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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 12/10/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim 1 have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply in view of newly found reference Morin being used in the current rejection. See the new rejection below.
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 1-2, 5, 12, 15, 18, 22, and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent 9,544,650 to Oztaskent (“Oztaskent”) in view of US PG Pub 2011/0247042 to Mallinson (“Mallinson”) and US PG Pub 2021/0006844 to Morin (“Morin”).
Regarding claim 1, “A method comprising: receiving, from a video stream distribution device, first event data indicating that a digital component comprising an audio signature was transmitted to a given display device for display…, the first event data comprising the audio signature and a first time at which the digital component was transmitted to the given display device” reads on the method/system for presenting media items corresponding to media content (abstract) disclosed by Oztaskent and represented in Fig. 1. Oztaskent further discloses (14:13-15,26-44; 6:35-42) that the television device displays media content/tv programming along with audio data/sample of content/programming currently being presented, where the audio fingerprint is generated; (8:16-19,61-64) the system identifies the channel that a media playback device is currently tuned to and the system monitors channels providing broadcast television content and store generated audio fingerprints in a database that is indexed by channel and time; (13:35-63; 17:45-50; 20:35-40) the system determines a timestamp/time period indication (first time) that identifies the time that the media content occurred as represented in Fig. 6.
As to “receiving, from a client device different from the given display device, a content request comprising second event data comprising data representative of a captured audio signature and a second time at which the captured audio signature was captured” Oztaskent discloses (6:21-63) that the computing device such as a mobile device loads client application and based on receiving user indication to receive news items corresponding to the tv programming, the mobile device obtains an audio sample/data of the tv programming currently being presented using a microphone and extracts audio fingerprint; (13:35-63; 20:35-40) the system determines the time (second time) associated with the received audio data/fingerprint as represented in Figs. 1 and 2.
As to “determining that the content request is requesting content related to the digital component based at least on (i) a determination that the decoded identifier from the captured audio signature matches the identifier encoded in the audio signature of the digital component and (ii) a determination that the second time is within a threshold duration of the first time” Oztaskent discloses (7:49-8:3; 8:38-55; claim 1) that the system provides information relating to media content/tv program by determining a time associated with the received audio data and the channel that is providing the tv program and determines that the timestamp corresponding to the determined channel was stored within a predetermined amount of time from the time associated with received audio data as represented in Fig. 2 (elements 230, 250).
As to “in response to determining that the content request is requesting content related to the digital component, sending the content related to the digital component to the client device for display by the client device” Oztaskent discloses (9:63-10:2) that the news items and/or other news-related content can be transmitted to the client application for presenting to the user. For example, the news items, such as snippets of news content related to the television program that the user is currently watching, can then be transmitted back to the client application executing on the mobile device for review and/or selection by the user of the client application as represented in Fig. 1 (element 170) and Fig. 2 (element 280).
Oztaskent meets all the limitations of the claim except “first event data…was transmitted to a given display device for display during a break in a video at the given display device, the audio signature…that encodes an identifier that identifies the digital component; decoding the captured audio signature to generate a decoded identifier” However, Mallinson discloses (¶0025, ¶0027, ¶0029) that at the end of the movie scene, a beginning of a commercial is shown during that movie where the user device captures commercial and sends it to analyze the content; (¶0022) the broadcaster/advertiser provides and stores content/commercial information to a database for subsequent content matching, where (¶0024-¶0025, ¶0032) the information includes hash values (an identifier) associated with the stored content/commercial that matches with the hash values of the captured commercial/content as represented in Figs. 3-6. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Oztaskent’s system by transmitting event data during a break in a video that is encoded with the audio signature identifier as taught by Mallinson in order to identify, locate, and access supplemental content or relevant information pertaining to media presentation such as commercial (Mallinson - ¶0003).
Combination of Oztaskent and Mallinson meets all the limitations of the claim except “wherein the audio signature is embedded into the digital component prior to transmitting the digital component to the given display device and the audio signature comprises inaudible audio…” However, Morin discloses (¶0102-¶0106) that the analog stream matching to the light stream is delivered from the communication system using the antenna where the audio signature is already embedded into the stream when it received from the communication system; the audio signature is inaudible for human ears (like audio watermarking, ultra-sounds, etc.); when a user of the tuning device requests a channel change, the tuning device performs the channel change and thus a different channel is rendered by the tuning device. When the newly rendered stream corresponds to light stream, an audio signature is played. The output device can then obtain the audio signature currently played. In the embodiment of FIG. 2B, the obtaining can be performed thanks to an audio recording device (comprising notably a microphone) adapted to capture this signature. Depending on embodiments, it can be a signature inaudible for a user like an ultrasound signature. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Oztaskent and Mallinson’s systems by embedding audio signature into the content wher ethe signature comprises inaudible audio as taught by Morin in order to enhance user experience of a tuning device (Morin - ¶0003).
Regarding claim 2, “The method of claim 1, wherein the content related to the digital component comprises a different version of the digital component formatted for display by the client device” Oztaskent discloses (14:13-25; 14:61-15:9) that the news item about the same topic (e.g., a similar article provided by a different news source, a follow-up article, a related article, etc.) is presented on the computing device where based on the display size of the device, new items are presented.
Regarding claim 5, “The method of claim 1, wherein the data representative of the captured audio signature comprises the audio signature or the identifier decoded from the captured audio signature” Oztaskent discloses (6:35-59; claim 3) that the mobile device obtains an audio data/sample of the TV programming currently being presented by the television device by capturing audio data to extract audio fingerprint associated with the presented TV program.
Regarding claim 12, see rejection similar to claim 1.
Regarding claim 15, see rejection similar to claim 2
Regarding claim 18, see rejection similar to claim 5.
Regarding claim 22, see rejection similar to claim 1. Furthermore, Oztaskent discloses (claim 21) that the non-transitory CRM stores instructions executed by a processor.
Regarding claim 25, “The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a version of the digital component displayed by the given display device based on (i) the first time at which the digital component was transmitted to the given display device and (ii) a location of the client device from which the content request was received” Mallinson discloses (¶0026, ¶0039-¶0040, claim 8) that the system uses device’s location related information associated with the captured content and timestamp provided with the captured information.
Claims 3-4, 6, 8-9, and 16-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oztaskent in view of Mallinson and Morin, and further in view of US PG Pub 2015/0127710 to Ady (“Ady”).
Regarding claim 3, combination of Oztaskent, Mallinson, and Morin meets all the limitations of the claim except “The method of claim 1, wherein the video stream distribution device inserts the audio signature into the digital component prior to inserting the digital component into a video stream sent from the video stream distribution device to the given display device.” However, Ady discloses (¶0016) that the audio signature which is associated with an event is a recorded version, where (¶0013, ¶0023) the audio signatures are already known and stored in the database. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Oztaskent, Mallinson, and Morin’s systems by previously storing audio signature in the database as taught by Ady in order to search and identify audio samples contained in the audio data more quickly and efficiently (Ady - ¶0023).
Regarding claim 4, “The method of claim 3, wherein the digital component comprises a video snippet and the video stream distribution device inserts the audio signature into the digital component such that the audio signature repeats multiple times while the video snippet is played by the given display device” Oztaskent discloses (13:65-14:2; 17:51-60) that the system continuously transmits an audio sample/data relating to a television program being presented to the search system, where the client application can be provided with updated news items or news documents for selection; (14:13-25) the tv device displays a tv program or other suitable media content for selecting one or more news item/document such as a snippet of the item/document.
Regarding claim 6, “The method of claim 1, wherein: the first event data comprises a first location data identifying a geographic location of the given display device and the second event data comprises second location data identifying a geographic location of the client device; and determining that the content request is requesting content related to the digital component is further based on a determination that the geographic location of the given display device is within a threshold distance of the geographic location of the client device” Ady discloses (¶0035-¶0036) that the system receives context information from the devices that includes location information such as GPS coordinates where this information is used to create grouping associations for devices that are within predetermined proximity or given geographic region.
Regarding claim 8, “The method of claim 1, further comprising, in response to determining that the content request is requesting content related to the digital component, sending content related to one or more first digital components displayed by the given display device prior to display of the digital component and/or one or more second digital components displayed by the given display device after display of the digital component” Oztaskent discloses (13:56-62) that when the media content is recorded content stored on a digital video recorder or video-on-demand content, the time associated with the audio sample or audio fingerprint can be used to determine the time offset within a program; the time offset within the program can be determined by obtaining it from the video player, thereby allowing related news items to be loaded for that moment, and Ady discloses (¶0025) that the event signature database contains audio signatures for various types of known events for which audio data has been previously collected; acoustic fingerprints have thus been generated to facilitate searchable "event signatures."
Regarding claim 9, “The method of claim 8, further comprising identifying the one or more first digital components and the one or more second digital components based on the first event data and respective event data for the one or more first and second digital components” Oztaskent discloses (4:53-63) that the received audio data/fingerprint is used to identify the portions of the audio data; the system identifies the channel that is providing the tv program by comparing audio data.
Regarding claim 16, see rejection similar to claim 3.
Regarding claim 17, see rejection similar to claim 4.
Claims 10-11 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oztaskent in view of Mallinson and Morin, and further in view of US PG Pub 2018/0197202 to Biswas (“Biswas”).
Regarding claim 10, combination of Oztaskent, Mallinson, and Morin meets all the limitations of the claim except “The method of claim 1, further comprising updating one or more performance metrics for the digital component in response to determining that the content request is requesting content related to the digital component, wherein the one or more performance metrics comprises a number of times that content was requested for the digital component.” However, Biswas discloses (¶0017) that a client computing device monitors ambient sound for one or more audio cues that match audio sampled from broadcast content and sends it to the server, where when matching audio was detected, the content server transmits supplemental content to the client computing device and updates summary level metrics that indicate number of receptions of broadcast content within the geographic areas; (¶0025) the user interface presents tracking data to a user where the tracking data is overlaid upon a map that also depicts geofences and/or content groups. In this way, the user can review and analyze data built from individually acknowledged receptions of broadcast content, thereby gaining insight as to the number of individuals being exposed to the broadcast content at a specific time and location. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Oztaskent, Mallinson, and Morin’s systems by updating performance metrics based on the requesting content related data as taught by Biswas so the content providers can generally benefit from additional information regarding the sentiment, preferences, and responses of individual’s receiving content (Biswas - ¶0003).
Regarding claim 11, “The method of claim 1, further comprising updating one or more performance metrics for one or more additional digital components displayed before or after the digital component in response to determining that the content request is requesting content related to the digital component” Biswas discloses (¶0017) that a client computing device monitors ambient sound for one or more audio cues that match audio sampled from broadcast content and sends it to the server, where when matching audio was detected, the content server transmits supplemental content to the client computing device and updates summary level metrics that indicate receptions of broadcast content within the geographic areas; (¶0025) the user interface presents tracking data to a user where the tracking data is overlaid upon a map that also depicts geofences and/or content groups. In this way, the user can review and analyze data built from individually acknowledged receptions of broadcast content, thereby gaining insight as to the number of individuals being exposed to the broadcast content at a specific time and location.
Regarding claim 23, “The method of claim 1, further comprising updating a click-through rate for the digital component in response to determining that the content request is requesting content related to the digital component after the digital component was displayed by the given display device” Biswas discloses (¶0017) that a client computing device monitors ambient sound for one or more audio cues that match audio sampled from broadcast content and sends it to the server, where when matching audio was detected, the content server transmits supplemental content to the client computing device and updates summary level metrics that indicate receptions of broadcast content within the geographic areas; (¶0025) the user interface presents tracking data to a user where the tracking data is overlaid upon a map that also depicts geofences and/or content groups. In this way, the user can review and analyze data built from individually acknowledged receptions of broadcast content, thereby gaining insight as to the number of individuals being exposed to the broadcast content at a specific time and location.
Claim 24 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oztaskent in view of Mallinson and Morin, and further in view of US Patent 7,974,714 to Hoffberg (“Hoffberg”).
Regarding claim 24, “The method of claim 1, wherein the second event data of the content request comprises a location of the client device from which the content request was received and a type of the content requested” Mallinson discloses (¶0026, claim 8) that the system uses device’s location related information associated with the captured content and determines type of video content such as movie or commercial broadcast at substantially that location.
Combination of Oztaskent, Mallinson, and Morin meets all the limitations of the claim except “the method further comprising: providing the second event data as an input to a trained machine learning model that is configured to predict content of interest to users; receiving, as an output of the trained machine learning model, data indicating content of interest to a user of the client device; and providing the content of interest to the client device for presentation to the user of the client device.” However, Hoffberg discloses (51:54-52:40) that the intelligent agent of the system monitors/observes user’s actions and determines characteristics, habits, tendencies or features of the user. This is closely associated with machine learning, which means that the system learns the common actions and preferences of the user and uses it to predict desires of the user in a respective context. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Oztaskent, Mallinson, and Morin’s systems by using user’s input data to a trained machine learning model to predict and provide the content of interest to the user device as taught by Hoffberg in order to build a user model that will be altered when the agent discovers new things about the user (Hoffberg - 52:24-26).
Claim 26 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oztaskent in view of Mallinson and Morin, and further in view of US PG Pub 2005/0246536 to Roberts (“Roberts”).
Regarding claim 26, combination of Oztaskent, Mallinson, and Morin meets all the limitations of the claim except “The method of claim 1, wherein the audio signature is generated by at least one of parity coding, phase coding, spread spectrum or echo hiding.” However, Roberts discloses (¶0021, ¶0024) that the signatures are embedded in an audio-visual signal by using a spread spectrum watermark. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Oztaskent, Mallinson, and Morin’s systems by generating signature using spread spectrum as taught by Roberts in order to provide high signal integrity with less static noise.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PINKAL R CHOKSHI whose telephone number is (571)270-3317. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8am-5pm.
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/PINKAL R CHOKSHI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2425