DETAILED ACTION
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
This application is a CIP of 15/296,551, filed 10/18/2016.
Claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
Priority
Applicant's claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120,121, 365(c), or 386(c) is acknowledged. Applicant has not complied with one or more conditions for receiving the benefit of an earlier filing date under 35 U.S.C. 119 as follows: the now claimed contextually identical multimedia content elements is not discussed in any of the applications from which the instant application claims partial benefit prior to 15/296,551. Thus claims are examined as entitled only to the priority date of 18 October 2016.
Information Disclosure Statements
IDS of 9/11/2017 (2), 9/22/2019, and 11/01/2019 have been considered and made of record in the application file.
Claim Rejections - 35 U.S.C. §103
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-7, 10-17, 20 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being unpatentable over Haitsma, US 2006/0013451, in view of Brunk, et al., US 2002/0126872.
As to claim 1, Haitsma teaches a method for enriching a concept database, comprising:
determining, based on signatures of a first multimedia content element (MMCE) and signatures of a plurality of existing concepts in the concept database, at least one first concept, wherein each first concept is one of the plurality of existing concepts matching a portion of the first MMCE;
Haitsma ¶¶6-7,13-15,26-30 teach MMCEs as an input data stream, dividing and framing multimedia input data elements (MMCE) into portions (block segments or frames) and creating fingerprints for each segment to search in a multimedia fingerprint database that includes metadata [“concept” is interpreted for examination purposes to be a segment of the MMCE including metadata]
generating a reduced representation of the first MMCE, wherein the generation of the reduced representation includes removing the at least one portion of the first MMCE matching the determined at least one first concept; comparing the reduced representation to signatures representing a plurality of second MMCEs to determine a plurality of matching second MMCEs for each portion of the reduced representation;
Haitsma ¶¶54-59 teaches advancing the search frame-by-frame, effectively removing first matched segment
determining, based on the reduced representation and the signatures of the plurality of matching second MMCEs, metadata for each portion of the reduced representation;
Haitsma ¶¶6-7 teaches meta-data such as length of clip and position of clip for corresponding portions (segments, frames) of a song
However, Haitsma may not teach explicitly every element of the following limitations as disclosed by Brunk:
generating a second concept for each portion of the reduced representation, wherein each second concept includes a collection of signatures and the determined metadata for the respective portion; and adding the generated at least one second concept to the concept database.
Brunk ¶¶20-28 teaches generating and storing signatures with data and metadata for input frame segments
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Haitsma and Brunk at the time of the invention to modify Haitsma teachings on multimedia fingerprint searching with Brunk’s method because they are similar, e.g., Brunk ¶¶20-21 divides audio signals into segments each of which may include a hash signature for alternating sets, and Brunk ¶¶80-86,100 teaches signature searching.
One would have been motivated to modify Haitsma with Brunk for commercial advantage, to increase signature processing options.
As to claim 2, the combination of Haitsma and Brunk teaches the method of claim 1, wherein determining the at least one first concept further comprises: performing a cleaning process,
wherein the cleaning process includes removing at least one signature of the first MMCE,
Haitsma ¶54: If one or more matching fingerprint blocks are found within the database (step 40), a fingerprint block Y is calculated for an adjacent position in the information signal [effectively removing segments from input as shifting frame to next segment]
wherein each removed signature matches signatures of one of the at least one first concept above a predetermined threshold.
Haitsma ¶52-55 teach match based on predetermined threshold
As to claim 3, the combination of Haitsma and Brunk teaches the method of claim 2, wherein the cleaning process is performed recursively when each first concept is determined.
Haitsma ¶57 teaches recursive removal of segments from further consideration
As to claim 4, the combination of Haitsma and Brunk teaches the method of claim 1, wherein determining the metadata for each portion of the reduced representation further comprises: querying at least one data source using the collection of signatures for the portion, wherein the determined metadata includes metadata associated with at least one search result.
Haitsma ¶66 teaches collecting sub-fingerprints into fingerprint blocks to search a database and retrieve associated metadata
As to claim 5, the combination of Haitsma and Brunk teaches the method of claim 1, wherein each MMCE is at least one of: an image, a graphic, a video stream (Haitsma ¶3,5, video), a video clip, a video frame (Haitsma ¶7, picture frame), a photograph (Haitsma ¶7, picture frame), and an image of signals.
As to claim 6, the combination of Haitsma and Brunk teaches the method of claim 5, wherein the image of signals is an image of any of: medical signals, geophysical signals, subsonic signals, supersonic signals, electromagnetic signals, and infrared signals.
Haitsma ¶67 teaches the invention can be applied to other information signals, which encompasses any of these examples
As to claim 7, the combination of Haitsma and Brunk teaches the method of claim 1, wherein each concept is a collection of signatures and metadata representing the concept.
Haitsma ¶66 teaches collecting sub-fingerprints into fingerprint blocks to search a database and retrieve associated metadata
As to claim 10, it is rejected on the same grounds as claim 1, but in addition, Brunk teaches a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions for causing a processing circuitry to execute a process for enriching a concept database.
Brunk ¶107
As to claim 11, it is rejected on the same grounds as claim 1, but in addition, Brunk teaches a system for enriching a concept database, comprising: a processing circuitry; and a memory connected to the processing circuitry, the memory containing instructions that, when executed by the processing circuitry, configure the system.
Brunk ¶107
As to claim 12, it is rejected on the same grounds as claim 2.
As to claim 13, it is rejected on the same grounds as claim 3.
As to claim 14, it is rejected on the same grounds as claim 4.
As to claim 15, it is rejected on the same grounds as claim 5.
As to claim 16, it is rejected on the same grounds as claim 6.
As to claim 17, it is rejected on the same grounds as claim 7.
As to claim 20, the combination of Haitsma and Brunk teaches the system of claim 11, wherein the system further comprises the concept database.
Haitsma ¶6 fingerprints of multimedia objects and related meta-data stored in a database
Claims 8-9, 18-19 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being unpatentable over Haitsma, US 2006/0013451, in view of Brunk, et al., US 2002/0126872, in further view of Goldstein, et al., US 2004/0260727.
As to claim 8, the combination of Haitsma and Brunk teaches the method of claim 1. Haitsma further teaches:
wherein each signature is generated by a signature generator system,
Haitsma ¶15 teaches generating an input fingerprint block for each segment
However, the combination may not teach explicitly every element of the following limitations as disclosed by Goldstein:
wherein the signature generator system includes a plurality of at least statistically independent computational cores, wherein the properties of each core are set independently of the properties of each other core.
Goldstein ¶56 teaches a plurality of processing units, commonly referred to as a parallel processing environment
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Haitsma and Goldstein at the time of the invention to modify Haitsma teachings on multimedia fingerprint searching with Goldstein’s multimedia vector frame search methods as an alternate to improve efficiency identifying and retrieving multimedia files.
One would have been motivated to modify Haitsma with Goldstein for commercial profits because Goldstein’s system provides efficient methods that facilitate rapid searching of MD data objects in an MD feature space (Goldstein ¶3).
As to claim 9, the combination of Haitsma and Goldstein teaches the method of claim 8. Haitsma further teaches wherein generating the at least one signature further comprises: sending the image to the signature generator system; and receiving, from the signature generator system, the at least one signature.
Haitsma ¶15 teaches generating an input fingerprint block for each segment
As to claim 18, it is rejected on the same grounds as claim 8.
As to claim 19, it is rejected on the same grounds as claim 9.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Edward Jacobs whose telephone number is 571-272-3856. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Friday, 8:30AM - 5:00PM.
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/Edward Jacobs/
Examiner, Art Unit 2159