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 Examiner attempted to contact the Applicant’s Representative on 8/19/26 and left a voicemail to request a clearer copy of the 2nd NPL reference on the IDS filed 10/9/25 as multiple pages are hard to read due to scanned highlighting (see numbered pgs. 5-12 and 29-30), however, a reply was not received. The Examiner requests a clearer copy be filed.
Claim Objections
Claims 1-2, 13-14, 16 and 18-20 objected to because of the following informalities: “a bit stream” or sub-bit stream” while a “sub-bitstream” is also claimed in claims 1, 3-4, 7, 9, 16 and 20. In other words, sometimes a space is used for bitstream and sometimes not. In order to improve clarity, the Examiner suggests using either the spaced version or the single word version of bitstream and not mixing between the two within the same claim set. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
It is unclear what is meant by “skip one or more aspects of motion vector prediction indicator” as it is unclear what is meant by skipping one or more aspects of…indicator. This could mean an indicator for skipping one or more aspects of motion vector prediction or skipping an aspect of a motion vector prediction indicator based on how the claim is currently written.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
The factual inquiries 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) 1-2, 4-7, 9-12, 14-17 and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over "WD 2.0 of V-DMC", 141 MPEG Meeting, February 11, 2023, hereinafter WD in view of Schwarz et al. (U.S. 2024/0406440), hereinafter Schwarz. WD was cited in the Applicant’s IDS dated 10/9/25 with an NPL copy provided on the same date.
Regarding claim 1, WD discloses instructions comprising:
receive a bit stream for a dynamic mesh (WD Title and p. 2 figure), the bit stream comprising:
a base mesh sub-bitstream comprising information for a base mesh (WD p. 1, section 3.3 and p. 13, section 8.4.4.7), wherein the base mesh sub-bitstream is signaled using a plurality of sub-mesh data units corresponding to a plurality of respective sub-meshes included in the base mesh (WD p. 1, section 3.3); and
one or more additional sub-bitstreams comprising displacement information for displacements that are to be applied to sub-division locations of the base mesh (WD p. 2, figure, p. 17, section 8.4.6.2.3 and p. 42, section 11.9),
parse the base mesh sub-bitstream to determine, based on information signaled in respective ones of the sub-mesh data units (WD p. 65, section H.11.3):
vertices counts for the respective sub-meshes (WD p. 65, section H.11.3, p. 21, section 8.4.7.3 and p. 1, section 3.2);
reconstruct at least a portion of the plurality of sub-meshes signaled in the base mesh sub-bitstream using the bit counts and vertices counts parsed from the base mesh sub-bitstream (WD p. 2, figure, pgs. 33-34 section 11.3 and p. 65, section H.11.3); and
apply at least a portion of the displacement information to sub-division locations of the reconstructed portion of the sub-meshes (WD p. 2, figure and pg. 33-34 section 11.3).
WD does not explicitly disclose one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media storing program instructions that, when executed using one or more processors.
However, Schwarz teaches discloses one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media storing program instructions that, when executed using one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to (Schwarz [00158] and fig. 13):
receive a bit stream for a dynamic mesh (Schwarz figs. 3, 5 and 17).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the instructions taught by WD with the missing limitations as taught by Schwarz to improve compression efficiency for dynamic mesh data (Schwarz [0155]).
As shown above, all of the limitations are known, they can be applied to a known device such as a processor to yield a predictable result of improving coding efficiency.
Regarding claim 2, WD in view of Schwarz teaches the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein the program instructions, when executed using the one or more processors, cause the portion of the plurality of sub-meshes to be reconstructed in a different order than an order in which the corresponding sub-mesh data units are signaled in the base mesh sub-bit stream (WD p. 30, portion above section 9.2).
Regarding claim 4, WD in view of Schwarz teaches the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein to reconstruct the at least a portion of the plurality of sub-meshes signaled in the base mesh sub-bitstream using the vertices counts parsed from the base mesh sub-bitstream, the program instructions, when executed on or across the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform one or more of (see claim 1):
intra-prediction within a point in time frame to determine vertex positions of the vertices of the respective sub-meshes being reconstructed (WD p. 65, section H.11.2 and p. 2, figure); or
inter-prediction using a preceding reference frame to determine vertex positions of the vertices of the respective sub-meshes being reconstructed (WD p. 65, section H.11.3, p. 64, section H.8.3.8, p. 55, top and p. 2, figure).
Regarding claim 5, WD in view of Schwarz teaches the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 4, wherein, for the inter-prediction (see claim 4), one or more of the following indicators are signaled for respective ones of the vertices being inter-predicted:
a copy motion vector indicator; or
skip one or more aspects of motion vector prediction indicator (WD p. 62, Table 8 and p. 10, section 8.3.7.4).
Regarding claim 6, WD in view of Schwarz teaches the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 5, wherein, for the inter-prediction (see claim 4), one or more of the following additional indicators are further signaled for one or more of the respective ones of the vertices being inter-predicted:
a no motion vector prediction indicator; or
an indicator that motion vector prediction is to be based on a motion vector determined for a neighboring vertex (WD pgs. 65-66, section H.11.3 and p. 33, section 11.2).
Regarding claim 7, WD in view of Schwarz teaches the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 6, wherein the base mesh sub-bitstream further comprises:
a toolset constraint indicator that is signaled to indicate only a sub-set of an overall set of available predictors are to be used for inter-prediction for a portion of the base mesh sub-bitstream, wherein a different binarization is used to signal the predictors for the sub-set when the toolset constraint indicator is signaled (WD pgs. 65-66, section H.11.3).
Regarding claim 9, WD in view of Schwarz teaches the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein, to reconstruct the at least a portion of the plurality of sub-meshes signaled in the base mesh sub-bitstream, the program instructions, when executed using the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to (see claim 1):
determine, for respective ones of the vertices of the sub-meshes being reconstructed, a motion vector prediction mode to be used to predict a vertex position for that respective vertex (WD pgs. 65-66, section H.11.3); and
apply a signaled residual value to the predicted vertex value (WD pgs. 65-67, section H.11.3).
Regarding claim 10, WD in view of Schwarz teaches the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 9, wherein:
respective sets of vertices of the portion of the sub-meshes to be reconstructed are grouped, and wherein prediction information is signaled differently for different groupings (WD p. 1, sections 3.2 and 3.3).
Regarding claim 11, WD in view of Schwarz teaches the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 9, wherein different prediction modes are signaled for predicting different vertices values for vertices included in a same point in time frame for the dynamic mesh (WD p. 65, section H.11.2, H.11.3 and p. 2, figure).
Regarding claim 12, WD in view of Schwarz teaches the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 9, wherein different flag schemas are used by respective ones of the sub-mesh data units to signal the different prediction modes for different respective sub-meshes corresponding to respective ones of the sub-mesh data units (WD p. 62, bottom, p. 54, bottom and 58, top).
Regarding claim 14, WD in view of Schwarz teaches the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein the vertices counts for the respective sub-meshes are signaled in headers of network abstraction layer (NAL) units included in the base mesh sub-bit stream (Schwarz [0074]).
The same motivation for claim 1 applies to the missing limitations of claim 14.
Regarding claim 15, WD in view of Schwarz teaches the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein the vertices counts for the respective sub-meshes are signaled in a format that is agnostic to decoder type to be used to reconstruct the dynamic mesh (WD p. 65, section H.11.3).
Regarding claim 16, WD in view of Schwarz teaches one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media storing program instructions that, when executed using one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to (Schwarz [00158] and fig. 13):
generate a base mesh for a dynamic mesh being compressed (Schwarz [0098], figs. 2, 4 and 16 and WD p. 1, top and section 3.1); and
determine displacement information for displacements that are to be applied to sub-division locations of the base mesh (WD p. 2, figure, p. 17, section 8.4.6.2.3 and p. 42, section 11.9);
determine sub-meshes that represent portions of the base mesh (WD p. 1, section 3.3); and
signal:
a base mesh sub-bit stream comprising a plurality of sub-mesh data units corresponding to respective ones of the sub-meshes of the base mesh (WD p. 1, section 3.3 and p. 13, section 8.4.4.7); and
one or more additional sub-bitstreams comprising the displacement information for the displacements that are to be applied to the sub-division locations of the base mesh (WD p. 2, figure, p. 17, section 8.4.6.2.3 and p. 42, section 11.9),
wherein:
vertices counts for the respective sub-meshes corresponding to the respective sub-mesh data units are signaled for the sub-mesh data units (WD p. 65, section H.11.3, p. 21, section 8.4.7.3 and p. 1, section 3.2).
The same motivation and analysis for claim 1 applies to the missing limitations of claim 16.
Regarding claim 17, WD in view of Schwarz teaches the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 16, wherein the information included in the sub-mesh data units further comprises respective frame IDS for point-in-time frames of the dynamic mesh to which the respective sub-mesh data units belong (WD p. 30, portion above section 9.2).
Regarding claim 19, WD in view of Schwarz teaches the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 16, wherein the vertices counts for the respective sub-meshes are signaled in headers of network abstraction layer (NAL) units included in the base mesh sub-bit stream (Schwarz [0074]).
The same motivation for claim 1 applies to the missing limitations of claim 19.
Regarding claim 20, WD discloses a device, comprising:
receive a bit stream for a dynamic mesh (WD Title and p. 2 figure), the bit stream comprising:
a base mesh sub-bitstream comprising information for a base mesh (WD p. 1, section 3.3 and p. 13, section 8.4.4.7), wherein the base mesh sub-bitstream is signaled using a plurality of sub-mesh data units corresponding to a plurality of respective sub-meshes included in the base mesh (WD p. 1, section 3.3); and
one or more additional sub-bitstreams comprising displacement information for displacements that are to be applied to sub- division locations of the base mesh (WD p. 2, figure, p. 17, section 8.4.6.2.3 and p. 42, section 11.9),
parse the base mesh sub-bitstream to determine, based on information signaled in respective ones of the sub-mesh data units (WD p. 65, section H.11.3), which include:
vertices counts for the respective sub-meshes (WD p. 65, section H.11.3, p. 21, section 8.4.7.3 and p. 1, section 3.2);
reconstruct at least a portion of the plurality of sub-meshes signaled in the base mesh sub-bitstream using and vertices counts parsed from the base mesh sub-bitstream (WD pgs. 33-34 section 11.3 and p. 65, section H.11.3); and
apply at least a portion of the displacement information to sub-division locations of the reconstructed portion of the sub-meshes (WD p. 2, figure and pg. 33-34 section 11.3); and
wherein the reconstructed version of the dynamic mesh comprises the reconstructed sub-meshes of the base mesh and additional vertices added at sub-division locations (WD pgs. 33-34 section 11.3 and p. 65, section H.11.3), wherein respective positions of the additional vertices have been adjusted by the applying of the at least a portion of the displacement information (WD p. 2, figure and pg. 33-34 section 11.3).
WD does not explicitly disclose a display to display the reconstructed information and a memory storing program instructions; and one or more processors, wherein the program instructions, when executed using the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to.
However, Schwarz teaches a display (Schwarz [0158] and fig. 13, #1308);
a memory storing program instructions (Schwarz [00158] and fig. 13); and
one or more processors, wherein the program instructions, when executed using the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to (Schwarz [00158] and fig. 13):
receive a bit stream for a dynamic mesh (Schwarz figs. 3, 5 and 17);
cause a reconstructed version of the dynamic mesh to be displayed on the display of the device (Schwarz fig. 13).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the instructions taught by WD with the missing limitations as taught by Schwarz to improve compression efficiency for dynamic mesh data (Schwarz [0155]) and display an output image or video (Schwarz [0158]).
As shown above, all of the limitations are known, they can be applied to a known device such as a processor to yield a predictable result of improving coding efficiency.
Claims 3, 13 and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over WD in view of Schwarz as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Mammou et al. (U.S. 2023/0290063), hereinafter Mammou.
The applied reference Mammou has a common inventor with the instant application. Based upon the earlier effectively filed date of the reference, it constitutes prior art under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2).
This rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 might be overcome by: (1) a showing under 37 CFR 1.130(a) that the subject matter disclosed in the reference was obtained directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor of this application and is thus not prior art in accordance with 35 U.S.C.102(b)(2)(A); (2) a showing under 37 CFR 1.130(b) of a prior public disclosure under 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(B); or (3) a statement pursuant to 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) establishing that, not later than the effective filing date of the claimed invention, the subject matter disclosed and the claimed invention were either owned by the same person or subject to an obligation of assignment to the same person or subject to a joint research agreement. See generally MPEP § 717.02.
Regarding claim 3, WD in view of Schwarz teaches the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein the program instructions, when executed using the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to (see claim 1).
WD does not explicitly disclose receive viewing information indicating one or more focus areas of the dynamic mesh that are a focus for viewing a reconstructed version of the dynamic mesh; and identify sub-mesh data units corresponding to sub-meshes located in the one or more focus areas, wherein said reconstructing the at least a portion of the plurality of sub-meshes signaled in the base mesh sub-bitstream using the vertices counts parsed from the base mesh sub-bitstream and said applying the at least a portion of the displacement information to the sub-division locations of the reconstructed portion of the sub-meshes is performed for the sub-meshes corresponding to the identified sub-mesh data units without requiring all sub-meshes signaled in the base mesh sub-bitstream to be reconstructed.
However, Mammou teaches receive viewing information indicating one or more focus areas of the dynamic mesh that are a focus for viewing a reconstructed version of the dynamic mesh (Mammou [0130]); and
identify sub-mesh data units corresponding to sub-meshes located in the one or more focus areas (Mammou [0130]),
wherein said reconstructing the at least a portion of the plurality of sub-meshes signaled in the base mesh sub-bitstream using the vertices counts parsed from the base mesh sub-bitstream and said applying the at least a portion of the displacement information to the sub-division locations of the reconstructed portion of the sub-meshes is performed for the sub-meshes corresponding to the identified sub-mesh data units without requiring all sub-meshes signaled in the base mesh sub-bitstream to be reconstructed (Mammou [0130]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the instructions taught by WD and Schwarz with the missing limitations as taught by Mammou to encode a region of interest with higher resolution and/or quality for geometry, vertex attribute, and/or attribute map data (Mammou [0130]).
As shown above, all of the limitations are known, they can be applied to a known device such as a processor to yield a predictable result of improving coding efficiency.
Regarding claim 13, WD in view of Schwarz and Mammou teaches the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein the vertices counts for the respective sub-meshes are signaled in supplemental enhancement information (SEI) messages included in the bit stream (Mammou [0461]).
The same motivation for claim 3 applies to the missing limitations of claim 13.
Regarding claim 18, WD in view of Schwarz and Mammou teaches the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 16, wherein the vertices counts for the respective sub-meshes are signaled in supplemental enhancement information (SEI) messages included in the bit stream (Mammou [0461]).
The same motivation for claim 3 applies to the missing limitations of claim 18.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 8 is 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW KWAN whose telephone number is (571)270-7073. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9am-5pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chris Kelley can be reached at (571)272-7331. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MATTHEW K KWAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2482
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