15,16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chujoh US 20230421785 in view of Deshpande US 20240244268.
Regarding claim 1, Chujoh meets the claim limitations, as follows:
An image decoding method performed by an image decoding apparatus [fig. 5], the image decoding method comprising:
obtaining unit information including a current picture (i.e. NAL is obtained at the decoder) [114,243]; and
decoding the current picture based on the unit information (i.e. NAL is obtained at the decoder and contains syntax (Temporal ID and others) used to decode) [114,243],
wherein the current picture including, a neural-network post-filter activation (NNPFA) supplemental enhancement information, (i.e. NNFPA SEI message is contained in the NAL data. A decoded picture would be an output image.) [273,297].
Chujoh do/does not explicitly disclose(s) the following claim limitations:
wherein the current picture is restricted to be output based on the unit information including, a neural-network post-filter activation (NNPFA) supplemental enhancement information,
However, in the same field of endeavor Deshpande discloses the deficient claim limitations, as follows:
wherein the current picture is restricted to be output based on the unit information including, a neural-network post-filter activation (NNPFA) supplemental enhancement information (i.e. values of the nnpfc_purpose identify the output picture including the number of output pictures. When NumOutputPics is zero, there is no output) [37,128,129; table 8,9]
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify the teachings of Chujoh with Deshpande to have the current picture is restricted to be output based on the unit information including, a neural-network post-filter activation (NNPFA) supplemental enhancement information.
It would be advantageous because determining if a picture is an output picture based on syntax would require less computation compared to determining without being based on syntax.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art at the time of filing, to modify the teachings of Chujoh with Deshpande to obtain the invention as specified in claim 1.
Claim 8 is rejected using similar rationale as claim 1. This is the corresponding encoder of claim 1. Encoder structure shown in [318; fig. 7].
Claim 15 is rejected using similar rationale as claim 1.
Claim 16 is rejected using similar rationale as claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-7 and 11-14 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.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JARED T WALKER whose telephone number is (571)272-1839. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 8:00 - 4:30 Mountain.
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, Nasser Goodarzi can be reached on 571-272-4195. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Jared Walker/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2426
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