Datum Blatt Anmelde-Nr:

Date cf Form 1507 Sheet 1 Application No: 1 0 82 4 420 . 3

Date Feuille Demande no:

1 Application Documents
The examination is being carried out on the following application documents

Description, Pages

1-36 filed with entry into the regional phase before the EPO

Claims, Numbers

1-21 filed with entry into the regional phase before the EPO

Drawings, Sheets

1/6-6/6 filed with entry into the regional phase before the EPO

2 Clarity
The application does not meet the requirements of Article 84 EPC, because claims 8,
18 are not clear.
Dependent claims 8, 18 define combinations of a column transform matrix and a row
transform matrix to obtain multiple candidate transform matrices. It is however noted
that in case of only one column matrix and only one row transform matrix only one, but
no multiple candidate transform matrices are obtained. This contradiction within the
claims should be resolved.

3 Cited Documents
Reference is made to the following documents; the numbering will be adhered to in
the rest of the procedure.
D1 BING ZENG ET AL: "Directional Discrete Cosine Transforms for Image
Coding",
PROCEEDINGS I 2006 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
MULTIMEDIA AND EXPO, ICME 2006 :JULY 9- 12, 2006, HILTON,
TORONTO, TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA, IEEE SERVICE CENTER,
PISCATAWAY, NJ, 1 July 2006 (2006-07-01 ), pages 721-724,
XP031 032937,
ISBN: 978-1-4244-0366-0

EPO Form 1703 01.91TRI

Datum Blatt Anmelde-Nr:
Date cf Form 1507 Sheet 2 Application No: 1 0 82 4 420 . 3
Date Feuille Demande no:

02 WO 2008/157360 A2 (QUALCOMM INC [US]; YE YAN [US];

KARCZEWICZ MARTA [US]) 24 December 2008 (2008-12-24)

03 YAN YE ET AL: "Improved h.264 intra coding based on bi-directional intra

prediction, directional transform, and adaptive coefficient scanning",
IMAGE PROCESSING, 2008. ICIP 2008. 15TH IEEE INTERNATIONAL
CONFERENCE, IEEE, PISCATAWAY, NJ, USA, 12 October 2008
(2008-1 0-12), pages 2116-2119, XP031374452,
ISBN: 978-1-4244-1765-0

4 Novelty, inventive step

The present application does not meet the requirements of Article 52(1) EPC because
the subject-matter of claims 1-21 does not involve an inventive step within the
meaning of Article 56 EPC.
4.1 Independent claims
01 is considered to be the prior art closest to the subject-matter of claim 1 and
discloses:
A method for encoding video data, comprising:
generating a prediction residual according to input video data;
selecting a set of best transformation matrixes among multiple candidate
transformation matrixes according to optimization criteria to perform
transform-coding on the prediction residual and obtain a transformation result;
and
encoding seleoted transformation matrb< indm< information aooording to the
transformation result and an intra-frame prediction mode to generate an
encoded stream.
(01, abstract "we develop a new block-based OCT framework in which the first
transform may follow a direction other than the vertical or horizontal one, while the
second transform is arranged to be a horizontal one.", paragraph 5 "we run
quantization and VLC for all seven modes and select the best one according to a
productive rate-distortion criterion -the product of the MSE and bit-count in each
image block." As 01 refers to AVC/H.264 encoding of an intra prediction mode is
implicitly disclosed.)
The subject-matter of claim 1 therefore differs from this known method in that a
transformation matrix index information is encoded.
The problem to be solved by the present invention may therefore be regarded as
transmitting the information concerning the transformation matrix to the decoder.
EPO Form 1703 01.91TRI
Datum Blatt Anmelde-Nr:
Date cf Form 1507 Sheet 3 Application No: 1 0 82 4 420 . 3
Date Feuille Demande no:

The solution proposed in claim 1 of the present application cannot be considered to

involve an inventive step (Articles 52(1) and 56 EPC).
Transmitting an index to identify one out of a plurality of possible encoding options
(here one out of a plurality of encoding matrices) is considered an to be a well known
option the person skilled in the art would select. It is noted that D1 discloses to
consider seven different modes. Signaling the selected mode e.g. using a 3 bit index
is considered a straight forward option which does not require inventive skills.
The subject-matter of independent claim 1 and corresponding independent claims 9,
14, 19 does therefore not involve an inventive step according to Article 56 EPC.
4.2 Dependent claims
Dependent claims 2-8, 10-13, 15-18, 20, 21 do not contain any additional features
which, in combination with the features of any claim to which they refer, meet the
requirements of the EPC with respect to inventive step.
as set out above D1 discloses
o separable transforms (claim 2);
o using a rate-distortion criterion (claim 3); and
o using combinations of different transforms (claim 8).
D1 further discloses using an adapted scan order, the scan order being adapted to the
prediction direction (D1, figures 3, 4); (claim 4).
Selecting the intra prediction mode according some optimization criterion is common
practice in the field of video coding (claim 5).
D1-D3 disclose that the transformation matrix is linked to the selected intra prediction
mode. Encoding the transformation matrix index information according to the intra
prediction mode is therefore considered obvious to those skilled in the art in order to
make use of this correlation (claim 6).
Using a single index or to encode a pair (vertical/horizontal) of transforms is
considered an obvious option the person skilled in the art would take into account
(claim 7).
The subject-matter of dependent claims 2-8 and corresponding dependent claims
10-13, 15-18, 20, 21 does therefore not involve an inventive step according to Article
56 EPC.

5 Remarks
5.1 Prior art

EPO Form 1703 01.91TRI

Datum Blatt Anmelde-Nr:
Date cf Form 1507 Sheet 4 Application No: 1 0 82 4 420 . 3
Date Feuille Demande no:

To meet the requirements of Rule 42(1 )(b) EPC, 01-03 should be identified in the
description and the relevant background art disclosed therein should be briefly
discussed.
5.2 Two part form
Independent claims 1, 9, 14, 19 are not in the two-part form in accordance with Rule
43(1) EPC, which in the present case would be appropriate, with those features
known in combination from the prior art being placed in the preamble (Rule 43(1 )(a)
EPC) and the remaining features being included in the characterising part (Rule 43(1)
(b) EPC).
Independent claims 1, 9, 14, 19 should therefore be redrafted accordingly. If, however,
the applicant is of the opinion that the two-part form would be inappropriate, reasons
therefor should be provided. In addition, the applicant should ensure that it is clear
from the description which features of the subject-matter of claims 1, 9, 14, 19 are
already known in combination from 01-03 (see Guidelines F-IV, 2.3.2).

EPO Form 1703 01.91TRI