DETAILED ACTION
This is responsive to the amendment filed 17 December 2025.
Claims 1-3, 6, 8-11, 13, 15-18, 20, 23, 25-28 and 30 remain pending and are considered below.
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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 17 December 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues:
Toub is silent as to determining a plurality of scenes relevant to the search criterion and is silent as to any plurality of scenes being non-contiguous in the subset of the plurality of media content files as recited in amended claim 1. Moreover, Toub has no discussion on "generating derivative media content by stitching together the plurality of scenes relevant to the search criterion into a single media content file based on a user selection of at least one of a plurality of stitching options," as recited in amended claim 1.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Toub explicitly discloses determining a plurality of scenes relevant to the search criterion where the plurality of scenes are non-contiguous in the subset of the plurality of media content files (“search engine module 185 can scan through the transcription index file 170 and find numerous places where the keywords or phrases occur within the multimedia content 115. In this embodiment, a user may be provided with snippets of the actual text containing the keywords or phrases. This list can then be presented to the user for selecting one of the various snippets for consumption at playing device 175”, [0039], see also Fig. 1C, item 114 where the time shows non-contiguous snippets). Moreover, Toub explicitly discloses generating derivative media content by stitching together the plurality of scenes relevant to the search criterion into a single media content file based on a user selection of at least one of a plurality of stitching options (“a user can type in "hurricane" into search engine module 185, wherein the search engine module 185 will scan the transcription index file 170 and find those portions of the multimedia content that contain information about hurricanes. In such instance, each snippet 180 may be played in chronological (or any other order) for a predetermined period of time--that is optionally adjustable. For example, the user may be able to set snippet 180 durations for fifteen seconds and see a brief overview of the events that have occurred for hurricanes throughout the day on a news channel”, [0041]).
Applicant’s remaining arguments are moot in view of the new ground of rejection herein.
Therefore, all of Applicant’s arguments have been addressed and they are not persuasive.
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.
Claims 1-3, 6, 8-11, 13, 15-18, 20, 25, 27-28 and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Toub et al. (US 2007/0027844) in view of Sincaglia et al. (US 20010047377) and Tesch et al. (US 2014/0164371).
Claim 1:
Toub discloses a computer-implemented method, comprising:
receiving, from a user device, user input identifying a search criteria (“Using the search engine module 185, user input 132 can be received for entering keywords or phrases to search for within the multimedia content”, [0039]);
searching, by operation of one or more computer processors, data repository for metadata associated with a plurality of media content files based on the search criterion; wherein the metadata are associated with the plurality of media content files to identify a subset of the plurality of media content files, the subset of the plurality of media content files comprising one or more media content files of the plurality of media content files located in the repository, wherein the plurality of media content files include one or more scenes that match the search criteria (“search engine module 185 can scan through the transcription index file 170 and find numerous places where the keywords or phrases occur within the multimedia content 115”, [0039], see also “one or more keywords are received as user input when requesting a search for multimedia content from among a plurality of multimedia files, wherein each of the plurality of multimedia files includes multimedia content used for consumption at a playing device”, [0014], see also “an act of accessing 260 metadata for each of the plurality of multimedia files”, [0068]); wherein the one or more scenes comprise a sequence of frames relating to an event, a scene location, or a part of a story (“For example, say a user has been recording news stations and/or other multimedia content 115 that was broadcast 110 throughout the day. A user may desire to see snippets 180 of that information of interest. For example, the user may wish to see news reports containing information about a natural disaster such as a hurricane … once a desired location is found, it could be programmed to play until there is … a black or blank frame in the video”, [0041]);
providing, to the user device, search results identifying the subset of the plurality of media content files (“a user may be provided with snippets of the actual text containing the keywords or phrases. This list can then be presented to the user for selecting one of the various snippets for consumption at playing device 175 … the user may select any one of them and jump to that portion of the multimedia content 115 using the playing device 175”, [0039], see also “each of the snippets 180 or portions of the multimedia content 115 that include the keywords or phrases of interest may be automatically played in either a systematical or random ordering”, [0041]), and
determining, using a search, a plurality of scenes relevant to the search criterion based on at least the metadata, the plurality of scenes being non-contiguous in the subset of the plurality of media content files (“search engine module 185 can scan through the transcription index file 170 and find numerous places where the keywords or phrases occur within the multimedia content 115. In this embodiment, a user may be provided with snippets of the actual text containing the keywords or phrases. This list can then be presented to the user for selecting one of the various snippets for consumption at playing device 175”, [0039], see also Fig. 1C, item 114 where the time shows non-contiguous snippets);
generating derivative media content by stitching together the plurality of scenes relevant to the search criterion into a single media content file based on a user selection of at least one of a plurality of stitching options; and presenting, via the user device, the derivative media content (“a user can type in "hurricane" into search engine module 185, wherein the search engine module 185 will scan the transcription index file 170 and find those portions of the multimedia content that contain information about hurricanes. In such instance, each snippet 180 may be played in chronological (or any other order) for a predetermined period of time--that is optionally adjustable. For example, the user may be able to set snippet 180 durations for fifteen seconds and see a brief overview of the events that have occurred for hurricanes throughout the day on a news channel”, [0041]).
Toub does not explicitly disclose that the search used in determining the results to the search criterion as a hierarchical search.
In a method similarly determining results to search criterion of media content, Sincaglia discloses the search as a hierarchical search (“If the media data files are not found in the primary media data file storage, then a "not found" message is sent to the client device. The client device then determines whether the meta data includes the network addresses for alternate media data file storage that contains the requested media data. If an alternate media data file storage does not exist, then the client must request another media data file from the meta data server. If the meta data includes an alternate media data file storage address, then the client device requests the media data from the alternate media data file server. The media data file server processes the request and messages the alternate media data file storage to search for the requested media data”, [0041]).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the references to yield the predictable result of determining Toub’s search results using a hierarchical search in order to conducted an efficient search strategy where alternate file storages are searched only in cases where results are not found in a primary file storage (see Sincaglia, [0029]).
Toub in view of Sincaglia does not explicitly disclose wherein the repository comprises a plurality of repositories and wherein the metadata describes an actor, an actress, a character role, an emotion, an action, at theme, or a plot point associated with each scene of the plurality of media content files.
In a method similarly searching for media content, Tesch discloses searching in a plurality of data repositories (“the media search component 108 is configured to search large volumes of memory storage and different data storages that can have multiple different types of libraries, files, applications, video content, audio content, etc., as well as to search data stores of third party servers, cloud resources, data stores of client devices, such as mobile devices. The media search component can identify video content (e.g., movies, home videos, video files, etc.) and/or audio content (e.g., movies, videos, video files, songs, audio books, audio files, etc.) from the data store(s) searched”, [0043]) and wherein media content metadata describes an actor, an actress, a character role, an emotion, an action, at theme, or a plot point associated with each scene of the plurality of media content files (“the media search component 108 can search media content based on predefined classifications, such as use preferences that can includes, a theme, an artist, an actor or actress, a rating, a target audience, time period, author, and the like”, [0043], see also “the media content can be tagged and indexed with metadata that further identifies and/or classifies the media content”, [0042]).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the references to yield the predictable result of performing Toub’s search in a plurality of repositories in order to access media content data stored in different data stores, including third-party data stores (see Tesch, [0043]) and describe, characterize and search media using actors, themes, actions and plots (see Tesch, [0043]).
Toub in view of Sincaglia and Tesch further discloses, wherein at least one media content file of the plurality of media content files is associated with a first content provider, and at least one media content file of the plurality of media content files is associated with a second content provider different than the first content provider (Toub, “For example, say a user has been recording news stations and/or other multimedia content 115 that was broadcast 110 throughout the day” (emphasis added), [0041], see also “the media search component 108 is configured to search large volumes of memory storage and different data storages”, Tesch, [0043]), wherein media content files associated with the first content provider and media content files associated with the second content provider comprise a plurality of content themes (Toub, “For example, say a user has been recording news stations and/or other multimedia content 115 that was broadcast 110 throughout the day” (emphasis added), [0041], see also “different data storages that can have multiple different types of libraries, files, applications, video content, audio content, etc”, Tesch, [0043]).
Claim 2:
Toub in view of Sincaglia and Tesch discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the metadata further describes an object or a location associated with each scene of the plurality of media content files (Toub, [0056]).
Claim 3:
Toub in view of Sincaglia and Tesch discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the metadata further describes a dialog or a song associated with each scene of the plurality of media content files (Toub, [0045]).
Claim 6:
Toub in view of Sincaglia and Tesch discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the user input comprises vocal user input (Toub, [0034]), and wherein the computer-implemented method further comprises: initiating a speech-to-text recognition process to ascertain the search criterion from the vocal user input (Toub, [0059]).
Claims 8-10 and 13:
Toub in view of Sincaglia and Tesch discloses a non-transitory computer-readable medium containing a program executable to perform an operation (Toub, [0030]-[0031]) comprising the steps of process claims 1-3 and 6 as shown above.
Claim 11:
Toub in view of Sincaglia and Tesch discloses the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the metadata further describes a subtitle associated with each scene of the plurality of media content files (Toub, [0045], see also “closed captioning” in [0035]).
Claims 15-17 and 20:
Toub in view of Sincaglia and Tesch discloses a system comprising: one or more computer processors; a memory containing a program executable by the one or more computer processors to perform an operation (Toub, [0029]-[0031]) comprising the steps of process claims 1-3 and 6 as shown above.
Claim 18:
Toub in view of Sincaglia and Tesch discloses the system of claim 15, wherein the metadata further describes a subtitle associated with each scene of the plurality of media content files (Toub, [0045], see also “closed captioning” in [0035]).
Claim 25:
Toub in view of Sincaglia and Tesch discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the stitching option comprises generating the derivative media content to include a story line within the story, based on the search results (Toub, [0041]).
Claim 27:
Toub in view of Sincaglia and Tesch discloses the non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the stitching option comprises generating the derivative media content to include a story line within the story, based on the search results (Toub, [0041]).
Claim 28:
Toub in view of Sincaglia and Tesch discloses the system of claim 15, wherein the stitching option comprises generating the derivative media content to include a story line within the story, based on the metadata (Toub, [0041]).
Claim 30:
Toub in view of Sincaglia and Tesch discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein: at least one data repository of the plurality of data repositories comprises a third party data repository, and at least one of the metadata and at least one of the media content files are sourced from the at least one third party data repository (Tesch, [0043]).
Claim 23 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Toub et al. (US 2007/0027844) in view of Sincaglia et al. (US 20010047377), Tesch et al. (US 2014/0164371) and Ouchi et al. (US 2010/0076763).
Claim 23:
Toub in view of Sincaglia and Tesch discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1, but does not explicitly disclose wherein identifying the subset of the plurality of media content files comprises applying a first search reference to identify potentially relevant media content files of the plurality of media content files and applying a second search reference to identify, in the potentially relevant media content files, the subset of the plurality of media content files.
In a similar searching for at least one portion of media by identifying a subset of a plurality of media content files, Ouchi discloses wherein identifying the subset of the plurality of media content files comprises applying a first search reference to identify potentially relevant media content files of the plurality of media content files and applying a second search reference to identify, in the potentially relevant media content files, the subset of the plurality of media content files (“the search performed by the first search unit 28 by using the first search keyword, a large number of program candidates are displayed as shown in FIG. 13, whereas the program candidates can be narrowed as shown in FIG. 15 by the narrowing search performed by the second search unit 29 by using the second search keyword”, [0044], see also [0040]).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the references to yield the predictable result of wherein Toub’s identifying the subset of the plurality of media content files comprises applying a first search reference to identify potentially relevant media content files of the plurality of media content files and applying a second search reference to identify, in the potentially relevant media content files, the subset of the plurality of media content files in order to narrow an initial search because “in the case where a large number of the search results are present, it is difficult to find the desired information” (see Ouchi, [0065]).
Claim 26 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Toub et al. (US 2007/0027844) in view of Sincaglia et al. (US 20010047377), Tesch et al. (US 2014/0164371) and Thompson et al. (US 2013/0013305).
Claim 26:
Toub in view of Sincaglia and Tesch discloses the computer implemented method of claim 1, but does not explicitly disclose wherein providing the search results to the user device further comprises representing the search results as a heat map including one or more colors representative of a relevance score based on the one or more scenes that match the search criterion.
In a similar method for providing search results identifying a subset of a plurality of media content files, Thomson discloses wherein providing the search results to the user device further comprises representing the search results as a heat map including one or more colors representative of a relevance score based on the one or more scenes that match the search criterion (“FIG. 3 illustrates a heat-map search-results display that is added to the content-rendering application interface shown in FIG. 2 according to embodiments of the present invention. The heat-map search-results display may be provided by a client-side search-results-rendering application downloaded from a content-search-service system”, [0028], see also [0031]).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the references to yield the predictable result of providing Toub’s search results to the user device by representing the search results as a heat map including one or more colors representative of a relevance score based on the one or more scenes that match the search criterion because “one can easily determine, by visual inspection of the heat map superimposed within the horizontal bar 124, that content related to the currently-specified search criterion may be most probably found” in particular positions (see Thompson, [0028]).
Conclusion
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAMUEL G NEWAY whose telephone number is (571)270-1058. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9:00am-5:00pm EST.
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/SAMUEL G NEWAY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2657