DETAILED ACTION
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 Amendment
Claims 1-7, 9-15, and 17-22 are pending in the application. No claims are currently amended. Claims 8 and 16 have been canceled. No new claims are currently added.
Response to Arguments
With regards to the Applicants’ Remarks dated June 3, 2026:
Regarding the rejection of claims 17-19 under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) and claims 1-7, 9-15, and 20-22 under 35 U.S.C. 103, Applicant’s amendment and arguments have been fully considered. Applicants argue at pages 7-9 of the Remarks as filed, regarding claim 17 under A.i. that Wolfram fails to teach the limitation of “sending”. This argument is not persuasive for the same reasons already addressed in the last Office action that are not repeated for brevity. Applicants further argue at pages 9-11 of the Remarks, as filed, regarding claim 17 under A.ii. that Wolfram fails to teach the limitation of “generating a file”. This argument is also not persuasive for the same reasons presented in the last Office action. Examiner maintains that there is no reference in the claim for a “single” file as argued and notes that transmission of files in computer networks commonly includes breaking the file into segments or chunks for transmission in packets. While cited paragraph of the specification mentions that combining the different bitrates for each segment into a single file would somehow reduce the system overhead and individual network transactions on the network, it is well known that a huge single file such as one of a 120 minute video with 7 bitrates would not be transmitted as a single file, but rather broken into multiple segments, transmitted in pieces, and then reassembled on the receiver end. There is no description of how a huge single file can be transmitted as a monolith. Applicants still failed to explain how a file or a single file is patentably distinct from “single content entity” of Wolfram that is mapped to the claimed “single file”. Examiner notes that a plain meaning of a computer file is a named collection of data treated as a unit by a system that manages it. There is no requirement for a “file” or a “single file” to be a single rigid piece of data that does not comprise parts that make up such file, as long as it is treated as a unit by having a single content entity record identifier that identifies that named collection of data, which exactly what is done in Wolfram. Therefore, Applicant’s argument cannot be held as persuasive and the rejection is maintained.
Applicants argue at pages 12-14 of the Remarks as filed, regarding claims 1 and 9 under A.i. that the cited references do not teach or suggest that the step of receiving is performed via a first socket connection of a communication session. In particular, Applicants argue at page 13 that “Li's teachings relate to HTTP sessions generally but does not specifically teach that both the first request at bitrate A and the subsequent request at bitrate B are received via the same first socket connection.” Examiner agrees. Applicants further argue at page 14 of the Remarks, as filed, that “Gutmans is directed to file downloads and does not address adaptive streaming with multiple resolution requests over the same socket connection. Instead, Gutmans teaches that once the request has been offloaded to the download manager, the web server's thread or process then closes its copy of the socket connection to the client, and the web server is now free to serve the next incoming request from a client. Id. at par. 11.” Examiner agrees. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. Upon further search and consideration, no better prior art has been discovered that would teach all of the claimed features of independent claims 1 and 9. Therefore, no new grounds of rejection are made for these two sets of claims.
As to any arguments not specifically addressed, they are the same as those discussed above or were addressed in the earlier-mailed Office actions.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Wolfram et al. (US 2014/0098850 A1).
As to claim 17, Wolfram teaches a method comprising:
determining, by a computing device [content management system], a plurality of representations for content [generating multiple bitrate encodings of the received master content] (par. [0041]);
receiving the content encoded according to the plurality of representations [these encodings are sent further down the line to content entity encoder generator 340 and content entity publisher 350] (Fig.3);
generating a file comprising a plurality of first portions of the content encoded according to the plurality of representations [different bitrate encodings are grouped under a content entity identifier as a single content entity] (par. [0043]-[0046]); and
sending, to a second computing device [content delivery system], the file comprising, the plurality of the first portions of the content encoded according to the plurality of representations [publishing the single content entity to the content delivery system 360, 610, where the publishing includes sending to one or more streaming servers the different bitrate encodings] (par. [0046]-[0047], [0052], Figs. 3, 4, 6).
As to claim 18, Wolfram teaches that the plurality of representations comprise a first representation associated with first video resolution and a second representation
associated with a second video resolution different from the first video resolution (par. [0024], [0028], [0031], [0041]).
As to claim 19, Wolfram teaches that the plurality of representations comprise a first representation associated with a first audio resolution and a second representation
associated with a second audio resolution different from the first audio resolution (par. [0024], [0028], [0031], [0041]).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wolfram et al. in view of Mayhew et al. (US 2021/0195290 A1).
As to claim 20, Wolfram teaches all the elements except generating a header for the file, wherein the header comprises at least one of: an indication of a first representations of the first portion of the content in the file, a quantity of bytes associated with a first representation of the plurality of representations of the first portion of the content, or a run length for the first representation of the plurality of representations of the first portion of the content.
Mayhew teaches generating a header for the file, wherein the header comprises at least one of: an indication of a first representations of the first portion of the content in the file, a quantity of bytes associated with a first representation of the plurality of representations of the first portion of the content, or a run length for the first representation of the plurality of representations of the first portion of the content (par. [0007], [0011], [0043]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method and system of Wolfram by generating a header for the file, wherein the header comprises at least one of: an indication of a first representations of the first portion of the content in the file, a quantity of bytes associated with a first representation of the plurality of representations of the first portion of the content, or a run length for the first representation of the plurality of representations of the first portion of the content in order to determine a time for transmission of a subsequent request by the client for a next segment of the streamed content (par. [0043] in Mayhew, par. [0074] in Wolfram).
Relevant Prior Art
Yu et al. (US 2019/0245914 A1) is directed to a method and a device for processing persistent connection establishment requests (abstract). In particular, Yu teaches that a persistent connection between a client and server allows for subsequent requests without the TCP connection being re-established (par. [0003]-[0004], [0068]).
While Yu teaches downloading movies (par. [0072]), Yu fails to teach a first and second requests from the user device via the first socket connection for a first and second portions of the content at a first and second representations, as in the independent claims. Therefore, Yu fails to anticipated the claimed invention and won’t be obvious to modify with the teachings of Wolfram in view of Li without hindsight reasoning.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-7, 9-15, and 21-22 are allowed.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 OLEG SURVILLO whose telephone number is (571)272-9691. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00am - 5:00pm.
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/OLEG SURVILLO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2457
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