DETAILED ACTION
Claim Interpretation
The phrases “for review to facilitate selecting...”, “for preview an option to select...”, “to be restricted from the video during playback of the video”, “for restriction based on collaborative-based recommendations”, “for selection for restriction during playback”, “to allow for efficient identification...”, “for use in restricting the portions of the video during playback for the one or more audience groups”, in claims 1 ,12, 19 and “for providing previews for restriction” in claim 11 are considered statements of intended use and fail to impart further structural elements to the claim. That is, language that suggests or makes a feature or step optional but does not require that feature or step does not limit the scope of a claim under the broadest reasonable claim interpretation (MPEP 2103).
Response to Amendment
The amendment filed on 07/17/25 has been entered. Claims 1-20 are pending in the application.
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 12, 19 are objected to because of the following informalities:
"for preview an option" should be "for preview and an option" [Claim 1, line 17];
"previews for selection" should be "previews of the content or collaborative-based recommendations for selection " [Claims 1, 12, 19, lines 20/22, 22/24, 21/23];
"during playback" should be “during the playback" [Claims 1, 12, 19, various lines].
Appropriate correction is required. Further, in an effort to practice compact prosecution, each of these limitations has been interpreted similarly as in the provided recommendation for each limitation, above.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claims 1, 12 ,19 recite the limitation "content-based recommendations" in lines 19, 22, 20, respectively. This portion of the limitation is unclear because, prior to this portion of the limitation, the claims also recite “at least a first recommendation of a first portion of the video as a content-based recommendation” initially. Therefore, it is not clear if the latter recitation of content-based recommendations refers to the same content-based recommendations as initially recited, or are perhaps, are a different grouping of them. For this reason, these claims fail to particularly point out and distinctly define the metes and bounds of the subject matter to be protected by the patent grant (MPEP 2171). Claims 2-11, 13-18, 20 are also rejected for the same reason due to their dependency on claims 1, 12, 19;
Claims 1, 12 ,19 recite the limitation "collaborative-based recommendations" in lines 21, 24, 22, respectively. This portion of the limitation is unclear because, prior to this portion of the limitation, the claims also recite “at least a second recommendation of a second portion of the video as a collaborative-based recommendation” initially. Therefore, it is not clear if the latter recitation of collaborative-based recommendations refers to the same collaborative-based recommendations as initially recited, or are perhaps, are a different grouping of them. For this reason, these claims fail to particularly point out and distinctly define the metes and bounds of the subject matter to be protected by the patent grant (MPEP 2171). Claims 2-11, 13-18, 20 are also rejected for the same reason due to their dependency on claims 1, 12, 19.
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 of this title, 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, 6-7, 10-12, 16-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Errico (US 2006/0282856) in view of Kandekar (US 2009/0288112) and Hao (US 11,829,413) and further in view of Pearce (US 2020/0169787).
Regarding claim 1, Errico discloses:
A computer-implemented method for restricting video content, comprising: receiving recommendations of portions of a video to display for review to facilitate selecting one or more of the portions of the video to be restricted from the video ... for one or more audience groups, wherein receiving the recommendations includes receiving at least a first recommendation of a first portion of the video as a content-based recommendation to restrict offensive content from the video...; and receiving a second recommendation of a second portion of the video as a collaborative-based recommendation to restrict offensive content from the video based on collaborative filtering to identify the second portion of the video...; displaying, via an interface, an output of the portions of the video that are recommended for preview an option to select restricting the portions of the video ... for the one or more audience groups, wherein displaying the output is based on a selection, via the interface, of both of an option to display, based on content-based recommendations, previews for selection for restriction ... and an option to display, based on collaborative-based recommendations, previews for selection for restriction ... ([0040] discloses that collaborative filtering functionality is performed only if desired (optional) [0085] lists the processing sequence for suggested filtering of content based on manual/automatic (content-based) and/or collaborative filtering [0128] The publishing viewer may choose to mask or filter their outbound recommendations with the manual privacy filter 1260. The user should have the option to manually override and disable recommendation publication with an interface 1270. This may be done for a single program, for a definable period of time, or until further notice. [0129] The user may automatically filter recommendations that meet a pre-defined content criterion, or that occur in a predefined environment (e.g. time, location, or device). This automatic privacy filter may be based on a dedicated privacy content preference filter description. All of the publication privacy filters may be customized for each recipient. For instance, the user may automatically or manually filter recommendations for a particular subscribing viewer or subscribing viewer set. This is especially important when the user has multiple viewer sets with varying privacy characteristics [0135] The collaborative processing node 1300 is generally the point where publisher recommendation inputs are aggregated into viewer set recommendations. Then these viewer set recommendations are distributed to the recommendation subscriber targets. The collaborative processing may be performed in the server, publishing clients, subscriber client, or a combination of these. (Some of the approaches described herein may require a centralized collaborative processor, but some can be distributed [0153] The inbound recommendation data is filtered to remove unwanted items. The filters are based on configuration preferences defined for the target (subscribing) viewer. Inbound recommendation data may be filtered to insure it is within a desired criteria. The target subscribing viewer may use his regular content preference filters or a specialized inbound content preference filter 1320) [0043] A presentation and interaction processor 322 may format the recommendations for presentation to the user and provide a structure for the user to interact and act upon the recommendation);
receiving, via the interface and for a user profile, indications of whether to restrict the portions of the video ... for the one or more audience groups ([0163] The presentation 1350 and interaction processes 1360 make up the extended user interface. This includes the preparation, display, and interaction of the recommendations);
and storing the indications for use in restricting the portions of the video ... for the one or more audience groups ([0026] The presence based system may arrange the publishers as sets of viewers in a variety of different arrangements. The recommendations originating from the publishing viewers may include, for example, current program selection, noted selections, accumulated/refined program selections (such as based upon usage history), content selection, preference descriptions, and channel selections, where program and content selection include program and content watching or otherwise recording [0072] Users of the system may have personal profiles. The system may maintain identification and other presence information. When viewers join organized viewer sets (groups or communities), additional member profile information may be maintained for the user. Viewers that are members of multiple viewer sets may have a profile for each set. All profile information may be classified as visible or hidden to all, to the other members of the viewer set, to the administrator, and even to the target viewer. Some examples of viewer profile information is described below. Viewer identity, including name, handle, password, address, e-mail, IP address, etc. Home audio and/or video configuration. Content provider details. Inferred statistical data about the viewer and his recommendations. This may include viewing durations of particular video content, recommendation accept/reject rate, usage history, auto-profiled preferences, search history, etc. Configuration settings for processing preferences may be part of the profile, and may be managed at the viewer location and/or they may be managed as part of the viewer set. This may include subscription and publication settings, content preferences, permission/access control lists, etc. [0098] logging of usage history) and Fig. 12 shows the storage of usage history.
Errico fails to disclose “...by another user profile having one or more parameters of similar value to the user profile; ... during playback of the video ...; determined based on content of the video using an artificial-intelligence-based mechanism; and wherein displaying the output includes displaying the portions of the video without displaying the video content entirely to allow for efficient identification of portions of the video to be restricted during playback of the video”
However, Kandekar teaches ... during playback of the video ...; and wherein displaying the output includes displaying the portions of the video without displaying the video content entirely to allow for efficient identification of portions of the video to be restricted during playback of the video ([0054] discloses the display of objectionable scenes to a user during playback to allow for them to be skipped using the pull-down menu as shown in Fig. 3).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Kandekar into the teaching of Errico because the references similarly disclose restricting content. Consequently, one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to further modify the system as in Errico to further include restricting of scenes during playback as in Kandekar to protect certain users from seeing explicit content without affecting the experience of the user (Kandekar, [0003]-[0004]).
Errico, Kandekar fails to disclose “...by another user profile having one or more parameters of similar value to the user profile; ...determined based on content of the video using an artificial-intelligence-based mechanism”
However, Hao teaches ...determined based on content of the video using an artificial-intelligence-based mechanism ([col. 5, lines 39-45] Content delivery system 102 includes a content detector 122 (e.g., a mature content detector). Content detector 122 may use one or more machine learning models 124 to detect certain (e.g., mature) content. For example, with machine learning model 124 identifying one or more candidate scenes 126 (e.g., candidate frames) that include the content (e.g., mature content)) and the AI-based mechanism is the ML models).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Hao into the teaching of Errico, Kandekar because the references similarly disclose restricting content. Consequently, one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to further modify the system as in the combination of references to further include machine learning model as in Hao “to obtain frame-level detection scores (e.g., frame-level mature content classification scores) which improves the compute and space requirements of the network and enables efficient processing of (e.g., long-form) videos, and aggregates the frame-level detection-scores to a video-level score (e.g., video-level mature content classification score) through a novel attention mechanism that allows the machine learning model to cover more action scenes simultaneously” (Hao, [col. 2, lines 49-57]).
Errico, Kandekar, Hao fail to disclose “...by another user profile having one or more parameters of similar value to the user profile”
However, Pearce teaches ...by another user profile having one or more parameters of similar value to the user profile ([0104] discloses the determining that the first user (e.g., a parent or guardian) would like to receive content restriction suggestions for a second user (e.g., a child) based on detecting a setting in the user profile of the first user denoting a desire to receive content restriction suggestions, retrieving a second profile of the second user and identifying a closest match to a third profile of a third user in the social network of the first user. Further, a profile is retrieved for the child and may match the profile for the child to a profile of another child that is in the social network of the first user. Control circuitry 604 may identify the third user such that the third user is most similar to the second user. For example, control circuitry 604 may compute a metric of similarity based on the profile data. For example, control circuitry 604 may compare individual data fields in the second and the third profile and may increment the metric for each field that matches both profiles and may decrement the metric for each field that does not match both profiles.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Pearce into the teaching of Errico, Kandekar, Hao because the references similarly disclose restricting content. Consequently, one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to further modify the system as in the combination of references to further include the matching of profile data as in Pearce to “provide a smarter and more comprehensive approach to identifying and blocking content that will be inappropriate for another user” (Pearce, [0024]).
As per claim 6, claim 1 is incorporated, Errico further discloses:
wherein the collaborative-based recommendation is a video content restriction of the second portion of the video by the another user profile ([0072] user profiles [0085] lists the processing sequence for suggested filtering of content comprising collaborative filtering [0135] The collaborative processing node 1300 is generally the point where publisher recommendation inputs are aggregated into viewer set recommendations. Then these viewer set recommendations are distributed to the recommendation subscriber targets. The collaborative processing may be performed in the server, publishing clients, subscriber client, or a combination of these. (Some of the approaches described herein may require a centralized collaborative processor, but some can be distributed, [0136]-[0152], [0204]).
As per claim 7, claim 1 is incorporated, Pearce further discloses:
wherein the collaborative-based recommendation is based on a video content restriction of another portion of another video, by the another user profile, that is similar to the second portion of the video ([0104] discloses the determining that the first user (e.g., a parent or guardian) would like to receive content restriction suggestions for a second user (e.g., a child) based on detecting a setting in the user profile of the first user denoting a desire to receive content restriction suggestions, retrieving a second profile of the second user and identifying a closest match to a third profile of a third user in the social network of the first user. Further, a profile is retrieved for the child and may match the profile for the child to a profile of another child that is in the social network of the first user. Control circuitry 604 may identify the third user such that the third user is most similar to the second user. For example, control circuitry 604 may compute a metric of similarity based on the profile data. For example, control circuitry 604 may compare individual data fields in the second and the third profile and may increment the metric for each field that matches both profiles and may decrement the metric for each field that does not match both profiles.).
As per claim 10, claim 1 is incorporated, Errico further discloses:
wherein the user profile defines the one or more audience groups to include one or more family members based on an age of the one or more family members ([0072] user profiles and views sets, groups, and communities).
As per claim 11, claim 1 is incorporated, Errico further discloses:
wherein the displaying the output is based on a selection of a type of recommendation for providing previews for restriction as including one or more of context-based recommendations, collaborative-based recommendations of restrictions indicated by similar user profiles, or collaborative-based recommendations of the user profile for other videos ([0043] A presentation and interaction processor 322 may format the recommendations for presentation to the user and provide a structure for the user to interact and act upon the recommendation).
Claim 12, 19, 16, 17, 18 recite similar claim limitations as the computer-implemented method of claims 1, 6, 7, 10, except that they set forth the claimed invention as a device and non-transitory computer-readable device, as such they are rejected for the same reasons as applied hereinabove.
Claims 2, 13, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Errico (US 2006/0282856) in view of Kandekar (US 2009/0288112) and Hao (US 11,829,413) and Pearce (US 2020/0169787) and further in view of Zhang (US 2014/0338001).
As per claim 2, claim 1 is incorporated, Errico, Kandekar, Hao, Pearce fail to disclose “further comprising: identifying an audience group of the one or more audience groups requesting playback of the video; obtaining, based on the requesting playback of the video, the indications as stored; and displaying, for the audience group and based on the requesting, playback of the video with or without the portions of the video removed based on the indications”
However, Zhang teaches further comprising: identifying an audience group of the one or more audience groups requesting playback of the video; obtaining, based on the requesting playback of the video, the indications as stored ([0080] discloses the identifying of a cut profile including exclusions based on a parent’s editing session, as stored, and mapping of the young audience member that selected and requested the video to be played [0082] discloses the determining of all exclusions previously applied (indications as stored) by all parents in the collaborative community to the requested video (block 1220));
and displaying, for the audience group and based on the requesting, playback of the video with or without the portions of the video removed based on the indications ([0087] discloses the applying of the exclusions to the selected video and providing of the selected video with the applied exclusions to the requesting young audience member (block 1240)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Zhang into the teaching of Errico, Kandekar, Hao, Pearce because the references similarly disclose video editing. Consequently, one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to further modify the system as in the combination of references to further include the more interactive collaborative cutting of scenes as in Zhang because “it may not be practical for parents to edit some or all of the media that may be watched, or listened to, by their children” (Zhang, [0021]).
Claim 13, 20 recite similar claim limitations as the computer-implemented method of claim 2, except that they set forth the claimed invention as a device and non-transitory computer-readable device, as such they are rejected for the same reasons as applied hereinabove.
Claims 3, 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Errico (US 2006/0282856) in view of Kandekar (US 2009/0288112) and Hao (US 11,829,413) and Pearce (US 2020/0169787) and further in view of Vaughn (US 2021/0073264).
As per claim 3, claim 2 is incorporated, Errico, Kandekar, Hao, Pearce fail to disclose “wherein the displaying playback of the video for the audience group is based on verifying a subscription of the user profile as having a subscribed capability for audience group based content restriction”
However, Vaughn teaches the above limitations ([0018] discloses a personalization process based on user defined profiles for a household, business location, visitors, etc. The user defined profiles identify: a type of content considered offensive, a level of intensity for certain categories, and processes for determining content or scenes for filtering (e.g., skipped, fast-forwarded, muted, censored, etc.). A user may control the filtering of content via profile settings that may be influenced through social media and personal sensor input. User profiles may be defined to filter specified content categories defined by micro rating data associated with themes such as, inter alia, violence, adult orientated, profanity, etc [0023] discloses that a request for viewing the media content is received from a user. In step 218, user is identified. In step 220, each micro-scene and each micro-rating value is analyzed with respect to a user profile of the user. In step 224, a selection for disabling access to specified micro-scenes is received [0026] discloses the media content is presented (via a GUI) without the specified micro-scenes (which was determined based on the profiles)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Vaughn into the teaching of Errico, Kandekar, Hao, Pearce because the references similarly disclose restricting content. Consequently, one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to further modify the system as in the combination of references to further include the restricted playback of video as in the combination of references which “enables an improved system and process for filtering media content to produce dynamic custom media content based on user preference” (Vaughn, [0015]).
Claim 14 recites similar claim limitations as the computer-implemented method of claim 3, except that it sets forth the claimed invention as a device, as such it is rejected for the same reasons as applied hereinabove.
Claims 4, 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Errico (US 2006/0282856) in view of Kandekar (US 2009/0288112) and Hao (US 11,829,413) and Pearce (US 2020/0169787) and further in view of Hao (US 11,829,413).
As per claim 4, claim 1 is incorporated, Errico, Kandekar, Hao, Pearce fail to disclose “wherein receiving the context-based recommendation is based on input of at least one of vectors of natural language from closed captioning or speech-to-text processing of the video, or vectors of images from the video, to a machine learning (ML) model to identify the first portion of the video as including restricted content”
However, Hao teaches the above limitations ([col. 16, lines 14-39] The operations 800 further include, at block 808, generating, by the machine learning model in response to the request, a feature vector for each of a plurality of video frames of the input video file, a plurality of frame-level mature content classification scores of the input video file from the feature vectors of the input video file, and a video-level mature content classification score of the input video file from the plurality of frame-level mature content classification scores for the input video file. The operations 800 further include, at block 810, transmitting the plurality of frame-level mature content classification scores of the input video file or the video-level mature content classification score of the input video file to a client application or to a storage location).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Hao into the teaching of Errico, Kandekar, Hao, Pearce because the references similarly disclose restricting content. Consequently, one of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to further modify the system as in the combination of references to further include the labeling and restriction of scenes as in Hao to “provide for an improved system to infer a proper subset of candidate scenes of a single videos (e.g., titles) and/or a proper subset of videos (e.g., titles) for further review, e.g., review by a human and thus help the human to identify possible mature content and significantly reduce their review time” (Hao, [col. 3, lines 40-46]).
Claim 15 recites similar claim limitations as the computer-implemented method of claim 4, except that it sets forth the claimed invention as a device, as such it is rejected for the same reasons as applied hereinabove.
Response to Arguments
The following is in response to the amendment filed on 07/17/25.
Applicant’s arguments have been carefully and respectfully considered but are not persuasive.
Regarding 35 USC 103, on pg. 9, applicant argues that the examiner agreed that the “displaying” was no taught or suggested by the cited prior art.
In response to the preceding argument, examiner respectfully submits that the examiner did not, and, has not stated that this limitation is not taught by the prior art.
Applicant’s remining arguments with respect to the prior art rejections have been considered but are moot because they do not apply to all of the references being used in the current rejection.
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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WILLIAM P BARTLETT whose telephone number is (469)295-9085. The examiner can normally be reached on M-Th 11:30-8:30, F 11-3.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sherief Badawi can be reached on 571-272-9782. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/WILLIAM P BARTLETT/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2169