DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to the remarks filed 05/11/2026:
Claims 1 – 20 are pending and have been examined.
Claim 5 has been cancelled.
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 with respect to claims 1 – 20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Response to Amendment
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.
Claims 1 – 4, 6 - 12 and 14 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al. (TW Pub. No. I799229, hereinafter “Chen”) in view of Hasting et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2022/0385856, hereinafter “Hasting”) and Garg et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2008/0037447, hereinafter “Garg”).
Regarding Claim 1, Chen teaches
A method (see Chen Page 1, online conference system serial connection method) comprising:
establishing a unified conferencing protocol (UCP) mediator, wherein the UCP mediator establishes a connection between two or more video conferencing platforms (see Chen Page 1, providing a cross-platform conference system series connection to connect a first video conference room and a second video conference room (in which each room may be using a different video conference platform such as Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, as an example (Page 3) and can connect N different video rooms, N being an integer greater than or equal to 2 (Page 4)), and the application provides a connection device, including: a processor, a memory and a network communication interface. The memory is electrically connected to the processor and used to store computer executable instructions; the network communication interface is electrically connected to the processor. The processor reads the computer executable instructions and executes the cross-platform conference system serial connection method of this application through the network communication interface);
receiving, via the UCP mediator, a request to communicate with a first video conferencing platform from a second video conferencing platform (see Chen Page 1, the connecting device based on the first conference invitation from the first video conference platform, joins the first video conference room; the connecting device joins the second video conference room based on the second meeting invitation from the second video conferencing platform);
Chen does not expressively teach
approving, via the UCP mediator, the request to communicate with the first video conferencing platform from the second video conferencing platform;
establishing, using a first protocol, a first connection between a first server of the first video conferencing platform and a second server of the second video conferencing platform;
exchanging, using the first protocol, authorization information between the first server of the first video conferencing platform and the second server of the second video conferencing platform; and
maintaining, using a second protocol different from the first protocol, the connection between the first server of the first video conferencing platform and the second server of the second video conferencing platform.
However, Hasting teaches
approving, via the UCP mediator, the request to communicate with the first video conferencing platform from the second video conferencing platform (see Hasting Figure 8 and Paragraph [0042] and [0043], conference platform gateway system pushes request for access point for the gateway by the connecting peer, then video conference begins process of connecting, in which first, a check may be performed to determine to further process the connection, and is passed or approved in order to establish connection);
establishing, using a first protocol, a first connection between a first server of the first video conferencing platform and a second server of the second video conferencing platform (see Hasting Paragraph [0023], The gateway component A201 may distribute signaling between the conference endpoint A200 and the web based client A205 by translating incoming signaling from the conference endpoint A200 into actions performed by the web based client A205. The incoming signal from the conference endpoint A200 may be distributed using a standard based protocol (e.g., SIP, H.323, WebRTC, and the like) and the translated signal generated by the gateway component A201 in the web based client A205 may be an action to connect to a W3C Based conference in the web browser compatible meeting service A203, Paragraph [0058], FIG. 12 shows an example computing device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. For example, computing device 1200 may function as a client device or server. The computing device 1200 may include a conference platform gatewaying service that provides interoperability between meeting room equipment and video conferencing applications running on personal computers. The computing device 1200 may be implemented on any electronic device that runs software applications derived from compiled instructions, including without limitation personal computers, servers, smart phones, media players, electronic tablets, game consoles, email devices, etc.);
maintaining, using a second protocol different from the first protocol, the connection between the first server of the first video conferencing platform and the second server of the second video conferencing platform (see Hasting Paragraph [0028], During a video conference, one or more media streams A402 may be transmitted (e.g., audio, video, and other media) over one or more content delivery protocols A408 (e.g., Real Time Transport Protocol (RTP), Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTPS), and the like) carrying H.263, G.711 and the like).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of
the claimed invention to combine the teaching of a method for enabling communication between multiple video conferencing platforms through a unified conferencing protocol mediator that establishes connections and facilitates communication requests between the platforms (as taught in Chen), with approving a request to communicate across video conference platforms, establishing a connection using a first protocol, and maintaining a connection using a second protocol different from the first protocol (as taught in Hasting), the motivation being to bridge together users that operate on different platforms, when conventionally users will all use one platform to communicate (see Hasting Paragraph [0005]).
Chen in view of Hasting does not expressively teach
exchanging, using the first protocol, authorization information between the first server of the first video conferencing platform and the second server of the second video conferencing platform; and
However, Garg teaches
exchanging, using the first protocol, authorization information between the first server of the first video conferencing platform and the second server of the second video conferencing platform (see Garg Abstract, a method includes steps of verifying, by a first server, that a user associated with an endpoint is authorized to access a service provided by a second server, Paragraph [0017], Accordingly, server 22 may access database 24 to retrieve the necessary information stored therein to verify the authenticity of the user and to verify that the user is authorized to attend the meeting. The secondary service provided by server 23 is the main service that the user is attempting to access or invoke); and
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of
the claimed invention to combine the teaching of a method for enabling communication between multiple video conferencing platforms through a unified conferencing protocol mediator that establishes connections and facilitates communication requests between the platforms (as taught in Chen), with approving a request to communicate across video conference platforms, establishing a connection using a first protocol, and maintaining a connection using a second protocol different from the first protocol (as taught in Hasting), the motivation being to bridge together users that operate on different platforms, when conventionally users will all use one platform to communicate (see Hasting Paragraph [0005]).
It would have been further obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of a method for enabling communication between multiple video conferencing platforms through a unified conferencing protocol mediator that receives and approves communication requests, establishes connections between platform servers using a first protocol, and maintains those connections using a second protocol different from the first protocol (as taught in Chen in view of Hasting), with exchanging authorization information between servers of two different video conferencing platforms using a first protocol to establish trusted communication (as taught in Garg), the motivation being to provide a security mechanism for properly authenticating devices within a conference service (see Garg Paragraph [0003]).
Regarding Claim 2, Chen in view of Hasting and Garg teaches
The method of claim 1, further comprising:
translating the request to communicate with the first video conferencing platform from the second video conferencing platform from a second platform-specific invitation request to a first platform-specific invitation request (see Hasting Paragraph [0023], The gateway component A201 may distribute signaling between the conference endpoint A200 (a first video conferencing platform) and the web based client A205 (a second video conferencing platform) by translating incoming signaling from the conference endpoint A200 into actions performed by the web based client A205. The incoming signal from the conference endpoint A200 may be distributed using a standard based protocol (e.g., SIP, H.323, WebRTC, and the like) and the translated signal generated by the gateway component A201 in the web based client A205 may be an action to connect to a W3C Based conference in the web browser compatible meeting service A203).
Regarding Claim 3, Chen in view of Hasting and Garg teaches
The method of claim 2, wherein the first platform-specific invitation request is encoded according to a first session initiation protocol corresponding to the first video conferencing platform and the second platform- specific invitation request is encoded according to a second session initiation protocol corresponding to the second video conferencing platform (see Hasting Paragraph [0023], The transcoder A202 resolves the incompatibility of the media codecs by unwrapping and decoding incoming data from one codec and encapsulating and encoding data for distribution using another codec, and The gateway component A201 may distribute signaling between the conference endpoint A200 (a first video conferencing platform) and the web based client A205 (a second video conferencing platform) by translating incoming signaling from the conference endpoint A200 into actions performed by the web based client A205. The incoming signal from the conference endpoint A200 may be distributed using a standard based protocol (e.g., SIP, H.323, WebRTC, and the like) and the translated signal generated by the gateway component A201 in the web based client A205 may be an action to connect to a W3C Based conference in the web browser compatible meeting service A203).
Regarding Claim 4, Chen in view of Hasting and Garg teaches
The method of claim 3, further comprising:
establishing a session initiation protocol mapping, wherein the session initiation protocol mapping defines a relationship between the first session initiation protocol and the second session initiation protocol, and wherein the translating the request to communicate with the first video conferencing platform from the second video conferencing platform is accomplished via the session initiation protocol mapping (see Hasting Paragraph [0036], To interwork between the two different web browser compatible meeting services A602 and A607, the conference platform gateway system may use a uniform resource locator (URL) to URL mapping schema to interwork between the two different web browser compatible meeting services. Each URL in the URL to URL mapping schema may be an entry point for a meeting on one of the web browser compatible meeting services A602 and A607).
Regarding Claim 6, Chen in view of Hasting and Garg teaches
The method of claim 1, further comprising:
terminating the connection between the first video conferencing platform and the second video conferencing platform (see Garg Paragraph [0029], Finally, once the new session is established, endpoint 30 immediately disconnects the dialog and session described by the dialog ID, i.e., the session between endpoint 30 and first service 31 (block 47). It does this by sending a BYE message to first service 31, which responds with a 200 (OK) message, thereby ending the session. In this manner, endpoint 30 has been instructed to transfer its session from first service 31 to second service 32).
Regarding Claim 7, Chen in view of Hasting and Garg teaches
The method of claim 1, further comprising:
handling one or more discrepancies between the first video conferencing platform and the second video conferencing platform (see Hasting Paragraph [0022], transcoder may resolve the incompatibility of the media codes that exist between the technologies of the conference endpoint (a first video conferencing platform) and the browser client (a second video conferencing platform by making different codec formats interchangeable. For example, digital media from a conference call from the conference endpoint A200 may be distributed using a G.711 ulaw audio codec, a G.718 audio codec, a G.719 audio codec, a G.722 audio codec, a G.722.1 audio codec, a G.723 audio codec, a G.723.1 audio codec, a G.726 audio codec, a G.728 audio codec, a G.729 audio codec, a G.729.1 audio codec, a H.261 video codec, a H.263 video codec, a H.264 High Profile video codec, a H.265 video codec, or a VC-2 video codec, and/or any other codec that is compatible with the point-to-point conferencing platform hosting the conference endpoint).
Regarding Claim 8, Chen in view of Hasting and Garg teaches
The method of claim 1, further comprising:
transcoding media between the first video conferencing platform and the second video conferencing platform (see Hasting Paragraph [0022], transcoder may resolve the incompatibility of the media codes that exist between the technologies of the conference endpoint (a first video conferencing platform) and the browser client (a second video conferencing platform by making different codec formats interchangeable. For example, digital media from a conference call from the conference endpoint A200 may be distributed using a G.711 ulaw audio codec, a G.718 audio codec, a G.719 audio codec, a G.722 audio codec, a G.722.1 audio codec, a G.723 audio codec, a G.723.1 audio codec, a G.726 audio codec, a G.728 audio codec, a G.729 audio codec, a G.729.1 audio codec, a H.261 video codec, a H.263 video codec, a H.264 High Profile video codec, a H.265 video codec, or a VC-2 video codec, and/or any other codec that is compatible with the point-to-point conferencing platform hosting the conference endpoint).
Regarding Claim 9, Chen in view of Hasting and Garg teaches
The method of claim 1, further comprising:
establishing a second connection between the first video conferencing platform, the second video conferencing platform, and a third video conferencing platform (see Chen Page 4, the cross-platform conference system serial connection method 200 can horizontally connect N different video conference rooms, each utilizing a video conferencing platform. In the video conference room of the video conferencing platform, N is a positive integer greater than or equal to 2, and Page 2, The "video conferencing platform" mentioned in this application refers to video conferencing software that users can initiate or participate in video conference rooms through a web browser, such as Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams, WebEx or Google meet).
Regarding Claim 10, Chen in view of Hasting and Garg teaches
The method of claim 9, further comprising;
establishing a third connection between the first video conferencing platform, the second video conferencing platform, the third video conferencing platform, and a fourth video conferencing platform (see Chen Page 4, the cross-platform conference system serial connection method 200 can horizontally connect N different video conference rooms, each utilizing a video conferencing platform. In the video conference room of the video conferencing platform, N is a positive integer greater than or equal to 2, and Page 2, The "video conferencing platform" mentioned in this application refers to video conferencing software that users can initiate or participate in video conference rooms through a web browser, such as Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams, WebEx or Google meet).
Regarding Claim 11, they are rejected similarly as Claim 1. The computer readable storage media can be found in Hasting (Paragraph [0058], computer-readable medium).
Regarding Claim 12, Chen in view of Hasting and Garg teaches
The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the program instructions are stored in a computer readable storage device in a data processing system, and wherein the program instructions are transferred over a network from a remote data processing system (see Chen Page 1, connection device, including: a processor, a memory and a network communication interface. The memory is electrically connected to the processor and used to store computer executable instructions; the network communication interface is electrically connected to the processor. The processor reads the computer executable instructions and executes the cross-platform conference system serial connection method of this application through the network communication interface).
Regarding Claims 14, 15, 16, and 17, they are rejected similarly as Claims 2, 3, 4, and 7, respectively. The computer readable storage media can be found in Hasting (Paragraph [0058], computer-readable medium).
Regarding Claims 18, 19, and 20, they are rejected similarly as Claims 1, 7, and 8, respectively. The system can be found in Hasting (Abstract, system).
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al. (TW Pub. No. I799229, hereinafter “Chen”) in view of Hasting et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2022/0385856, hereinafter “Hasting”), Garg et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2008/0037447, hereinafter “Garg”) and Ahmed et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2022/0272132, hereinafter “Ahmed”).
Regarding Claim 13, Chen in view of Hasting and Garg teaches all the limitations of Claim 11, but does not expressively teach
The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the program instructions are stored in a computer readable storage device in a server data processing system, and wherein the program instructions are downloaded in response to the request over a network to a remote data processing system for use in the computer readable storage device associated with the remote data processing system, further comprises:
metering use of the program instructions associated with the request; and
providing an invoice based on metered use.
However, Ahmed teaches
The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the program instructions are stored in a computer readable storage device in a server data processing system, and wherein the program instructions are downloaded in response to the request over a network to a remote data processing system for use in the computer readable storage device associated with the remote data processing system, further comprises (see Ahmed Claim 17, The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the stored program instructions are stored in a computer readable storage device in a server data processing system, and wherein the stored program instructions are downloaded in response to a request over a network to a remote data processing system for use in a computer readable storage device associated with the remote data processing system, further comprising):
metering use of the program instructions associated with the request (see Ahmed Claim 17, program instructions to meter use of the program instructions associated with the request); and
providing an invoice based on metered use (see Ahmed Claim 17, program instructions to generate an invoice based on the metered use).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of
the claimed invention to combine the teaching of a method comprising a connection device that establishes a connection between two or more conferencing platforms (as taught in Chen in view of Hasting and Garg), with program instructions to meter use of the program instructions associated with the request and generate an invoice (as taught in Ahmed), the motivation being to provide cost tracking as resources are utilized within the computing environment, and billing or invoicing for consumption of these resources (see Ahmed Paragraph [0069]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Refer to PTO-892, Notice of References Cited for a listing of analogous art.
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 CARISSA A JONES whose telephone number is (703)756-1677. The examiner can normally be reached Telework M-F 6:30 AM - 4:00 PM CT.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Duc Nguyen can be reached at 5712727503. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CARISSA A JONES/Examiner, Art Unit 2691
/DUC NGUYEN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2691
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