DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-3, 5-23 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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 6/26/2026 has been entered.
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(s) 1-3, 5-23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pont et al. (US 2018/0098101) in view of Arme et al. (US 2013/0297706), and further in view of Casey et al. (US 2014/0270699), and further in view of Robertson et al. (US 2021/0385264), and further in view of Barkley et al. (US 2018/0332320).
Claim 1, Pont teaches a method comprising:
receiving, from a user device, an indication of a type of content to exclude from a content item (i.e. skip based on preferences) (p. 0051);
Pont is not entirely clear in teaching the specific features of:
determining, based on the indication and based on at least one trick play automation point associated with a plurality of user inputs from a threshold quantity of users; a starting boundary point of a portion of the content item and an ending boundary point of the portion of the content item;
determining, a first segment of a plurality of segments of the content item that corresponds to the starting boundary point of the potion of the content and a last segment of the plurality of segments of the content item that corresponds to the ending boundary point of the portion of the content item, wherein the plurality of segments of the content item comprise a duration greater than a duration of the portion of the content item;
updating, based on removing indications of the plurality of segments of the content item from the manifest, the manifest;
sending the updated manifest to the user device.
Arme teaches the specific features of:
determining, based on the indication and based on at least one trick play automation point (i.e. fast-access playback) associated with a plurality of user inputs from a threshold quantity of users (i.e. messages of users in a crowd), a starting boundary point of a portion of the content item and an ending boundary point of the portion of the content item (i.e. average start and end times) (p. 0108-0114);
“determining, a first segment of a plurality of segments of the content item( (i.e. segments comprise the entire content item) that corresponds to the starting boundary point of the potion of the content and a last segment of the plurality of segments of the content item that corresponds to the ending boundary point of the portion of the content item” (i.e. the first segment in the objectionable scene is at the start of the content item and the last segment of the content item ends with the end of an objectionable scene) (p. 0091-0099, 0104-0113);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art and before the effective filing date of the present invention to have provided crowd sourced data as taught by Arme to the system of Pont to allow for scenes for review (p. 0112).
Casey teaches the specific features of:
“wherein the plurality of segments of the content item (i.e. full content item) comprise a duration greater than a duration of the portion of the content item” (i.e. popular portion based on user inputs is a short clip compared to the full content item) (p. 0027, 0043-0044);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art and before the effective filing date of the present invention to have provided popular segments as taught by Casey to the system of Pont to determine segments of interest (p. 0044).
Robertson teaches the specific feature of:
updating, based on removing indications of the plurality of segments from the manifest (i.e. removing non alternative content references), the manifest (p. 0006-0007, 0044).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art and before the effective filing date of the present invention to have provided a modified manifest as taught by Robertson to the system of Pont to provide changes to the manifest for new content (p. 0006-0007, 0044).
Barkley teaches the specific feature of:
sending the updated manifest to the user device (i.e. manifest provided to any devices upon request) (p. 0025).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art and before the effective filing date of the present invention to have provided a manifest as taught by Barkley to the system of Pont to organize fragments for transmission (p. 0025).
Claim 2, Pont teaches the method of claim 1, wherein receiving the indication of the type of content comprises receiving an indication of at least one of:
a violent content type (i.e. violent scenes) (p. 0052), a sexual content type, a vulgar content type, a language content type, a commercial content type, or a musical content type.
Claim 3, Pont teaches the method of claim 1, wherein receiving the indication of the type of content comprises receiving a plurality of types of content (p. 0051-0053).
Claim 5, Pont teaches the method of claim 1, wherein portion of the content item are determined based on at least one of:
usage associated with the user device (i.e. aggregated from other users) (p. 0045-0048), a machine learning classifier, a user profile, usage of a plurality of devices associated with the user device, a textual input, or a content preference associated with the user device.
Claim 6, Pont teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising:
determining, a difference between the starting boundary point of the portion of the content item and the ending boundary point of the portion of the content item (i.e. total time of marked segments can be greater than the different e.g. when 2 similar commercials are marked which will be similar in duration (p. 0027, 0048-0048, 0051).
Claim 7, Pont teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising determining, based on the plurality of segments, the trick play automation point, wherein updating the manifest comprises adding the trick play automation point to the manifest (i.e. processing the tags to automatically skip content) (p. 0065).
Claim 8, Pont teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising receiving an indication of a trick play operation comprising at least one of:
a skip operation or a fast forward operation, and wherein updating the manifest comprises associating the trick play operation with the plurality of segments (fig. 10;. p. 0065).
Claim 9 is analyzed and interpreted as reciting similar features of claim 1.
Claim 10 is analyzed and interpreted as reciting similar features of claim 5.
Claim 11 is analyzed and interpreted as reciting similar features of claim 6.
Claim 12 is analyzed and interpreted as reciting similar features of claim 7.
Claim 13 is analyzed and interpreted as reciting similar features of claim 8.
Claim 14 is analyzed and interpreted as reciting similar features of claim 7.
Claim 15 is analyzed and interpreted as reciting similar features of claim 1.
Claim 16 is analyzed and interpreted as reciting similar features of claim 5.
Claim 17 is analyzed and interpreted as reciting similar features of claim 5.
Claim 18 is analyzed and interpreted as reciting similar features of claim 6.
Claim 19 is analyzed and interpreted as reciting similar features of claims 5 and 7.
Claim 20 is analyzed and interpreted as reciting similar features of claim 8.
Claim 21, Pont is not entirely clear in teaching the method of claim 1, wherein the indications of the plurality of segments are associated with locations of the plurality of segments.
Robertson teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the indications of the plurality of segments are associated with locations (i.e. indicators) of the plurality of segments (p. 0006-0007, 0044).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art and before the effective filing date of the present invention to have provided a modified manifest as taught by Robertson to the system of Pont to provide changes to the manifest for new content (p. 0006-0007, 0044).
Claim 22 is analyzed and interpreted as reciting similar features of claim 21.
Claim 23 is analyzed and interpreted as reciting similar features of claim 21.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-3, 5-23 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.
Claim 1, Applicant argues that The cited references do not teach or suggest "wherein the plurality of segments of the content item comprise a duration greater than a duration of the portion of the content item" as claimed
Claim 1 recites, in part, "determining a first segment of a plurality of segments of the content item that corresponds to the starting boundary point of the portion of the content item and a last segment of the plurality of segments of the content item that corresponds to the ending boundary point of the portion of the content item, wherein the plurality of segments of the content item comprise a duration greater than a duration of the portion of the content item." Claims 9 and 15 recite similar, though not identical features. Applicant respectfully submits that none of the cited prior art references teach or suggest these features.
In response to Applicant’s argument, reading the claims in the broadest sense, the way the claim limitations recited, specifically:
a starting boundary point of a portion of the content item and an ending boundary point of the portion of the content item;
determining a first segment of a plurality of segments of the content item-comprising that corresponds to the starting boundary point of the portion of the content item and a last segment of the plurality of segments of the content item that corresponds to the ending boundary point of the portion of the content item.
The limitation recites “a portion” of the full “content item”. The claims also go on to recite “segments of a plurality of segments” that make up the full “content item”. The full content item will always have a duration greater, or at least equal to “a portion” of the content item. The claims fail to distinguish or distinctly claim that the “the portion” is different from “a plurality of segments”. From the claims recitations the “plurality of segments” is merely “the portion” further segmented but the same duration as the portion and less of a duration than the full content item.
Conclusion
Claims 1-3, 5-23 are rejected.
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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 8/5/2026
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