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 .
DETAILED ACTION
The following is a Final Office action. Claims 1, 2 and 14 have been amended. Claims 6, 11-13, 19 and 24-26 are canceled. Claims 1-5, 7-10, 14-18 and 20-23 remain pending in this application and have been rejected below.
Response to Amendment
Pursuant to Applicant’s amendments, the objections to claim 2 are hereby removed.
With respect to Applicant’s amendments, the 101 rejection is hereby removed.
Applicant’s amendments and arguments have been considered. However, the 103 rejection remains.
Response to Argument
Applicant amended the independent claims to include the additional elements of “responsive to occurrence of the event time, combine media streams received in the sessions with the client devices of the permitted participants for the group meeting into combined group media streams and route the combined group media streams to the client devices of the permitted participants for the group meeting; and responsive to occurrence of the time offset to the event time of the group meeting, combine media streams received in the sessions with the client devices of the permitted participants for the subgroup meeting into combined subgroup media streams and route the combined subgroup media streams to the client devices of the permitted participants for the subgroup meeting, wherein the time offset stored in the subgroup metadata is used to trigger initiation of the subgroup media stream routing.” These additional elements describe the technical implementation of combining and dividing media streams pursuant to a trigger initiation. While the method of scheduling the social activity of a meeting between permitted participants through the use of inputting and storing metadata recite mental processes and certain methods of organizing human activity, the additional elements described above apply the judicial exception is some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment. Accordingly, the 101 rejection is hereby removed.
With respect to the 103 rejection, Applicant argues that the amended claim language of the independent claims is not recited by the primary reference, Anderson (See Remarks at pgs. 13-15). Examiner notes that this argument is now moot, as the amended claims are now rejected by Anderson et al. (United States Patent Application Publication, 2016/0088259, hereinafter referred to as Anderson) in view of Bader-Natel et al. (United States Patent Application Publication, 2018/0375676, hereinafter referred to as Bader-Natel) in further view of Cunico et al. (United States Patent Application Publication, 2019/0373068, hereinafter referred to as Cunico). See the updated rejection below.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-5, 7-10, 14-18 and 20-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Anderson et al. (United States Patent Application Publication, 2016/0088259, hereinafter referred to as Anderson) in view of Bader-Natel et al. (United States Patent Application Publication, 2018/0375676, hereinafter referred to as Bader-Natel) in further view of Cunico et al. (United States Patent Application Publication, 2019/0373068, hereinafter referred to as Cunico).
As per Claim 1, Anderson discloses a virtual conference meeting server comprising:
at least one processor (Anderson: ¶133); and at least one memory storing program code executable by at least one processor to perform operations (Anderson: ¶0133) comprising: schedule a plurality of meetings responsive to input from a meeting organizer, wherein one of the plurality of meetings is a group meeting having an event time, a listing of permitted participants, and a group meeting identifier, and another one of the plurality of meetings is a subgroup meeting having… a subgroup listing of permitted participants… (Anderson: See Fig. 12a and step 1201 and ¶0211, 0240-0241, where the meeting organizer initiates the scheduling of a conference. The scheduling of the video conference includes a time and length for the conference and attendee/participant list. See ¶0284 where the process for scheduling a videoconference is scheduled on the web application establishes an event code identifier for the conference. See ¶0262-0263 for subgroup meeting creation with a with defined listing of permitted participants.); and
store group meta data identifying the event time, the listing of permitted participants, and the group meeting identifier for the group meeting with… the event time of the group meeting, the subgroup listing of permitted participants… (Anderson: See ¶0240 where the stored conference information includes event time and length of the conference and attendee list. See also ¶0336 where the system stores conference information with conference identifiers and user identifiers for participants. See ¶0364-0366 where the group meeting identifier has an event time identification stored within.).
establish sessions with client devices of the permitted participants among the listing of permitted participants for the group meeting and the subgroup listing of permitted participants for the subgroup meeting (Anderson: See ¶0337-0342 where the streaming server checks to see if a conference is valid in accordance with a user identifier. If it is successful for the respective conference, the streaming server returns a connection to the video conferencing system to the user. See breakout and subgroup sessions in fig. 12c.);
responsive to occurrence of the event time, combine media streams received in the sessions with the client devices of the permitted participants for the group meeting into combined group media streams and route the combined group media streams to the client devices of the permitted participants for the group meeting (Anderson: See Fig. 21 and ¶0365-0370: Responsive to the event time, the streaming server checks to see if a conference is valid. If the conference is valid, the streaming server connects the group of users in a media stream. See examples of the combined media streams in Figs. 22 and 23.); and
responsive to occurrence of the… to the event time of the group meeting, combine media streams received in the sessions with the client devices of the permitted participants for the subgroup meeting into combined subgroup media streams and route the combined subgroup media streams to the client devices of the permitted participants for the subgroup meeting (Anderson: See ¶0262-0265 and Figs. 12c-12d for embodiments for combining media streams into subgroup breakout meetings, specifically see embodiment 1272 for the combined subgroup media stream routed to participants of the breakout meeting subgroup. Examiner notes that a breakout group meeting defines a meeting that “breaks out” from a main meeting. Therefore, the definite start and end time of the break out group meeting would be offset of the event time start, but encompassed within the time interval of the main meeting.).
Anderson does not explicitly disclose; however, Bader-Natel discloses:
another one of the plurality of meetings is a subgroup meeting having a start time defined as a time offset to the event time of the group meeting… and a subgroup meeting identifier (Bader-Natel: See ¶0101 where the subgroup meeting is a breakout meeting from the main group meeting and has a definite start and/or end time. See ¶0153 where information is recorded and stored with the associated breakout group identifier.).
store group meta data identifying… a logical association to subgroup meta data identifying the time offset to the event time of the group meeting… and the subgroup meeting identifier for the subgroup meeting (Bader-Natel: See ¶0101 where the subgroup meeting is a breakout meeting from the main group meeting and has a definite start and/or end time. See ¶0153 where information is recorded and stored with the associated breakout group identifier. See Applicant’s Specification, ¶0010, where the subgroup meeting’s start time is the defined time offset.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Anderson with Baker-Natel’s virtual conferencing system that logically groups participants in subgroup breakout meetings because the references are analogous/compatible since each is directed toward features for managing breakout subgroups in video conferencing systems, and because incorporating Baker-Natel’s virtual conferencing system that logically groups participants in subgroup breakout meetings in Anderson would have served Anderson’s pursuit of linking participant devices in subgroups in a videoconferencing system (See Anderson, Abstract); and further obvious since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Anderson does not explicitly disclose; however, Cunico discloses:
responsive to occurrence of the time offset to the event time of the group… combine media streams received in the sessions with the client devices of the permitted participants for the subgroup (Cunico: ¶0040: A request is sent out to join a main group on a given communication channel stream at a particular time (e.g., 11:00am). The system may establish a time delay for individual users to join a subgroup. For example, it may be determined that User A and User B may join the subgroup 10 minutes later.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Anderson with Cunico’s collaboration workspace that enables subgroups to interact because the references are analogous/compatible since each is directed toward features for managing breakout subgroups of users, and because incorporating Cunico’s collaboration workspace that enables subgroups to interact in Anderson would have served Anderson’s pursuit of linking participant devices in subgroups for intercommunicating (See Anderson, Abstract); and further obvious since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Claim 14 recites limitations already addressed by the rejection of claim 1; therefore, the same rejection applies.
As per Claim 2, Anderson in view of Bader-Natel in further view of Cunico discloses virtual conference meeting server of Claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:
send meeting invitations for the group meeting to the listing of permitted participants that have been scheduled for the group meeting, wherein each of the meeting invitations identifies the group meeting identifier and the event time of the group meeting (Anderson: ¶0317-0319: The event code for the meeting is processed as part of the meeting invitation. User IDs for permitted participants are collected by the application to check the validity of those entering the meeting. See ¶0240 for the attendee list associated with the meeting.);
c) send subgroup meeting invitations for the subgroup meeting to the subgroup listing of permitted participants that have been scheduled for the subgroup meeting, wherein each of the subgroup meeting invitations… (Anderson: ¶0317-0319: The event code for the meeting is processed as part of the meeting invitation. User IDs for permitted participants are collected by the application to check the validity of those entering the meeting. See ¶0240 for the attendee list associated with the meeting. See ¶0262-0263 for subgroup meeting creation with a with defined listing of permitted participants.).
Anderson does not explicitly disclose; however, Cunico discloses:
compute a subgroup start time based on the time offset to the event time of the group meeting (Cunico: ¶0040: A request is sent out to join a main group on a given communication channel stream at a particular time (e.g., 11:00am). The system may establish a time delay for individual users to join a subgroup. For example, it may be determined that User A and User B may join the subgroup 10 minutes later.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Anderson with Cunico’s collaboration workspace that enables subgroups to interact because the references are analogous/compatible since each is directed toward features for managing breakout subgroups of users, and because incorporating Cunico’s collaboration workspace that enables subgroups to interact in Anderson would have served Anderson’s pursuit of linking participant devices in subgroups for intercommunicating (See Anderson, Abstract); and further obvious since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Anderson does not explicitly disclose, however, Bader-Natel discloses:
the subgroup meeting identifier and the subgroup start time (Bader-Natel: See ¶0101 where the subgroup meeting is a breakout meeting from the main group meeting and has a definite start and/or end time. See ¶0107-0110 where a selected group of participants is determined and invited to a subgroup meeting and the subgroup meeting is connected in the virtual conference. See ¶0153 where information is recorded and stored with the associated breakout group identifier.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Anderson with Baker-Natel’s virtual conferencing system that logically groups participants in subgroup breakout meetings because the references are analogous/compatible since each is directed toward features for managing breakout subgroups in video conferencing systems, and because incorporating Baker-Natel’s virtual conferencing system that logically groups participants in subgroup breakout meetings in Anderson would have served Anderson’s pursuit of linking participant devices in subgroups in a videoconferencing system (See Anderson, Abstract); and further obvious since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Claim 15 recites limitations already addressed by the rejection of claim 2; therefore, the same rejection applies.
As per Claim 3, Anderson in view of Bader-Natel in further view of Cunico discloses the virtual conference meeting server Claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise: reschedule the meeting responsive to the meeting organizer defining a new event time for the group meeting, and store updated group meta data identifying the new event time, the listing of permitted participants, the group meeting identifier for the group meeting with a logical association to subgroup meta data (Anderson: See ¶0074 where a conference and its associated subgroup can be rescheduled for a new event time and the updated group metadata includes the static list of participants in the group is recorded and stored in the event code identifier.)…
Anderson does not explicitly disclose, however, Bader-Natel discloses… identifying the time offset to the new event time of the group meeting, the subgroup listing of permitted participants, and the subgroup meeting identifier for the subgroup meeting (Bader-Natel: See ¶0107-0110 where a selected group of participants is determined and invited to a subgroup meeting and the subgroup meeting is connected in the virtual conference. See ¶0153 where information is recorded and stored with the associated breakout group identifier. See Applicant’s Specification, ¶0010, where the subgroup meeting’s start time is the defined time offset.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Anderson with Baker-Natel’s virtual conferencing system that logically groups participants in subgroup breakout meetings because the references are analogous/compatible since each is directed toward features for managing breakout subgroups in video conferencing systems, and because incorporating Baker-Natel’s virtual conferencing system that logically groups participants in subgroup breakout meetings in Anderson would have served Anderson’s pursuit of linking participant devices in subgroups in a videoconferencing system (See Anderson, Abstract); and further obvious since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Claim 16 recites limitations already addressed by the rejection of claim 3; therefore, the same rejection applies.
As per Claim 4, Anderson in view of Bader-Natel in further view of Cunico discloses the virtual conference meeting server of Claim 3, wherein the operations further comprise: send updated meeting invitations for the group meeting to the listing of permitted participants that have been scheduled for the group meeting, wherein each of the meeting invitations identifies the group meeting identifier and the new event time of the group meeting;… new event time of the group meeting (Anderson: ¶0317-0319: The event code for the meeting is processed as part of the meeting invitation. User IDs for permitted participants are collected by the application to check the validity of those entering the meeting. See ¶0240 for the attendee list associated with the meeting. See ¶0074 where a conference and its associated subgroup can be rescheduled for a new event time and the updated group metadata including the static list of participants in the subgroup is recorded and stored in the event code identifier.).
Anderson does not explicitly disclose, however, Bader-Natel discloses… send updated subgroup meeting invitations for the subgroup meeting to the subgroup listing of permitted participants that have been scheduled for the subgroup meeting, wherein each of the subgroup meeting invitations identifies the subgroup meeting identifier and the updated subgroup start time (Bader-Natel: See ¶0101 where the subgroup meeting is a breakout meeting from the main group meeting and has a definite start and/or end time. See ¶0107-0110 where a selected group of participants is determined and invited to a subgroup meeting and the subgroup meeting is connected in the virtual conference. See ¶0153 where information is recorded and stored with the associated breakout group identifier.).
Anderson does not explicitly disclose, however, Cunico discloses…compute an updated subgroup start time based on the time offset to the new event time of the group meeting (Cunico: ¶0040: A request is sent out to join a main group on a given communication channel stream at a particular time (e.g., 11:00am). The system may establish a time delay for individual users to join a subgroup. For example, it may be determined that User A and User B may join the subgroup 10 minutes later.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Anderson with Cunico’s collaboration workspace that enables subgroups to interact because the references are analogous/compatible since each is directed toward features for managing breakout subgroups of users, and because incorporating Cunico’s collaboration workspace that enables subgroups to interact in Anderson would have served Anderson’s pursuit of linking participant devices in subgroups for intercommunicating (See Anderson, Abstract); and further obvious since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Claim 17 recites limitations already addressed by the rejection of claim 4; therefore, the same rejection applies.
As per Claim 5, Anderson in view of Bader-Natel discloses the virtual conference meeting server of Claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise: responsive to the meeting organizer cancelling the group meeting, delete the group meta data and subgroup meta data, and send meeting cancelation notifications to the listing of permitted participants and the subgroup listing of permitted participants (Anderson: See ¶0074 where a conference and its associated subgroup can be rescheduled for a new event time or modified. The updated group metadata including the static list of participants in the group is recorded and stored in the event code identifier. See ¶0284-0286 where a server checks to validate that the event code associated with the videoconference and its subgroup exists and the event is not canceled. See ¶0294 where a user is notified about existing conferences.).
Claim 18 recites limitations already addressed by the rejection of claim 5; therefore, the same rejection applies.
As per Claim 7, Anderson in view of Bader-Natel discloses the virtual conference meeting server of Claim 6, wherein the operations further comprise: responsive to a request to move an identified participant from the subgroup meeting to the group meeting, cease the combining of the media stream from the client device of the identified participant into the combined subgroup media streams; and initiate combining the media stream from the client device of the identified participant into the combined group media streams (Anderson: See ¶0259-0263 and Fig. 12c-12d embodiments 1258-1274 for an attendee of a subgroup can request to be removed from the breakout subgroup meeting and combined to the main conference. If there are no more subgroups available for the participant, then the participant is further combined into the main conference media stream of an additional breakout group (embodiment 1282).).
Claim 20 recites limitations already addressed by the rejection of claim 7; therefore, the same rejection applies.
As per Claim 8, Anderson in view of Bader-Natel discloses the virtual conference meeting server of Claim 6, wherein the operations further comprise: responsive to a request to move an identified participant from the group meeting to the subgroup meeting, cease the combining of the media stream from the client device of the identified participant into the combined group media streams; and initiate combining the media stream from the client device of the identified participant into the combined subgroup media streams (Anderson: See ¶0267-0269 where a subgroup break out member requested to be moved into a subgroup breakout meeting. The server performs a check to whether the subgroup is active. If the subgroup breakout meeting is active, the requested member is moved from the main conference by ceasing the media stream and moved into the initiated breakout meeting stream.)
Claim 21 recites limitations already addressed by the rejection of claim 8; therefore, the same rejection applies.
As per Claim 9, Anderson in view of Bader-Natel discloses the virtual conference meeting server Claim 6, wherein the operations further comprise: responsive to a request to create a breakout meeting having a listing of permitted breakout participants, for any of the permitted breakout participants presently participating in the group meeting, cease the combining of the media stream from the client devices of any of the permitted breakout participants into the combined group media streams; for any of the permitted breakout participants presently participating in the subgroup meeting, cease the combining of the media stream from the client devices of any of the permitted breakout participants into the combined subgroup media streams; and initiate combining the media streams from the client devices of the permitted breakout participants into combined breakout media streams and routing the combined breakout media streams to the client devices of the permitted breakout participants (Anderson: See ¶0262-0263 for the request to create a subgroup for a subgroup breakout meeting. The request for a newly created subgroup contains a permitted attendee list to form a static group of breakout meeting participants. See Fig. 12c where the main conference media streams are ceased and the breakout group meetings are initiated for the permitted participants.).
Claim 22 recites limitations already addressed by the rejection of claim 9; therefore, the same rejection applies.
As per Claim 10, Anderson in view of Bader-Natel discloses the virtual conference meeting server of Claim 9, wherein the operations further comprise: responsive to a request to terminate the breakout meeting, for any of the permitted breakout participants previously participating in the group meeting, cease the combining of the media stream from the client devices of any of the permitted breakout participants previously participating in the group meeting into the combined breakout group media streams, and initiate combining of the media streams from the client devices of the permitted breakout participants previously participating in the group meeting into the combined group media streams; and for any of the permitted breakout participants previously participating in the subgroup meeting, cease the combining of the media stream from the client devices of any of the permitted breakout participants previously participating in the subgroup meeting into the combined breakout group media streams, and initiate combining of the media streams from the client devices of the permitted breakout participants previously participating in the subgroup meeting into the combined subgroup media streams (Anderson: See ¶0259-0263 and Fig. 12c embodiments 1258-1274 for ceasing subgroups following a termination of a subgroup media stream following the exit status of the permitted subgroup participants. If there are more subgroups available for the participants participating in the previous subgroup then these participants are further combined into the media stream of an additional breakout group (embodiment 1274).).
Claim 23 recites limitations already addressed by the rejection of claim 10; therefore, the same rejection applies.
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 ALLISON MICHELLE NEAL whose telephone number is (571)272-9334. The examiner can normally be reached 9-2pm ET, M-F.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Brian Epstein can be reached at 5712705389. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/ALLISON M NEAL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3625
Prosecution Insights