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 11/26/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
On page 6, Applicant argues that,
“…
The Office Admits Narayanaswami does not disclose, teach, or suggest "creating clips of the stored media data" and looks to Ghafourifar to cure this deficiency.
Ghafourifar describes a fundamentally different system that embeds encrypted content within complete audio files using steganographic techniques. Specifically, Ghafourifar teaches cropping portions of audio files, encrypting them, and then embedding the encrypted portions back into the original file structure using inaudible high-frequency waves (Ghafourifar column 13, lines 30-40). This process creates a single modified file that contains both the original audio and the hidden encrypted portions, not independent clips. The encrypted portions in Ghafourifar cannot be distributed independently of the complete file, as they are steganographically embedded within the file's structure and require the complete file for decryption and playback.
To further distinguish this limitation, claim 1 has been amended to recite "creating independent clips of the stored media data corresponding to the indicated portions of the recordings based on the tag information, wherein the clips are media objects separate from the recording of an event." Applicant respectfully submits that neither Narayanaswami nor Ghafourifar, alone or in combination, disclose, teach, or suggest this limitation.”
(emphasis added)
In response, Examiner respectfully disagrees and submits that, the claim requires:
stored media data is the original recording of an event, which is stored in the data store,
independent clips of stored media data are extracted portions of the stored media data, and
independent clips are media objects separate from the recording of an event.
Thus, Ghafourifar teaches:
the stored media as the original audio file 701 shown in Fig. 7,
independent clips as audio clips 704 shown in Fig. 7,
the clips are separate from the recording of an event (see Figs. 8-11 and column 13, lines 4-42).
Specifically, as shown in Figs. 8-11 and column 13, lines 4-42, Ghafourifar teaches: a portion of the original audio file is extracted as an audio clip, thus separated from either the original audio file 701 or the remaining audio data 703. Next, the extracted audio clip is then encrypted into an encrypted bytestream 803 as shown in Fig. 8. In Fig. 9, this encrypted bytestream is inputted into a modulater as encrypted bytestream 901 so that an encrypted wave is outputted. Next, the system takes the remaining audio to concatenate it with a substitute audio 1003 to output a finished audio file 1004. At the same time, the encrypted wave outputted from the process of Fig. 9 is inputted to an aggregator 1005 to be aggregated with the finished audio file 1004 so that an APC’D audio file is outputted, in which the finished audio file 1004 is stored in Channel A while the encrypted wave is stored in Channel B, separate from Channel A.
Thus, for the sake of arguments, let’s assume the recording of an event is either the original audio file or the finished audio file 1004. The audio clip is clearly embedded in the encrypted wave, which is stored in Channel B, separately from the recording of the event, which is either the original audio file stored on the data store, or the finished audio file stored in Channel A of the APC’D audio file.
Examiner respectfully submits that the APC’D audio file of Ghafourifar is not the recording of event as recited. Instead, it is only a package for the recording of the event and the audio clip so that they can be transmitted to a user. Within this package, the audio clips are still stored independently from the recording of the event.
On page 7, Applicant argues that,
“The Office alleges it would have been obvious to combine Ghafourifar with Narayanaswami to 'facilitate processing of the indicated portions for playback control.' However, a person of ordinary skill in the art would not have been motivated to combine these references because they teach fundamentally incompatible approaches to media access control. Narayanaswami teaches providing complete media streams to recipients with certain portions obscured or requiring additional validation, while Ghafourifar teaches embedding encrypted content steganographically within complete audio files. The combination would require abandoning the core teaching of Narayanaswami (providing complete streams with obscured portions) in favor of Ghafourifar's approach (creating encrypted clips embedded in files), which would not achieve the stated objective of 'facilitating processing' but would instead create an entirely different system architecture. Moreover, the Office's proposed motivation is conclusory and fails to identify any technical problem that would lead a skilled artisan to combine these disparate approaches.”
(emphasis added)
In response, Examiner respectfully disagrees and submits that, without acquiescing to any characterizations of Narayanaswami’s and Ghafourifar’s teachings by Applicant, for the sake of arguments, even assuming, based on Applicant’s characterization that i) Narayanaswami teaches providing complete media streams to recipients with certain portions obscured or requiring additional validation, and ii) Ghafourifar teaches embedding encrypted content steganographically within complete audio files, Examiner does not find any fundamental incompatibility between Narayanaswami and Ghafourifar’s teachings. For example, while i) Narayanaswami teaches providing complete media streams to recipients with certain portions obscured or requiring additional validation, Ghafourifar also teaches providing a complete APC’D audio file 1007 as shown in Figs. 10-11 to recipients with portions obscured as shown in the finished audio file in the APC’D audio file that require additional validation from the recipients to obtain and to decrypt the encrypted portions and vice versa, assuming ii) Ghafourifar teaches embedding encrypted content steganographically within complete audio files, Narayanaswami also teaches embedding the encrypted portions steganographical within a complete audio files because the portions are concealed from unauthorized accesses.
With respect to Applicant’s assertion that “the Office's proposed motivation is conclusory and fails to identify any technical problem that would lead a skilled artisan to combine these disparate approaches,” Examiner respectfully disagrees because, while both references teaches providing the encrypted portions of media to recipients so that, when authorized, the recipients can play back the portions, Narayanaswami does not provide details on how the encrypted portions are delivered (see Fig. 1). As such, Ghafourifar provides needed details to implement such a delivery in an efficient way that facilitates processing of the encrypted portions for playback by packaging the encrypted portions and the remaining media file within a package so that, when authorized, the recipient’s device knows how to locate the encrypted portions within the package for access.
As such, Applicant’s arguments are not persuasive.
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, 4, 6-8, 24, 27, and 29-32 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Narayanaswami (US 2009/0019553 A1 – hereinafter Narayanaswami) and Ghafourifar.
Regarding claim 1, Narayanaswami discloses a method for controlling access to recordings of events, the method comprising: storing in a data store time-based media data for a recording of an event ([0026]-[0028] – storing a media stream comprising confidential segments for accesses or playback) and permissions data indicating access permissions associated with different portions of the recording ([0036]-[0037] – privacy level inserted using privacy tags as permission data associated with different segments of the recording); and controlling access to requested portions of the stored media data based on the stored permissions data associated with the requested portions of the recording ([0026]-[0029]; [0037] – controlling access to requested segments based on the privacy setting information); receiving tag information indicating a) portions of the recordings to tag, and b) users associated with the indicated portions of the recordings ([0019]; [0023]; [0037]; [0042]; Figs. 4-5 – tagging and setting access permission validation information for the portions including the passwords or passphrases could be specific to the transacting parties, i.e. thus indicating those who provide validation information that meets the predetermined privacy/confidentiality level as users associated with the indicated portions of the recordings); updating the stored media data corresponding to the indicated portions of the recordings to include tags indicating the users associated with the indicated portions of the recordings based on the tag information ([0019]; [0023]; [0037]; [0042]; Figs. 4-5 – storing the tag information associated with the media so that during playback, the user is requested to enter validation information for access as described in [0043]-[0044]); and allowing access to the stored media data based on the included tags and the user associations indicated therein, in conjunction with the stored permissions ([0043]-[0044] - during playback, the user is requested to enter validation information for access the indicated portions separately from access to other parts of the recording).
However, Narayanaswami does not disclose creating independent clips of the stored media data corresponding to the indicated portions of the recordings based on the tag information, wherein the clips are media objects separate from the recording of an event; and allowing access to clips of the stored media data separate from the recording of the event based on the included tags and the user associations indicated therein, in conjunction with the stored permissions.
Ghafourifar discloses creating independent clips of stored media data corresponding to indicated portions of recordings based on tag information, wherein the clips are media objects separate from the recording of an event (Figs. 7-9, 12A; column 13, lines 4-16, 45-67 – a user tags a media recording with start and end timestamps, the tagged portion of the media recording is extracted to create an encrypted clip – also see Response to Arguments above); and allowing access to the clips of the stored media data separate from the recording based on the included tags and the user associations indicated therein, in conjunction with the stored permissions (Fig. 12A; column 14, line 62 – column 15, line 34 – access to the protected portions, i.e. the created clips, requires appropriate access permissions and/or decryption keys to locate the corresponding protected portions).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to incorporate the teachings of Ghafourifar into the method taught by Narayanaswami to facilitate processing of the indicated portions for playback control.
Regarding claim 4, Narayanaswami also discloses controlling access to requested portions of the stored media data by generating a playback token for each user indicating portions of the recording that are allowed for that user based on the stored permissions data and granting or denying requests from users for portions of the stored media data based on validation of playback tokens included with the requests ([0023]; [0033]).
Regarding claim 6, Narayanaswami also discloses providing a tagging interface for receiving selections indicating the portions of the recordings to tag and the users associated with the selected portions of the recordings and generating the tag information based on the received selections ([0019]; [0023]; [0037]; [0042]; Figs. 4-5 – tagging and setting access permission validation information for the portions including the passwords or passphrases could be specific to the transacting parties, i.e. users associated with the indicated portions of the recordings).
Regarding claim 7, Narayanaswami also discloses controlling access to the stored media data based on the tags of the stored media data ([0026]-[0029]; [0037] – controlling access to tagged segments).
Claim 8 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 1 above in view of Narayanaswami also disclosing a system comprising user devices enabling users to access the stored media data ([0026]-[0029]; [0037] – devices used to access and play back the media stream) and a server system for storing the time-indexed content into the data store for implementing the method of claim 1 ([0026]-[0028] – a system for storing a media stream comprising confidential segments for accesses or playback by users).
Regarding claim 24, Narayanaswami discloses a system for controlling access to recordings of events, comprising: user devices enabling users to access stored media data ([0026]-[0029]; [0037] – devices used to access and play back the media stream); a datastore ([0026]-[0028] – a data store for storing a media stream comprising confidential segments for later accesses or playback); a server system ([0026]-[0029]; [0036]-[0037] – a server system for …) for storing in the data store time-based media data for a recording of an event ([0026]-[0028] – storing a media stream comprising confidential segments for accesses or playback) and permissions data indicating access permissions associated with different portions of the recording ([0036]-[0037] – storing privacy level inserted using privacy tags as permission data associated with different segments of the recording) and controlling access to requested portions by the users via the user devices of the stored media data based on the stored permissions data associated with the requested portions of the recording ([0026]-[0029]; [0037] – controlling access to requested segments based on the privacy setting information).
However, Narayanaswami does not disclose the system: creates independent clips of the stored media data corresponding to the indicated portions of the recordings based on the tag information, wherein the clips are media objects separate from the recording of an event; and allows access to clips of the stored media data separate from the recording of the event based on the included tags and the user associations indicated therein, in conjunction with the stored permissions.
Ghafourifar discloses a system: creates independent clips of stored media data corresponding to indicated portions of recordings based on tag information, wherein the clips are media objects separate from the recording of an event (Figs. 7-9, 12A; column 13, lines 4-16, 45-67 – a user tags a media recording with start and end timestamps, the tagged portion of the media recording is extracted to create an encrypted clip – also see Response to Arguments above); and allows access to the clips of the stored media data separate from the recording based on the included tags and the user associations indicated therein, in conjunction with the stored permissions (Fig. 12A; column 14, line 62 – column 15, line 34 – access to the protected portions, i.e. the created clips, requires appropriate access permissions and/or decryption keys to locate the corresponding protected portions).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to incorporate the teachings of Ghafourifar into the system taught by Narayanaswami to facilitate processing of the indicated portions for playback control.
Claim 27 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 4 above.
Claim 29 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 6 above.
Claim 30 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 7 above.
Claim 31, Narayanaswami also discloses the time-indexed media data comprises multiple layers, further comprising storing at least one tag in at least one of said layers ([0044] – at least comprising an audio layer and a video layer, storing at least one tag in the audio layer).
Claim 32 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 31 above.
Claims 2-3 and 25-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Narayanaswami and Ghafourifar as applied to claims 1, 4, 6-8, 24, 27, and 29-32 above, and further in view of Malegaonkar et al. (US 2014/0152757 A1 – hereinafter Malegaonkar).
Regarding claim 2, see the teachings of Narayanaswami and Ghafourifar as discussed in claim 1 above. However, Narayanaswami and Ghafourifar do not disclose presenting pages with embedded clip objects and controlling access to requested portions of the stored media data based on permissions data associated with pages with embedded clip objects that reference the requested portions of the stored media data.
Malegaonkar discloses presenting pages with embedded clip objects ([0020]; [0029]; [0031]; [0045]; [0049] – presenting pages in a video portal such as YouTube with embedded video recordings, i.e. meeting recordings, including video clip objects as further described at least in [0048]-[0050] and Fig. 4) and controlling access to requested portions of the stored media data based on permissions data associated with pages with embedded clip objects that reference the requested portions of the stored media data ([0048]-[0050]; Fig. 4 – controlling access to the requested media content based on permissions data associated with the pages which are sent as notifications as further described at least in [0044] and [0053]).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to incorporate the teachings of Malegaonkar into the method taught by Narayanaswami and Ghafourifar to restrict the distribution of their media content according to the owners or creators’ intention to protect the portions of the recording from being misused.
Regarding claim 3, see the teachings of Narayanaswami, Ghafourifar, and Malegaonkar as discussed in claim 2 above, in which Malegaonkar also discloses controlling access to the requested portions of the stored media by preventing users from expanding a scope of new and/or modified clip objects beyond that of previously existing clip objects shared with and/or accessible by the users ([0044]; [0048]-[0050]; [0053] – controlling access to portions of the recordings by prevent some users, e.g. followers, from expanding a scope of a new and/or modified portions beyond those relevant to the users, e.g. the followers).
The motivation for incorporating the teachings of Malegaonkar into the method of Narayanaswami and Ghafourifar has been discussed in claim 2 above.
Claim 25 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 2 above.
Claim 26 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 3 above.
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 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 HUNG Q DANG whose telephone number is (571)270-1116. The examiner can normally be reached IFT.
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/HUNG Q DANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2484