DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1, 5, 6, 11, 12, 14, 15, and 19, 20, 23, and 28-32 are pending. Claims 1, 5, 6, 11, 12, 15, 19, 20, 23, and 28-30 have been amended. Claims 21, 22, and 24-27 have been canceled. Claims 1, 5, 6, 11, 12, 14, 15, and 19, 20, 23, and 28-32 are rejected.
The instant application claims foreign priority to GB1903134.3 filed on 03/08/2019 and GB1909205.5 filed on 06/26/2019.
The instant application is a 371 of PCT/EP2020/055467 filed on 03/02/2020.
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 § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1, 5, 6, 11, 12, 14, 23, 30, 31, and 32 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the movie fragment box". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Claim 1 appears to have an error of establishing a “moving fragment box” when it appears that this should be the claimed movie fragment box. The Examiner will treat the moving fragment box as the movie fragment box.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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 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, 14, 15, 19, 20, and 29-32 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Malamal Vadakital et al., Patent Application Publication No. 2019/0052937 (hereinafter Malamal Vadakital) in view of Wang et al., Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0199075 (hereinafter Wang), Danovitz, Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0074700 (hereinafter Danovitz), and Hendry et al., Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0232233 (hereinafter Hendry).
Regarding claim 1, Malamal Vadakital teaches:
A method for processing encapsulated media data provided by a server device (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0153], a media encapsulator is connected to the server), the encapsulated media data complying with the ISO Base Media File Format (ISOBMFF) standard and comprising a plurality of fragments (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0208], In order to facilitate the addressing of boxes in the URL fragments the following additions for an URL fragment scheme of ISOBMFF may be implemented), a moving fragment box and a media data box described by the movie fragment box (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0084], Files conforming to the ISOBMFF may contain any non-timed objects, referred to as items, meta items, or metadata items, in a meta box (four-character code: ‘meta’)), at least one fragment of the plurality being encapsulated as at least one segment provided by the server device (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0084], Files conforming to the ISOBMFF may contain any non-timed objects, referred to as items, meta items, or metadata items, in a meta box (four-character code: ‘meta’)),
requesting the movie fragment box the at least one fragment based on the obtained first URL and obtaining the movie fragment box from the server device independently from the media data box (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0149], The player may handle identified missing data, for example, by notifying the user and/or by requesting the missing data from a server, e.g. using the URL fragment(s) associated with the missing file-level box(es));
generating a media data bitstream from the obtained movie fragment box and the obtained at least a portion of the media data box (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0231], A file encapsulator 100 takes media bitstreams of a media presentation as input. The bitstreams may already be encapsulated in one or more container files, Paragraph [0067], Metadata may be understood to comprise structural or descriptive information about media data).
Malamal Vadakital does not expressly disclose:
obtaining, from the server device, media presentation description information of the encapsulated media data, the media presentation description information complying with the MPEG-DASH standard and comprising a first Uniform Resource Location, URL, indicating a location of the at least one segment and a second URL, different from the first URL, indicating a location of the at least one other segment;
However, Wang teaches:
obtaining, from the server device, media presentation description information of the encapsulated media data (Wang Paragraph [0070], determine which segments are to be included in an AnticipatedRequests SAND message during a DASH streaming session. Such information, if present as file format metadata, may be directly accessed by the DASH client, Paragraph [0119], server device 60 may signal information on a timed metadata level, where server device 60 may provide the metadata as a separate track that can be understood by client), the media presentation description information complying with the MPEG-DASH standard and comprising a first Uniform Resource Location, URL (Wang Paragraph [0094], The requests may specify a segment of one of representations 68, e.g., using a URL of the segment. In some examples, the requests may also specify one or more byte ranges of the segment, thus comprising partial GET requests. Request processing unit 70 may further be configured to service HTTP HEAD requests to provide header data of a segment of one of representations 68), indicating a location of the at least one segment and a second URL, different from the first URL (Wang Paragraph [0028], The HEAD operation retrieves a header of a file associated with a given uniform resource locator (URL) or uniform resource name (URN), without retrieving a payload associated with the URL or URN. The GET operation retrieves a whole file associated with a given URL or URN), indicating a location of the at least one other segment (Wang Paragraph [0022], File format standards include ISO base media file format (ISOBMFF, ISO/IEC 14496-12), and other standards derived from the ISOBMFF, including MPEG-4 file format);
The claimed invention and Wang are from the analogous art of systems using ISOBMFF. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having the teachings of Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang to have combined Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang. Wang teaches reducing latency which improves a user’s experience and also reduce processing required by MANE (Paragraph 158).
Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang does not expressly disclose:
requesting at least a portion of the media data box of the at least one fragment based on the obtained second URL and on the obtained movie fragment box, and obtain the at least a portion of the media data box from the server device independently from the movie fragment box, and
However, Danovitz teaches:
requesting at least a portion of the media data box of the at least one fragment based on the obtained second URL and on the obtained movie fragment box (Danovitz Paragraph [0041], second user using a gaming console at a second location may access network DVR 106 and cause network DVR 106 to send content for display on the second user's gaming console, Paragraph [0079], a published post may include a link such as a uniform resource locator (URL) or other reference to a storage location of the media content segment metadata (Malamal Vadakital teaches the boxes)), and obtain the at least a portion of the media data box from the server device independently from the movie fragment box (Danovitz Paragraph [0091], embodiment, the media device receives segment metadata associated with the media content (Step 406). The segment metadata may be received separately from the media content or as data embedded with the media content), and
The claimed invention and Danovitz are from the analogous art of content systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having the teachings of Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz to have combined Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz. Danovitz teaches the improvements in sharing customized multimedia content segments among media devices by generating metadata that describes the one or more identified media content segments (Paragraphs 2 and 31).
Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz does not expressly disclose:
comprising at least one media data box of the same at least one fragment and no movie fragment box, for a given time range, the method being carried out by a client device and comprising:
However, Hendry teaches:
including the movie fragment box of the at least one fragment and no media data box (Hendry Paragraph [0172], Movie box 302 and Media Data boxes 304 may be in separate files), and at least one other segment provided by the server device (Hendry Paragraph [0172], Movie box 302 and Media Data boxes 304 may be in separate files), different from the at least one segment (Hendry Paragraph [0172], Movie box 302 and Media Data boxes 304 may be in separate files), comprising at least one media data box of the same at least one fragment and no movie fragment box (Hendry Paragraph [0172], Movie box 302 and Media Data boxes 304 may be in separate files), for a given time range (Hendry Paragraph [0070], The Sample Table box contains a sample table that contains all the time and data indexing of the media samples in a track), the method being carried out by a client device and comprising (Hendry Paragraph [0136], additional network devices may be provided along a network path between server device 102 and client device 108):
The claimed invention and Hendry are from the analogous art of media systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having the teachings of Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, and Hendry to have combined Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, and Hendry. Hendry teaches improving the design of sample grouping mechanism and signaling of stream access point sample grouping in files formed according to the ISO base media file format (Paragraph 6).
Regarding claim 14, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, and Hendry further teaches:
The method of claim 1, further comprising de-encapsulating the received encapsulated media data (Wang Paragraph [0031], such that any of the representations may be selected for decoding to present media data, such as video data or audio data, of the multimedia content for the corresponding period); and
processing the de-encapsulated media data (Wang Paragraph [0031], such that any of the representations may be selected for decoding to present media data, such as video data or audio data, of the multimedia content for the corresponding period).
Claims 15, 19 and 20 are rejected in the same manner as claim 1 but are merely directed to a different embodiment of the same invention. Malamal Vadakital teaches the additional elements such as a processor and memory in Paragraph 11.
Regarding claim 23, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, and Hendry further teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein the encapsulated media data are received based on a tiled-based streaming, at least one segment comprising the movie fragment box of the at least one fragment being a TilelndexSegment and at least one another segment comprising the media data box of the at least one fragment being a TileDataSegment (Wang Paragraph [0059], Signaling of most-interested regions directly using tile ID as specified in HEVC, groupID as defined in ISO/IEC 14496-15, track ID as defined in ISO/IEC 14496-12, or DASH representation ID as defined in ISO/IEC 23009-1).
Regarding claim 29, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, and Hendry further teaches:
The method of claim 15, wherein the encapsulated media data are transmitted based on a tiled-based streaming, at least one segment comprising the movie fragment box of the at least one fragment being a TilelndexSegment and at least one another segment comprising the media data box of the at least one fragment being a TileDataSegment (Wang Paragraph [0059], Signaling of most-interested regions directly using tile ID as specified in HEVC, groupID as defined in ISO/IEC 14496-15, track ID as defined in ISO/IEC 14496-12, or DASH representation ID as defined in ISO/IEC 23009-1).
Regarding claim 30, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, and Hendry further teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein the requesting at least a portion of the media data box of the at least one fragment based on the obtained second URL consists in using byte ranges based on the obtained movie fragment box (Wang Paragraph [0028], The partial GET operation receives a byte range as an input parameter and retrieves a continuous number of bytes of a file, where the number of bytes correspond to the received byte range. Thus, movie fragments may be provided for HTTP streaming, because a partial GET operation can get one or more individual movie fragments).
Regarding claim 31, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, and Hendry further teaches:
The method of claim 23, wherein the TileIndexSegment is declared as an ‘styp’ box with a specific brand (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0208], For segment related boxes, such as ‘styp’, ‘sidx’, and ‘ssix’, the id value may be a combination of reference_ID and earliest_presentation_time fields of the associated SegmentIndexBox (‘sidx’), e.g. separated with a separator character, such as the slash character).
Regarding claim 32, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, and Hendry further teaches:
The method of claim 23, wherein a TileData Segment contains identified media data boxes (Wang Paragraph [0024], A box is an elementary syntax structure in the ISOBMFF, including a four-character coded box type, a byte count for the box, and a payload. An ISOBMFF file includes a sequence of boxes, and boxes may contain other boxes. A Movie box (“moov”) contains the metadata for the continuous media streams present in the file).
Claim(s) 5, 6, 11, 12, and 28 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, Hendry, and Lee et al., Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0150499 (hereinafter Lee).
Regarding claim 5, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, and Hendry teaches parent claim 1.
Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, and Hendry does not expressly disclose:
further comprising obtaining index information, the obtained movie fragment box associated with the media data box being obtained as a function of the obtained index information, wherein the index information comprises at least one pair of indexes, the at least one pair of indexes enabling the client device to locate separately a movie fragment box associated with a media data box and the corresponding data of the media data box.
However, Lee teaches:
further comprising obtaining index information, the obtained movie fragment box associated with the media data box being obtained as a function of the obtained index information (Lee Paragraph [0020], system searches metadata indexes for an index that corresponds to the at least one pair in the received metadata log), wherein the index information comprises at least one pair of indexes (Lee Paragraph [0020], system searches metadata indexes for an index that corresponds to the at least one pair in the received metadata log), the at least one pair of indexes enabling the client device to locate separately a movie fragment box associated with a media data box and the corresponding data of the media data box (Lee Paragraph [0020], system searches metadata indexes for an index that corresponds to the at least one pair in the received metadata log).
The claimed invention and Lee are from the analogous art of metadata systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having the teachings of Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, Hendry, and Lee to have combined Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, Hendry, and Lee. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that indexes and pointers would allow for easier access to metadata by allowing those elements to reference the metadata (Lee Paragraph 20 and 59).
Regarding claim 6, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, and Hendry teaches parent claim 1.
Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, and Hendry does not expressly disclose:
further comprising obtaining index information, the obtained movie fragment box associated with the media data box being obtained as a function of the obtained index information, wherein the obtained index information comprises at least one set of pointers, a pointer of the set of pointers pointing to the movie fragment box, a pointer of the set of pointers pointing to at least one block of corresponding data of the media data box, and a pointer of the set of pointers pointing to an item of index information different from the obtained index information.
However, Lee teaches:
further comprising obtaining index information, the obtained movie fragment box associated with the media data box being obtained as a function of the obtained index information (Lee Paragraph [0020], system searches metadata indexes for an index that corresponds to the at least one pair in the received metadata log), wherein the obtained index information comprises at least one set of pointers (Lee Paragraph [0059], a field of metadata object includes an array of or pointer to another metadata object), a pointer of the set of pointers pointing to the movie fragment box (Lee Paragraph [0059], a field of metadata object includes an array of or pointer to another metadata object), a pointer of the set of pointers pointing to at least one block of corresponding data of the media data box, and a pointer of the set of pointers pointing to an item of index information different from the obtained index information (Lee Paragraph [0020], Responsive to determining an index that corresponds to the at least one pair, the system identifies a metadata object associated with the index and applies a change to a metadata structure of the identified metadata object).
The claimed invention and Lee are from the analogous art of metadata systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having the teachings of Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, Hendry, and Lee to have combined Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, Hendry, and Lee. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that indexes and pointers would allow for easier access to metadata by allowing those elements to reference the metadata (Lee Paragraph 20 and 59).
Regarding claim 11, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, and Hendry teaches parent claim 1.
Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, and Hendry does not expressly disclose:
where the media presentation description information further comprises an indication that the media data box can be received independently from receipt of the movie fragment box with which it is associated.
However, Lee teaches:
where the media presentation description information further comprises an indication that the media data box can be received independently from receipt of the movie fragment box with which it is associated (Lee Paragraph [0127], metadata catalog framework 1100 can store the relationship among metadata objects of a metadata catalog by linking the metadata objects through pointers associated with each metadata object).
The claimed invention and Lee are from the analogous art of metadata systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having the teachings of Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, Hendry, and Lee to have combined Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, Hendry, and Lee. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that indexes and pointers would allow for easier access to metadata by allowing those elements to reference the metadata (Lee Paragraph 20 and 59).
Regarding claim 12, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, Hendry, and Lee further teaches:
The method of claim 5, wherein the indexes of the pair of indexes are associated with different types of data among metadata (Lee Paragraph [0020], system searches metadata indexes for an index that corresponds to the at least one pair in the received metadata log), data, and data comprising both metadata and data and wherein the obtained media presentation description information further comprises a link for enabling the client device to request the at least one segment of the plurality of segments comprising the movie fragment boxes of one or more fragments and no media data box (Lee Paragraph [0127], metadata catalog framework 1100 can store the relationship among metadata objects of a metadata catalog by linking the metadata objects through pointers associated with each metadata object).
Regarding claim 28, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, and Hendry teaches parent claim 15.
Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, and Hendry does not expressly disclose:
wherein the media presentation description information further comprises an indication that the media data box can be received independently from receipt of the movie fragment box with which it is associated.
However, Lee teaches:
wherein the media presentation description information further comprises an indication that the media data box can be received independently from receipt of the movie fragment box with which it is associated (Lee Paragraph [0127], metadata catalog framework 1100 can store the relationship among metadata objects of a metadata catalog by linking the metadata objects through pointers associated with each metadata object).
The claimed invention and Lee are from the analogous art of metadata systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having the teachings of Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, Hendry, and Lee to have combined Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, Hendry, and Lee. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that indexes and pointers would allow for easier access to metadata by allowing those elements to reference the metadata (Lee Paragraph 20 and 59).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 07/24/2026 have been fully considered and they are either persuasive or they are not persuasive. A detailed explanation is provided below.
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 9-10, filed 07/24/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1, 5, 6, 11, 12, 14, 15, and 19, 20, 23, and 28-32 under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of the amendment and the newly cited Hendry reference. Hendry teaches a movie box separate from a media box.
Applicant argues that Malamal Vadakital does not teach the claimed URL, the Examiner disagrees. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that if the files are kept separate as in Hendry that they would have to be sent separately. The Examiner has used two different references for showing how each of the files can be sent in view of the newly cited Hendry reference. Therefore, the combination of prior art teach this limitation.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Fix et al., Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0280264 (hereinafter Fix). Fix teaches media-data “mdat” boxes and movie “moov” boxes that contain metadata (Paragraph 8). This shows that the claimed invention and Fix are analogous art as both use these same types of data.
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.
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/DUSTIN D EYERS/ Examiner, Art Unit 2164
/AMY NG/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2164
