DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is with regard to the most recent papers filed 10/2/2025.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 10/2/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-20 have been considered are deemed not persuasive.
Applicant argues the teachings of Brett in isolation of any other reference. First, Brett (US 2007/0112926) was not cited for any of the claimed functions, where Brett was not cited since the Office Action mailed 5/17/2024. It appears that Applicant intended to refer to US 2018/0101281 (Nelson). Second, one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
In this case, Menard teaches an activity similar to that presented in the instant claim for creating a video conference template, but without providing automatic prompts and without having the storing and receiving being performed by the provider. Tuft was provided to teach that these are performed by a video conference provider. Neither Menard or Tuft appear to be argued by Applicant. Instead, Applicant argues the final piece, the use of a wizard to automate the functions of Menard. If Nelson disclosed all of the details that are argued by Applicant as not being provided in Brett (assumed to be Nelson), the rejection would have used Nelson as a base reference instead of Menard. Instead, it is argued in the rejection that the use of a wizard, such as that of Nelson, would have led one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to use such to automate the tasks of Menard through the use of prompts and settings with prepopulation of certain fields to create a template, such as Menard, for the Zoom virtual meeting. This combination does not appear to be addressed by Applicant, as Applicant fails to address any teaching of Menard (and Tuft), and instead argues that a singular reference does not, on its own, disclose multiple steps, in their entirety.
Accordingly, assuming Applicant’s argument was intended to be toward Nelson, Applicant’s argument fails to address the combination of the template creation of Nelson with a Wizard, such as in Nelson.
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(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over “Zoom Meeting Templates: creating and using for meetings” video, posted on 6/21/2020 at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khs1429E_K4>, as evidenced by the included transcript generated by Youtube.com (Menard) in view of “How do I access my Zoom profile and other settings?” posted at < https://tuftsedtech.screenstepslive.com/s/19028/m/94934/l/1382355-how-do-i-access-my-zoom-profile-and-other-settings> on 10/26/2021 (Tuft) and US 2018/0101281 (Nelson).
With regard to claim 1, Menard discloses a method comprising:
receiving, from the first client device, inputs corresponding to the plurality of settings indicating a configuration of a virtual meeting according to the meeting format (Menard: 3:01-3:06. Settings may be saved as a template.);
storing the video conference template associated with the first client device based on the received plurality of settings (Menard: 3:01-3:06. The settings are saved for later retrieval.);
receiving a request to establish a virtual meeting and an identification of the video conference template (Menard: 4:01-4:04. A subsequent meeting can be established using the settings.); and
establishing, by the video conference provider, the virtual meeting based on the video conference template, the virtual meeting comprising a plurality of participants, each participant of the plurality of participants exchanging one or more audio or video streams via the virtual meeting using a plurality of client devices (Menard: 0:00 to 0:06. Zoom is a video conference provider that established meetings, based on the settings (which, in this case, are from the template) to exchange audio/video content between clients.).
Menard fails to disclose expressly, but Tuft teaches that the storing and receiving are by a video conference provider (Tuft: Page 1. Tuft teaches the use of a web browser to access a website to view and change Zoom settings.). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have the video conference provider store the template and receive a request to establish the virtual meeting to allow the user to have a seamless experience across different devices using the same Zoom login. As a note, it is likely that the template of Menard are stored on the Zoom servers, but this is addressed as being obvious due to the lack of inherency or explicit disclosure.).
Menard fails to disclose expressly but Nelson teaches receiving, by a video conference provider from a first client device, a request to generate a new video conference template according to a meeting format, the request identifying the meeting format for the new video conference template; and in response to receiving the request, providing, to the first client device, a plurality of prompts and a corresponding plurality of settings, at least a subset of the plurality of settings pre-populated based on the meeting type (Nelson: Paragraphs [0090]-[0093]. Nelson teaches the use of a Wizard for the automatic creation of a template. When this is applied to Menard, the Wizard would guide the user through the different steps to create a zoom video conference. Further, the meeting format would at least be a Zoom virtual meeting (e.g. the invocation of the wizard would be to create a new virtual meeting template).).
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide a wizard for the creation and customization of the templates of Menard to provide a user-friendly way to allow users to create templates according to the specific settings that a user would like to use. As a note, Menard does provide for the creation of template (Menard: 3:01 to 3:06), but does not provide the specific detail of using prompts and pre-populated (default) settings, which would be provided by a typical wizard, as known to one of ordinary skill in the art and taught by Nelson.
With regard to claim 2, Menard in view of Tuft fails to teach, but Knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art is taken that it was well-known in the art at the time of filing to have the one or more settings corresponding to the configuration of the virtual meeting comprise a meeting format, and the method further comprising: determining, by the video conference provider, the meeting format for the virtual meeting based on the video conference template; and establishing, by the video conference provider, the virtual meeting based on the meeting format (more specifically, Official Notice is taken that it was well-known in the art at the time of filing that Zoom included capabilities to have different types of meetings, including virtual meetings and webinars.). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to include the format of meeting in the settings to allow all meeting settings that would be made for a meeting to be saved as a template to simplify the application of such settings by a user.
With regard to claim 3, Menard in view of Tuft and Nelson, teaches the meeting format comprises one of a webinar, virtual meeting, virtual concert, or a live-streaming event (As detailed above, Zoom was well-known in the art at the time of filing to have at least meetings and webinars as types of meetings. Further, Nelson teaches defining rules based on type, where the example discussed of a Board of Directors meeting would at least comprise a “virtual meeting” (Nelson: Paragraphs [0090] to [0093]).).
With regard to claim 4, Menard in view of Tuft teaches receiving, from the first client device, a request to share the video conference template with a second client device; and transmitting, by the video conference provider, an indication to the second client device that the video conference template is accessible by the second client device (Tuft: Page 1. When saving the information, it would be accessible to any device, where such saving would be a request to share the template with any device used by the user. It is noted that the relationship between the first and second client devices is not claimed, nor is the functionality of the sharing.).
With regard to claim 5, Menard in view of Tuft fails to teach expressly, but Knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art is taken that it would have been well-known in the art at the time of filing to have the one or more settings corresponding to the configuration of the virtual meeting comprise one or more speech recognition settings, and the method further comprising: determining, by the video conference provider, the one or more speech recognition settings applicable to the virtual meeting; and performing, by the video conference provider, speech recognition during the virtual meeting based on the video conference template (more specifically, Official Notice is taken that Zoom was well-known in the art at the time of filing to include an auto transcription setting, which would be a speech recognition functionality, which serves to provide closed captioning during a meeting.). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide auto transcription settings to allow all meeting settings that would be made for a meeting to be saved as a template to simplify the application of such settings by a user.
With regard to claim 6, Menard in view of Tuft, as applied to claim 5, above, teaches that the one or more speech recognition settings comprises automated captioning of the audio streams exchanged during the virtual meeting, and the method further comprises: providing, by the video conference provider, automated captioning of the audio streams exchanged during the virtual meeting based on the video conference template (As detailed in the rejection of claim 5, the auto transcription includes providing closed captioning, which would allow users that are not able to hear the meeting clearly to be able to still actively listen/participate.).
With regard to claim 7, Menard in view of Tuft fails to teach, but Knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art is taken that it would have been well-known in the art at the time of filing to have the one or more speech recognition settings comprises translating the one or more audio or video streams using a selected language for speech recognition performed during the virtual meeting, and the method further comprises: translating, by the video conference provider, the one or more audio or video streams using the selected language during the virtual meeting based on the video conference template (more specifically, Official Notice is taken that Official Notice is taken that Zoom was well-known in the art at the time of filing to include a language interpretation setting, which would use speech recognition to translate from one specified language to another.). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide language interpretation settings to allow all meeting settings that would be made for a meeting to be saved as a template to simplify the application of such settings by a user.
With regard to claim 8, the instant claim is within the scope of claim 6, and is rejected for similar reasons.
With regard to claims 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, and 19, the instant claims are within the scope of at least one of claims 1-8, and are rejected for similar reasons.
With regard to claim 11, Menard in view of Tuft fail to teach, but Knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art is taken that it was well-known in the art at the time of filing to exchange, by the video conference provider, one or more chat messages between the plurality of client devices during the virtual meeting based on the one or more multimedia stream settings of the video conference template (More specifically, Official Notice is taken that the use of chat settings when establishing a meeting were well-known in the art as being part of Zoom.). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to chat settings to allow all meeting settings that would be made for a meeting to be saved as a template to simplify the application of such settings by a user.
With regard to claim 12, Menard in view of Tuft fails to teach, but Knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art is taken that it would have been well-known in the art at the time of filing to limit, by the video conference provider, the ability of a subset of the plurality of client devices to interact during the virtual meeting based on the one or more multimedia stream settings (more specifically, Official Notice is taken that different settings to control who can interact during a meeting were known to be present in Zoom, including the use of a Webinar setting or muting participants automatically without granting the ability to unmute themselves.). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide participation settings to allow all meeting settings that would be made for a meeting to be saved as a template to simplify the application of such settings by a user.
With regard to claim 13, Menard in view of Tuft fails to teach, but Knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art is taken that it would have been well-known in the art at the time of filing to determine, by the video conference provider, an invitation list for the virtual meeting invitation based on the one or more participant settings, wherein the invitation list comprises the plurality of participants; and transmit the virtual meeting invitation to the plurality of participants based on the invitation list (more specifically, Official Notice is taken that the use of templates to provide at least suggestions for an invitation list for meetings were well-known in the art). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to include invitation lists in the template settings to ensure that needed participants are not forgotten for a meeting.
With regard to claim 17, the instant claim is substantially within the scope of claim 12, and is rejected for similar reasons.
With regard to claim 18, Menard in view of Tuft fails to disclose expressly, but Knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art is taken that it would have been well-known in the art at the time of filing to receive, from the first client device, a request to generate a second virtual meeting invitation; receive, by the video conference provider, an indication to set one or more settings of the second virtual meeting invitation based on a second video conference template, wherein the second video conference template comprises different settings than the first video conference template; and establish, by the video conference provider, a second virtual meeting based on the second video conference template, wherein the second virtual meeting: Virtual Meeting Configuration and comprises a second plurality of participants, each participant of the second plurality of participants exchanging one or more audio or video streams via the second virtual meeting using a plurality of client devices; and is configured based on one or more settings of the second video conference template (more specifically, Official Notice is taken that it was well-known in the art at the time of filing to allow for either the creation of a new template (to replace the old one) or the use of multiple templates when using templates to simplify user tasks, where either option would provide for a different template with different settings for a different meeting.). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to allow for the use of a different template for a second meeting to ensure that the user settings applied are useful for a specific circumstance, such as for different meeting types (e.g. personal, professional, internal, external, training, etc.).
With regard to claim 20, Menard in view of Tuft fails to teach, but Knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art is taken that it would have been well-known in the art at the time of filing to have the one or more settings corresponding to the configuration of the virtual meeting comprise a recording setting, and wherein the processor is further configured to execute processor-executable instructions stored in the non-transitory computer-readable medium to: determine, by the video conference provider, the recording setting for the virtual meeting based on the first video conference template; and record, by the video conference provider, the virtual meeting based on the recording setting (more specifically, Official Notice is taken that it was well-known in the art at the time of filing that Zoom included settings for recording a meeting.). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide recording settings to allow all meeting settings that would be made for a meeting to be saved as a template to simplify the application of such settings by a user.
Conclusion
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SCOTT B. CHRISTENSEN
Examiner
Art Unit 2444
/SCOTT B CHRISTENSEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2444