DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1, 5, 6, 11, 12, 14, 15, and 19-32 are pending. Claims 1, 15, 19, 20, 23, 29, and 30 have been amended. Claims 1, 5, 6, 11, 12, 14, 15, and 19-32 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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 02/20/2026 has been entered.
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, 19-24, 26, 27, 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) and Danovitz, Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0074700 (hereinafter Danovitz).
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), each fragment having a data part and a metadata part describing information related to the data part (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 comprising the metadata part of the fragment (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’)), and at least one other segment provided by the server device (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0152], The server may transmit first parts of the MovieFragmentBox or the segment header, and the respective MediaDataBox(es) or the segment payload prior to transmitting second parts of the same MovieFragmentBox or the segment header (respectively)), different from the at least one segment (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0152], The server may transmit first parts of the MovieFragmentBox or the segment header, and the respective MediaDataBox(es) or the segment payload prior to transmitting second parts of the same MovieFragmentBox or the segment header (respectively)), comprising the data part of the same at least one fragment (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0152], The server may transmit first parts of the MovieFragmentBox or the segment header, and the respective MediaDataBox(es) or the segment payload prior to transmitting second parts of the same MovieFragmentBox or the segment header (respectively)), for a given time range (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0104], Subsegments may be indexed by Segment Index box(es) (which in syntax may be referred to as SegmentIndexBox), which contains information to map presentation time range), the metadata part belonging to a movie fragment box (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0079], The movie fragment feature may enable splitting the metadata that otherwise might reside in the movie box into multiple pieces), ‘moof’ box, and the data part belonging to a media data box (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0081], Details regarding the boxes that can be included in a moof box may be found from the ISO base media file format specification), ‘mdat’ or ‘imda’ box (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0073], The media data may be provided in a media data (mdat) box and the movie (moov) box may be used to enclose the metadata), the method being carried out by a client device and comprising (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0099], The media presentation description (MPD) may provide information for clients to establish a dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP):
requesting the metadata part of the at least one fragment based on the obtained first URL and obtaining the metadata part from the server device independently from the data part (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 metadata part and the obtained at least a portion of the data part (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 data part of the at least one fragment based on the obtained second URL, and obtain the at least a portion of the data part from the server device independently from the metadata part, and
However, Danovitz teaches:
requesting at least a portion of the data part of the at least one fragment based on the obtained second URL (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), and obtain the at least a portion of the data part from the server device independently from the metadata part (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).
Regarding claim 14, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz 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 21, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz further teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein the at least a portion of the data part of one or more fragments is received independently from receipt of all the metadata part with which it is associated (Wang Paragraph [0025], For streaming purposes, the movie fragments defined in ISOBMFF can be used, Paragraph [0023], metadata can be stored in a file conforming to ISOBMFF).
Regarding claim 22, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz further teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein requesting the at least a portion of the data part is based on the obtained media presentation description information and the obtained metadata part (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0231], A file encapsulator 100 takes media bitstreams of a media presentation as input, The HTTP streaming server 110 may respond to the request by transmitting the requested media file(s) and other information such as the metadata file(s)).
Regarding claim 23, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz 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 metadata part of the at least one fragment being a TilelndexSegment and at least one another segment comprising the data part 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 24, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz further teaches:
The method of claim 15, wherein the at least a portion of the data part of one or more fragments is transmitted independently from transmitting of all the metadata part with which it is associated (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0152], The server may transmit first parts of the MovieFragmentBox or the segment header, and the respective MediaDataBox(es) or the segment payload prior to transmitting second parts of the same MovieFragmentBox).
Regarding claim 26, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz further teaches:
The method of claim 15, wherein at least one segment of the plurality of segments comprises only the metadata part of one or more fragments associated with the data part of the one or more fragments (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0068], When media data is stored using a container file format, at least part of the metadata may be represented by the file format structures of the container file format).
Regarding claim 27, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz further teaches:
The method of claim 15, wherein at least one segment of the plurality of segments comprises only the data part of the one or more fragments (Malamal Vadakital Paragraph [0077], sample entry may point to one index of the Data Reference box (which, in the syntax, may be referred to as DataReferenceBox), thereby indicating the file containing the samples of the respective chunk or track fragment).
Regarding claim 29, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz 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 metadata part of the at least one fragment being a TilelndexSegment and at least one another segment comprising the data part 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 and Danovitz further teaches:
The method of claim 22, wherein the requesting at least a portion of the data part of the at least one fragment based on the obtained second URL consists in using byte ranges based on the obtained metadata part (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 and Danovitz 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 and Danovitz 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, 25, and 28 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, and Lee et al., Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0150499 (hereinafter Lee).
Regarding claim 5, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz teaches parent claim 1.
Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz does not expressly disclose:
further comprising obtaining index information, the obtained metadata associated with data 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 metadata part associated with a data part and the corresponding data.
However, Lee teaches:
further comprising obtaining index information, the obtained metadata associated with data 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 metadata part associated with a data part and the corresponding data (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, and Lee to have combined Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, 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 and Danovitz teaches parent claim 1.
Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz does not expressly disclose:
further comprising obtaining index information, the obtained metadata part associated with the data part 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 metadata part, a pointer of the set of pointers pointing to at least one block of corresponding data, 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 metadata part associated with the data part 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 metadata (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, 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, and Lee to have combined Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, 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 and Danovitz teaches parent claim 1.
Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz does not expressly disclose:
where the media presentation description information further comprises an indication that the data part can be received independently from receipt of all the metadata part with which it is associated.
However, Lee teaches:
where the media presentation description information further comprises an indication that the data part can be received independently from receipt of all the metadata part 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, and Lee to have combined Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, 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, 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 only a metadata part of one or more fragments (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 25, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz teaches parent claim 15.
Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz does not expressly disclose:
wherein the second request is based on the obtained media presentation description information and the obtained metadata part.
However, Lee teaches:
wherein the second request is based on the obtained media presentation description information and the obtained metadata part (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, and Lee to have combined Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, 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 28, Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz teaches parent claim 15.
Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang and Danovitz does not expressly disclose:
wherein the media presentation description information further comprises an indication that the data part can be received independently from receipt of all the metadata part with which it is associated.
However, Lee teaches:
wherein the media presentation description information further comprises an indication that the data part can be received independently from receipt of all the metadata part 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, and Lee to have combined Malamal Vadakital in view of Wang, Danovitz, 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, see pages 9-10, filed 02/20/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1, 5, 6, 11, 12, 14, 15, and 19-32 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 amendments and the newly cited Malamal Vadakital reference. Malamal Vadakital teaches a plurality of fragments and media encapsulation (Paragraphs 152 and 153) while Wang teaches a plurality of URLs (Paragraphs 22 and 28).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Hendry et al., Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0103199 (hereinafter Hendry). Hendry teaches media data boxes and metadata included in track fragment boxes (Paragraph 188). Hendry further teaches ISO base media files and fragments (Paragraph 189). This shows that Hendry is analogous art as it teaches similar files and fragments as the claimed inventions.
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/DUSTIN D EYERS/ Examiner, Art Unit 2164
/AMY NG/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2164