DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1, 3, 8, 11-12, 15-16, 19, 22-25, 30, 34 and 37-48, 50-52, 54-55 are pending.
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 § 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.
Claim 1, 3, 11, 15, 19, 22-23, 34, 37-39, 41, 44, 50-52, 55 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Smith et al. (US 2021/0021885) in view of Govinde (US 2016/0142761), and further in view of Ryu et al. (US 2012/0019239).
Claim 1 and 15, Smith teaches a method comprising:
“receiving, by one or more computing devices and from one or more second computing devices (i.e. CPEs 116), information indicating user interactions (i.e. fast forward presses), wherein at least one of the user interactions corresponds to a first user interaction type” (i.e. fast forward presses) (fig. 4B-C; p. 0052-0054);
“identifying an advertising time (402-2) after an end of the one or more first scenes (402-1) of a content stream” (fig. 4B)
the at least one of the user interactions that corresponds to the first user interaction type (i.e. fast forward commands) (p. 0052-0054);
information indicating, for the first object type, different weight values (i.e. thresholds) corresponding to different content item genres (i.e. content with black frames, or keywords) (p. 0076-0081); and
a plurality of weights comprising:
a first weight (i.e. using only fast forward behavior) indicating a first likelihood that the first user interaction type corresponds to a commercial break in the genre (i.e. quiz show) of the content stream (p. 0059-0060); and
a second weight (i.e. using all behavior in a fusion process) indicating a second likelihood (i.e. less false positives) that the second user interaction type (i.e. fusion of user behavior) corresponds to the commercial break in the genre (i.e. quiz show with advertisement features) of the content steam (p. 0059-0063); and
causing insertion of a second content item at the advertising time (p. 0032).
Smith is silent regarding the specific features of:
“at least one of the user interactions corresponds to a second user interaction type”;
“identifying an advertising time based on:
an object, of a first object type, present in the visual content stream;
a genre of the visual content stream;
Govinde teaches regarding the specific features of:
“at least one of the user interactions corresponds to a second user interaction type” (i.e. channel change) (p. 0035).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide channel changes indicating commercial spots as taught by Govinde to the system of Smith to provide correlation between channel changes and commercial times (p. 0035).
Ryu teaches the specific feature of:
“identifying an advertising time (i.e. related information) (p. 0016-0017) based on:
an object (i.e. detected object), of a first object type (i.e. keyword of object with genre information), present in the visual content stream (p. 0016-0018);
a genre of the visual content stream (i.e. keyword of object with genre information) (p. 0016-0018).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide object detector as taught by Ryu to the system of Smith to allow for scene recognition based on objects in the video (p. 0016);
Claim 3, Smith teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the first set of user interactions associated with type first interaction type comprise at least one of:
tune-out events (i.e. fast forward) (p. 0053);
channel change events; or
volume change events.
Claim 11, Smith teaches The method of claim 8, wherein the plurality of user interactions further comprises a third set of user interactions (412-1, 412-2) associated with tune-out events (i.e. all interactions types, fast forward, rewind, etc.), and wherein the identifying the advertising time period is further based on second information (410-1) indicating a different likelihood (i.e. based on only one interaction type) that the tune-out events correspond to the commercial break (p. 0050-0054).
Claim 19, 44, 50 Smith teaches the method of claim 15, wherein the identifying the advertising location comprising determining one or more second scenes of the content stream comprising advertising content (i.e. detecting black frames that do not denote advertisement boundaries interpreted to mean multiple scenes in a non-advertising segment) (p. 0028).
Claim 22, Smith teaches regarding the method of claim 15, further comprising:
wherein causing insertion of the second content item (p. 0032) is based on:
a plurality of previous user interactions for a plurality of previous content streams (i.e. segments are previously watched) (fig. 4C; p. 0050-0054); or
the plurality of plurality of objects present in the plurality of previous content streams.
Claim 23, Smith teaches the method of claim 15, wherein the first user interaction type corresponds to a pause (p. 0042-0046).
Claim 34, 37, 41, Smith teaches the method of claim 15, further comprising:
aggregating a second plurality of user interactions of a second user interaction type (i.e. rewind), wherein the identifying the advertising location is further based on a third weight value (i.e. using only rewind commands) indicating a likelihood that the second user interaction type corresponds to the commercial break when received during output of the content associated with the genre (i.e. quiz show) (p. 0050-0054, 0059-0063).
Smith teaches a third set of user interactions associating with fast forwarding (p. 0050-0052).
Claim 38, 51 Smith is silent regarding the method of claim 15, wherein the identifying the advertising time period comprises:
determining that a first object is present in a first scene, of the one or more first scenes of the visual content, before the segment boundary; and
determining that the first object is not present in a subsequent scene, in the visual content, after the segment boundary.
Ryu teaches the method of claim 15, wherein the identifying the advertising time period comprises:
determining that a first object is present in a first scene, of the one or more first scenes of the visual content, before the segment boundary (fig. 1; p. 0016-0017); and
determining that the first object is not present in a subsequent scene, in the visual content, after the segment boundary (fig. 1; p. 0016-0017).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide object detector as taught by Ryu to the system of Kates to allow for scene recognition based on objects in the video (p. 0016).
Claim 39, Smith is silent regarding the method of claim 15, wherein the first interaction type corresponds to changing the channel.
Govinde teaches the method of claim 15, wherein the first interaction type corresponds to changing the channel (i.e. channel change) (p. 0035).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide channel changes indicating commercial spots as taught by Govinde to the system of Smith to provide correlation between channel changes and commercial times (p. 0035).
Claim 52, Smith teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the user interactions are a subset of total interactions occurring during the content stream, the method further comprising.
selecting the subset of the total interactions occurring during the content stream by selecting user interactions that are within a threshold time of a segment boundary (p. 0042-0044).
Claim 55, Smith is not entirely clear in teaching the method of claim 1, wherein the first information specifies:
a first object weight for the first object type when in a first content genre; and
a second object weight for the first object type when in a second content genre.
Ryu teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the first information specifies:
a first object weight (i.e. using context analysis) for the first object type (i.e. detected object name) when in a first content genre (i.e. genre information) (p. 0016-0018); and
a second object weight (i.e. using context analysis) for the first object type (i.e. detected object name) when in a second content genre (i.e. genre information) (p. 0016-0018).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide object detector as taught by Ryu to the system of Smith to allow for scene recognition based on objects in the video (p. 0016).
Claim 8, 24 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Smith et al. (US 2021/0021885) in view of Govinde (US 2016/0142761), and further in view of Ryu et al. (US 2012/0019239), and further in view of Shkedi et al. (US 2009/0172723).
Claim 8 is analyzed and interpreted with respect to claim 1. Claim 8 additionally recites “information indicating that volume changes and channel changes have different likelihoods of indicating a commercial break”.
Smith teaches the specific feature of:
“information indicating that channel changes have different likelihoods of indicating a commercial break (i.e. using only fast forward behavior) (p. 0059-0061).
Shkedi teaches the specific feature of:
information indicating that volume changes have different likelihoods of indicating a commercial break (i.e. volume changes to determined interleaved advertising) (p. 0043-0046).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide volume changes as taught by Shkedi to the system of Smith to provide a commercial detection analysis (p. 0046).
Claim 24, Smith is silent regarding the method of claim 15, wherein the first user interaction type corresponds to changes in audio volume.
Shkedi teaches the method of claim 15, wherein the first user interaction type corresponds to changes in audio volume (i.e. volume changes to determined interleaved advertising) (p. 0043-0046).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide volume changes as taught by Shkedi to the system of Smith to provide a commercial detection analysis (p. 0046).
Claim 12, 25 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Smith et al. (US 2021/0021885) in view of Govinde (US 2016/0142761), and further in view of Ryu et al. (US 2012/0019239), and further in view of Shkedi et al. (US 2009/0172723), and further in view of Olsen et al. (US 2014/0321831).
Claims 12, Smith is not entirely clear in teaching the method of claim 8, wherein the determining the plurality of user interactions comprises selecting the plurality of user interactions based on at least one of:
user age,
user location,
time of day, or
social media group.
Olsen teaches the method of claim 8, wherein the determining the plurality of user interactions comprises selecting the plurality of user interactions based on at least one of:
user age,
user location,
time of day (p. 0027), or
social media group.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide weighting user behavior as taught by Olsen to the system of Smith to collect playback statistics (p. 0040).
Claim 25, Smith teaches the specific feature of:
“playback speed control interactions” (i.e. fast forward) (p. 0050-0052).
Smith is silent regarding the method of claim 1, wherein difference between the first weight and second weight indicates that volume control interactions are more likely to indicate the commercial break.
Shkedi teaches the specific feature of:
“volume control interactions” (p. 0047, 0054).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide volume changes as taught by Shkedi to the system of Smith to provide a commercial detection analysis (p. 0046).
Olsen teaches specific feature of:
“wherein difference between the first weight and second weight indicate more likely to indicate a segment” (i.e. volume controls) (p. 0023, 0040); and
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide weighting user behavior as taught by Olsen to the system of Smith to collect playback statistics (p. 0040).
Claim 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Smith et al. (US 2021/0021885) in view of Govinde (US 2016/0142761), and further in view of Ryu et al. (US 2012/0019239), and further in view of Chan et al. (US 2021/0089779).
Claims 16, 46 Smith is not entirely clear in teaching the method of claim 15, wherein the genre of the visual content comprises: sports, and wherein the object comprises a clock.
Chan teaches the method of claim 15, wherein the genre of the visual content comprises: sports, and wherein the object comprises a clock (p. 0423).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide object detection in sports as taught by Chan to the system of Smith to extract time information of a sports game.
Claim 46, Smith is silent regarding the method of claim 1, wherein the identifying the advertising time comprises weighting display of a clock differently based on a content genre of the content stream.
Chan teaches the specific feature of:
“display of a clock” (p. 0423).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide object detection in sports as taught by Chan to the system of Kates to extract time information of a sports game.
Ryu teaches the specific feature of:
“weighting display of an object differently based on a content genre of the content stream (i.e. determining genre based on the object and how it is categorized) (p. 0037).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide object detector as taught by Ryu to the system of Smith to allow for scene recognition based on objects in the video (p. 0016).
Claim 30 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Smith et al. (US 2021/0021885) in view of Govinde (US 2016/0142761), and further in view of Ryu et al. (US 2012/0019239), and further in view of Olsen et al. (US 2014/0321831).
Claim 30, Kates is silent regarding the method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of weights comprises a third weight indicating a third likelihood that the first user interaction type corresponds to the commercial break in a second genre.
a first weight for a first content genre; and
a second weight for a second content genre.
Olsen teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of weights comprises a third weight indicating a third likelihood that the first user interaction type corresponds to the commercial break in a second genre (p. 0040, 0046).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide weighting user behavior as taught by Olsen to the system of Kates to collect playback statistics (p. 0040).
Claim 40, 42 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Smith et al. (US 2021/0021885) in view of Govinde (US 2016/0142761), and further in view of Ryu et al. (US 2012/0019239), and further in view of Olsen et al. (US 2014/0321831), and further in view of Trabelsi et al. (US 2017/0243244).
Claim 40, 42 Kates is silent regarding the method of claim 1, further comprising:
storing second information associated with a second object type,
wherein the information comprises:
a first object weight for a first content genre, and
a second object weight for a second content genre, and
wherein the second information associated with the second object type comprises:
a third object weight for the first content genre; and
a fourth object weight for the second content genre.
Olsen teaches the specific features of:
storing second information associated with a second object type (i.e. statistics),
wherein the information comprises:
“a first object weight” (i.e. weights are different for every interaction, different genres are within the scope of the type of content in Olsen) (p. 0040, 0046), and
“a second object weight” (i.e. weights are different for every interaction, different genres are within the scope of the type of content in Olsen) (p. 0040, 0046), and
wherein the second information associated with the second object type comprises:
“a third object weight” (i.e. weights are different for every interaction, different genres are within the scope of the type of content in Olsen) (p. 0040, 0046); and
“a fourth object weight” (i.e. weights are different for every interaction, different genres are within the scope of the type of content in Olsen) (p. 0040, 0046).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide weighting user behavior as taught by Olsen to the system of Kates to collect playback statistics (p. 0040, 0046).
Trabelsi teaches the specific feature of
“weighting for a content genre” (p. 0023).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to have provided weighting of user interactions of different categories as taught by Trabelsi to the system of Kates to allow for confidence level of taste matching (p. 0023).
Claim 43 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Smith et al. (US 2021/0021885) in view of Govinde (US 2016/0142761), and further in view of Ryu et al. (US 2012/0019239), and further in view of Chand et al. (US 2015/0256899).
Claim 43 Smith is silent regarding the method of claim 1, wherein genre comprises comedy, and wherein the object comprises a logo.
Chand teaches The method of claim 1, wherein genre of the visual content comprises comedy, and wherein the object comprises a logo (i.e. image processor determines genre based on logo) (p. 0050).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide object detection in programming as taught by Chand to the system of Smith to identity relevant logos within a frame (p. 0050).
Claim 45 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over over Smith et al. (US 2021/0021885) in view of Govinde (US 2016/0142761), and further in view of Ryu et al. (US 2012/0019239), and further in view of Jones (US 2016/0337705).
Claim 45, Smith is silent regarding the method of claim 1, further comprising:
discarding a second segment boundary subsequent to the first segment boundary, wherein the discarding is based on determining a quantity of time between the second segment boundary and the first segment boundary.
Jones teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising:
discarding a second segment boundary subsequent to the first segment boundary, wherein the discarding is based on determining a quantity of time between the second segment boundary and the first segment boundary (i.e. discarding second scene) (claim 1).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to have provided processing scene changes as taught by Jones to the system of Smith to allow for scene boundary detection (claim 1).
Claim 47-48 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Smith et al. (US 2021/0021885) in view of Govinde (US 2016/0142761), and further in view of Ryu et al. (US 2012/0019239), and further in view of Shkedi et al. (US 2009/0172723), and further in view of Oddo et al. (US 2007/0169148).
Claim 47-48, Smith is silent regarding the method of claim 1, wherein the identifying the advertising time period further comprises:
determining, based on one or more objects, a total value; and
comparing the total value to a threshold, wherein the threshold is based on a genre of the content stream.
Ryu teaches the specific feature of “one or more object types” (p. 0016-0017).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide object detector as taught by Ryu to the system of Smith to allow for scene recognition based on objects in the video (p. 0016).
Oddo teaches the method of claim 1, further comprises:
determining, a total value (i.e. score) (p. 0136); and
comparing the total value to a threshold, wherein the threshold is based on a genre of the content stream (p. 0136).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to have provided an overall score as taught by Oddo to the system of Smith to allow for measuring genres (p. 0136).
Claim 54 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over over Smith et al. (US 2021/0021885) in view of Govinde (US 2016/0142761), and further in view of Ryu et al. (US 2012/0019239), and further in view of Hayes et al. (US 2010/0125875)
Claim 54. Smith is silent regarding the method of claim 1, wherein the first object type comprises a clock, and wherein the first information specifies:
a first object weight for clocks appearing in sporting events; and
a second object weight for clocks appearing in non-sporting events.
Hayes teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the first object type comprises a clock, and wherein the first information specifies:
a first object weight for clocks appearing in sporting events (p. 0039); and
a second object weight for clocks appearing in non-sporting events (i.e. using context determination when detecting a sports clock) (p. 0039-0040).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention to provide clock recognition as taught by Hayes to the system of Smith to allow for context analysis of detected objects (p. 0039).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 3, 8, 11-12, 15-16, 19, 22-25, 30, 34 and 37-48, 50-52, 54-55 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
Claims 1, 3, 8, 11-12, 15-16, 19, 22-25, 30, 34 and 37-48, 50-52, 54-55 are rejected.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 9674567 B1 Carter; Leslie M
US 20150040176 A1 Hybertson; Eric D. et al.
US 8726310 B2 Chang; Jack H. et al.
US 20130179913 A1 Haberman; Seth et al.
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.
Inquiries
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MUSHFIKH I ALAM whose telephone number is (571)270-1710. The examiner can normally be reached on 1:00PM-9:00PM.
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MUSHFIKH I. ALAM
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2426
/MUSHFIKH I ALAM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2426 2/26/2026