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 Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 12/12/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The Applicant argues that the cited references do not disclose “generate a permission to access the at least one multimedia item outside of the permitted timeframe” and “initiate a notification before the non-permitted timeframe to prompt a subscription to access the at least one multimedia item outside of the permitted timeframe, wherein the notification is not initiated response to a user action”. The Examiner respectfully disagrees.
Chaudhari is cited to disclose “generate a permission to access the at least one multimedia item outside of the permitted timeframe” and “initiate a notification before the non-permitted timeframe to prompt a subscription to access the at least one multimedia item outside of the permitted timeframe”. For example, Chaudhari discloses that when a user selects a programming to watch and the user is not authorized to watch the programming, displaying an option to the user to purchase access to the programming that inform the user that a user has selected a channel available for upgrade and the user is offered to purchase a 1-day package; see at least Fig. 6B and paragraph 0051.
Myers is cited to discloses wherein a notification is not initiated response to a user action. For example, Myers discloses that the system is configured to send personalized message to the user including messages to upgrade a subscription package and that is without the user request; see at least paragraphs 0031, 0051, 0060 and 0071.
For at least the above reasons, the present claimed invention is not patentable over the cited reference(s).
Claims 1-2, 13, 15 and 20 have been amended.
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) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 1, 13 and 20 recites the limitation "receive subscription data” and “analyze subscription data” and later the claim recites “the subscription data”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. The Examiner suggest keeping the language consistent and amending “analyze subscription data” to “analyze the subscription data”.
Claims 1 and 13 recites the limitation "initiate a notification …to prompt the subscription to access…”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. The “subscription” was deleted in the previous limitation and the Examiner suggests amending the claim to recite "initiate a notification …to prompt a subscription to access…”.
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 1-6, 11-13 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chaudhari (US 2013/0263174) in view of Wu (US 2017/0353463) and further in view of Myers (US 2018/0352278).
Regarding claim 1, Chaudhari discloses a system for temporally restricting multimedia content, comprising:
a memory configured to store non-transitory computer readable instructions (see at least paragraph 0059); and
a processor communicatively coupled to the memory (see at least paragraphs 0058-0059), wherein the processor, when executing the non-transitory computer readable instructions, is configured to:
receive, from a multimedia device, a request to access at least one multimedia item (receiving a request for access to a requested TV channel; see at least paragraph 0034);
receive subscription data associated with at least one user profile (determine a subscription packet associated with the receiver; see at least paragraphs 0025 and 0035);
analyze subscription data in view of the request to access at least one multimedia item (determining if the requested channel is available or no with the user’s subscription package; see at least paragraphs 0025 and 0035);
receive current date and time data from the multimedia device (the current time and date is received in order to determine if the user has access to the programming or not, if not displaying an option to the user to purchase access to the programming; see at least Fig. 6B and paragraph 0051);
compare the current date and time data to the subscription data and based on the comparison of the current date and time data to the subscription data determine that the at least one multimedia item is not available outside of the permitted timeframe according to the subscription data (at the time/date of the request to access a programming, comparison of the time/date is performed in order to display an option to the user to purchase access to the programming; see at least Fig. 6B and paragraph 0051);
generate a permission to access the at least one multimedia item outside of the permitted timeframe (display an option to the user to purchase access to the programming; see at least Fig. 6B and paragraph 0051); and
initiate a notification before the non-permitted timeframe to prompt the subscription to access the at least one multimedia item outside of the permitted timeframe (at the time/date of the request to access a programming, comparison of the time/date is performed in order to display an option to the user to purchase access to the programming; see at least Fig. 6B and paragraph 0051).
Chaudhari discloses wherein the subscription data is indicative of a temporal restriction, and wherein the temporal restriction specifies a permitted timeframe and a non-permitted timeframe for accessing the at least one multimedia item within a subscription period; see at least Fig. 6D and paragraph 0036, but Chaudhari is not clear about wherein the permitted timeframe is within the non-permitted timeframe, and wherein the permitted timeframe is determined upon at least one user preference and wherein the user preference includes at least one of a genre, an actor, and a geography factor. Furthermore, Chaudhari is not clear about wherein the notification is not initiated responsive to a user action.
Wu discloses controlling access to content and discloses wherein the permitted timeframe is within the non-permitted timeframe and wherein the permitted timeframe is determined upon at least one user preference; access permissions for content may only be allowed on weekends or holidays but not on school days; see at least paragraph 0049. Furthermore, the user’s personal profile includes acceptable internet browsing time, the time of the day and the day of the week when the user requests the online access, preset times of the day to when the user may access certain websites…etc.; see at least paragraphs 0028, 0038-0039 and 0043-0048.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify Chaudhari by the teachings of Wu by having the above limitations so to be able to control access to online content; see at least the Abstract.
Chaudhari in view of Wu are not clear about wherein the user preference includes at least one of a genre, an actor, and a geography factor and wherein the notification is not initiated responsive to a user action.
Myers discloses the above missing limitations; the system is configured to classify users based on a plurality of segmentation parameters including location, age group, language preferences, gender and specified user’s interests; see at least paragraph 0025. Furthermore, the system is configured to send personalized message to the user including messages to upgrade a subscription package; see at least paragraphs 0031, 0051, 0060 and 0071.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify Chaudhari in view of Wu by the teachings of Myers by having the above limitations so to be able to enhance user engagement; see at least the Abstract.
Regarding claim 2, Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Myers disclose the system of claim 1, the processor further configured to:
present the notification during the permitted timeframe (Myers; a notification to upgrade the channel or an existing subscription package; see at least Fig. 4B and paragraphs 0031 and 0051).
Regarding claim 3, Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Myers disclose the system of claim 1, wherein the at least one multimedia item is at least one of: a television show, a movie, a sporting event, a live event, a song, a concert, a picture, and a video (Chaudhari; see at least Fig. 6F).
Regarding claim 4, Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Myers disclose the system of claim 2, the processor further configured to:
receive an input associated with the notification, wherein the input indicates acceptance of the at least one method of accessing the at least one multimedia item; and
based on the acceptance of the at least one method of accessing the at least one multimedia item, permit access to the at least one multimedia item (the user can select continue or order to watch the channel; see at least Figs. 6B-6E).
Regarding claim 5, Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Myers disclose the system of claim 2, wherein the at least one method of accessing the at least one multimedia item is an option to upgrade a subscription (Chaudhari; see at least paragraph 0055).
Regarding claim 6, Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Myers disclose the system of claim 2, wherein the at least one method of accessing the at least one multimedia item is an option to pay a one-time fee (Chaudhari; i.e., a day pass; see at least Fig. 6D).
Regarding claim 11, Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Myers disclose the system of claim 1, wherein the permitted timeframe includes a weekday (Chaudhari; i.e., a day pass; see at least Fig. 6D and paragraph 0036 and the weekend of Wu).
Regarding claim 12, Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Myers disclose the system of claim 1, wherein the permitted timeframe for accessing multimedia items comprises a weekend of a week, and wherein the non-permitted timeframe for accessing multimedia items comprises weekdays of the week (Wu; see at least the rejection of claim 1).
Claim 13 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 1.
Claim 20 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 1, wherein presenting for display on the multimedia device a notification associated with the at least one multimedia item, wherein the notification presents an option to upgrade a subscription to access the at least one multimedia item (see at least Fig. 6B), receiving an input associated with the notification, wherein the input indicates acceptance of the option to upgrade the subscription (the user can select continue or order; see at least Figs. 6B-6C); and permitting access to the at least one multimedia item (after the order completed; see at least Fig. 6E).
Claims 7-10 and 14-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Myers and further in view of Rustamov (US 2021/0345001).
Regarding claim 7, Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Peterson disclose the system of claim 2, the processor further configured to: analyze the user profile, i.e. viewing history; see at least Chaudhari; paragraph 0040, but are not clear about the machine-learning model, wherein the at least one machine- learning model is trained on data based on the at least one user profile.
Rustamov discloses the above missing limitation; a machine learning algorithm can accept habit profiles constructed for the customer device based on the consumption data; see at least paragraphs 0035 and 0040.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Myers by the teachings of Rustamov by having the above limitations so to be able to provide content recommendation with reduced habit bias effects; see at least the Abstract.
Regarding claim 8, Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Myers and further in view of Rustamov disclose the system of claim 7, wherein the at least one machine-learning model is trained according to at least one of: a linear regression, a logistic regression, a linear discriminant analysis, a regression tress, a naive Bayes algorithm, a k-nearest neighbors algorithm, a learning vector quantization, a neural network, a support vector machine (SVM), and a random forest (Rustamov; see at least paragraphs 0040 and 0093-0094).
Regarding claim 9, Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Myers and further in view of Rustamov disclose the system of claim 7, wherein the data based on the at least one user profile comprises a past viewing history associated with the at least one user profile (Chaudhari; see at least paragraph 0041).
Regarding claim 10, Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Myers and further in view of Rustamov disclose the system of claim 7, the processor further configured to:
present for display on the multimedia device a notification associated with a second multimedia item (Chaudhari; see at least Figs. 6B-6E), wherein the second multimedia item is selected by the at least one machine-learning model (in combination with the machine learning model of Rustamov; see at least the rejection of claim 7).
Claim 14 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 7.
Regarding claim 15, Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Myers and further in view of Rustamov disclose the method of claim 14, further comprising:
based on the analysis of the at least one machine-learning model, presenting the notification associated with a second multimedia item during the permitted timeframe (the combination of the machine learning model of Rustamov; see at least the rejection of claim 7 and the notification of Chaudhari; see at least Figs. 6B-6E in combination with Myers’s notification; see at least Fig. 4B and paragraphs 0031 and 0051).
Regarding claim 16, Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Myers and further in view of Rustamov disclose the method of claim 15, wherein the second multimedia item is a restricted multimedia item at a future data and time (it will be restricted outside the time window; Chaudhari; it can be any time; see at least paragraph 0036).
Regarding claim 17, Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Myers and further in view of Rustamov disclose the method of claim 15, wherein the notification presents at least one method of accessing the second multimedia item (Chaudhari; see at least Figs. 6B-6E).
Regarding claim 18, Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Myers and further in view of Rustamov disclose the method of claim 17, wherein the at least one method of accessing the second multimedia item is an option to upgrade a subscription (Chaudhari; see at least paragraph 0055).
Regarding claim 19, Chaudhari in view of Wu and further in view of Myers and further in view of Rustamov disclose the method of claim 17, wherein the at least one method of accessing the second multimedia item is an option to pay a one-time fee (Chaudhari; i.e., a day pass; see at least Fig. 6D).
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.
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/YASSIN ALATA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2426