DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to the application filed on 10/28/2025.
Claims 1-18 are pending.
Acknowledgment is made of a claim for foreign priority. All of the certified copies of the priority documents have been received.
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 references listed on the Information Disclosure Statement submitted on 10/28/2025 has/have been considered by the examiner (see attached PTO-1449).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the claim 18 is not clearly limited to the non-transitory medium. The specification also does not clearly define the claimed "computer-readable recording medium" as being limited to a non-transitory medium.
Bitstream Claim interpretation
Claim 18 is directed to a computer readable medium that stores generated bitstream.
The bitstream is being treated as a product that is the result of the process (method). The steps are not required elements of claim 18, so they only limit the invention in terms of how they define the contents of the information in the bitstream. MPEP §2113
The contents of the bitstream, defined by how the bitstream was generated, only describes the content of the information in the bitstream and as result are descriptive language. See MPEP §2111.05. The bitstream has no functional relationship with the claimed non-transitory computer-readable recording medium.
Claim Mapping Notation
In this office action, following notations are being used to refer to the paragraph numbers or column number and lines of portions of the cited reference.
In this office action, following notations are being used to refer to the paragraph numbers or column number and lines of portions of the cited reference.
[0005] (Paragraph number [0005])
C5 (Column 5)
Pa5 (Page 5)
S5 (Section 5)
Furthermore, unless necessary to distinguish from other references in this action, “et al.” will be omitted when referring to the reference.
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 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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a1) and (a2) as being anticipated by Lee et al. (US 20120008676 A1).
A computer-readable recording medium storing a bitstream generated by a video encoding method, wherein the video encoding method comprises:determining high level information related to applying a geometric partitioning mode;generating partitioning boundary information of a current block based on the high level information;generating partitioned blocks of the current block based on the partitioning boundary information;determining whether there is a neighboring block reconstructed according to the geometric partitioning mode; anddetermining whether, at a block boundary between the neighboring block and thecurrent block, there is a contact point due to a partitioning boundary of neighboring blocks,wherein the video encoding method further comprises, when there is at least one or more of the contact point: generating a partitioned boundary predictor of the current block by using partitioning boundary information of the neighboring block; and generating difference information by subtracting the partitioned boundary predictor from the partitioning boundary information of the current block.
“[0177] Partitions having geometric shapes may not be merged with neighboring data units contacting upper boundaries and left boundaries of the partitions according to positions and shapes of the partitions. For example, from among two partitions 149 and 150 of the prediction unit 148, the partition 150 may be merged with a neighboring data unit 151 contacting a left boundary. However, since a neighboring data unit contacting an upper boundary is the partition 149 included in the same prediction unit 158, the partition 150 may not be merged with the upper neighboring data unit. In this case, merging index information of the partition 150 may not include an index indicating the partition 149 that is the upper neighboring data unit.”
“[0377] One or more exemplary embodiments may be written as computer programs and may be implemented in general-use digital computers that execute the programs using a computer readable recording medium. Examples of the computer readable recording medium include magnetic storage media (e.g., ROM, floppy disks, hard disks, etc.) and optical recording media (e.g., CD-ROMs, or DVDs).”
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-17 are allowed.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Sim et al. (US 20230179762 A1) and Yin et al. (US 20260281362 A1) disclose relevant art related to the subject matter of the present invention.
A shortened statutory period for reply to this action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. An extension of time may be obtained under 37 CFR 1.136(a). However, in no event, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAE N NOH whose telephone number is (571)270-0686. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri 8:30AM-5PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, William Vaughn can be reached on (571) 272-3922. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JAE N NOH/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2481
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