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
This office action is in response to an amendment filed on 10/29/2025.
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, 9-11, 13-14, 16, and 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Doron (US 2020/0267384) in view of Ding (US 2022/0368946) and further in view of Wade (US 2021/0182947).
As to claim 16, Doron teaches a system, comprising: a computer processor; and a memory having instructions stored thereon which, when executed on the computer processor, performs operations comprising:
generating an encoded video content corresponding to a first video content by encoding a plurality of image frames relating to the first video content, comprising (paras. 15-23):
segmenting an image frame of the plurality of image frames into a plurality of image portions, wherein each image portion is associated with a corresponding portion identifier, of a plurality of portion identifiers, based on at least one of: (i) a resolution or (ii) a bitrate for encoding the respective image portion; and encoding each image portion based on the corresponding portion identifier (paras. 15-23, 31-41, and 55-56; also see flowchart of FIG. 7);
generating the encoded video content and the plurality of portion identifiers; and transmitting the encoded video content over a communication network, and reconstructing the first video content from the encoded video content (paras. 15-23, 31-41, and 55-56).
Doron does not teach assigning a tag for each of the plurality of image portions based on at least a plurality of viewer cohorts for a plurality of viewers, each of the plurality of view cohorts indicating a group of viewers, among the plurality of viewers, that share similar behavior and network attributes, wherein the tag relates to at least one of: (i) a resolution or (ii) a bitrate for encoding the respective image portion; and encoding each image portion based on the respective assigned tag; generating a media rendition record comprising the encoded video content and the plurality of portion identifiers; and transmitting the encoded video content over a communication network, wherein the media rendition record is used to reconstruct the first video content from the encoded video content.
However, Ding teaches assigning a tag for each of a plurality of image portions, wherein the tag relates to at least one of: (i) a resolution or (ii) a bitrate for encoding the respective image portion; and encoding each image portion based on the respective assigned tag (paras. 16-22, 32, 35-37, and 39-42; para. 20 discloses a bit rate tile identifier/ID; para. 35 discloses that a notification sent to a client device indicates codec parameter values of a first plurality of video streams dedicated to the first tile; further see FIG. 1 for tiles within or outside a FOV);
generating a media rendition record comprising an encoded video content and a plurality of portion identifiers; and transmitting the encoded video content over a communication network, wherein the media rendition record is used to reconstruct a first video content from the encoded video content (paras. 16-22, 32, 35-37, and 39-42).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Doron’s system with Ding’s system to show assigning a tag for each of the plurality of image portions, wherein the tag relates to at least one of: (i) a resolution or (ii) a bitrate for encoding the respective image portion; and encoding each image portion based on the respective assigned tag; generating a media rendition record comprising the encoded video content and the plurality of portion identifiers; and transmitting the encoded video content over a communication network, wherein the media rendition record is used to reconstruct the first video content from the encoded video content. In Ding’s disclosure, streaming the video content to the client device on the illustrated per tile basis enhances performance in terms of communication and computation. More particularly, LQ codec parameter values (e.g., lower resolution, lower bit rate, etc.) reduce demand on networking bandwidth in the communication channel between the server and the client device and reduce computational overhead in both the server and the client device. Additionally, the client device may allocate the video streams across a heterogeneous set of decoder devices more efficiently (Ding; para. 37).
The combination of Doron and Ding does not teach assigning a tag for each of the plurality of image portions based on at least a plurality of viewer cohorts for a plurality of viewers, each of the plurality of view cohorts indicating a group of viewers, among the plurality of viewers, that share similar behavior and network attributes.
However, Wade teaches generating a recommunication for a desired 2D view of a stored 3D model, wherein the recommendation may include the determined one or more optimal values for one or more viewing parameters for the desired 2D view. The recommendation may further include information indicating that a desired 2D view of a merchant product was determined based on data collected during a certain period, based on data collected from a particular customer cohort, based on positive customer actions, or combinations thereof (paras. 143-144). The received data may be associated with a customer profile or a customer attribute. This customer information may be used to identify a cohort to which the customer belongs (e.g., a demographic group, a geographical group, an age group, a gender group, etc.). Using such information about customer attributes, the desired 2D view may be determined for a specific cohort of customers. The received data may be sorted based on different cohorts based on associated customer attributes and the desired 2D view may be determined for each cohort, in addition to or instead of determining the desired 2D view across all customers. Such cohort or attribute-specific information may be useful in order to better tailor the 2D view to the customer. A 2D image that is eventually generated based on a particular desired 2D view may be stored with metadata indicating one or more cohorts identified based on the information from a customer profile or attribute associated with the received data. A 2D image generated based on a desired 2D view may be stored with the metadata that the 2D image is for customers belonging to the cohort group “female”, “20-30 years old”, “living in urban area”, or a combination of any two or more of the listed cohort groups. A 3D model of a merchant product may therefore have multiple 2D images generated and stored, with at least some of the 2D images earmarked for one or more cohort groups, by way of metadata (paras. 138-140).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Doron’s system and Ding’s system with Wade’s system to show assigning a tag for each of the plurality of image portions based on at least a plurality of viewer cohorts for a plurality of viewers, each of the plurality of view cohorts indicating a group of viewers, among the plurality of viewers, that share similar behavior and network attributes in order to provide improved methods of classifying different image portions based on behavioral and network attribute data of a plurality of groups of viewers. As a result, a particular image portion can be more efficiently matched with and subsequently distributed to a particularly selected group of viewers at a later point in time.
As to claims 1 and 11, the aforementioned claims are rejected similarly as claim 16.
As to claims 4, 13, and 18, the combination of Doron, Ding, and Wade teaches wherein assigning the tag for each of the plurality of image portions is based on at least one of: (i) resolution or (ii) bitrate for a corresponding image portion different from the respective image portion (Doron; paras. 15-23, 31-41, and 55-56; Ding; paras. 16-22, 32, 35-37, and 39-42).
As to claim 5, the combination of Doron, Ding, and Wade teaches wherein assigning the tag for each of the plurality of image portions is further based on a tag assignment policy relating to assigning tags to adjacent image portions (Doron; paras. 15-23, 31-41, and 55-56; Ding; paras. 16-22, 32, 35-37, and 39-42).
As to claims 6, 14, and 19, the combination of Doron, Ding, and Wade teaches generating the plurality of cohorts for the plurality of content viewers based, at least in part, on viewer behavior data (Doron; paras. 15-23, 31-41, and 55-56; Ding; paras. 16-22, 32, 35-37, and 39-42; Wade; paras. 138-140 and 143-144).
As to claim 9, the combination of Doron, Ding, and Wade teaches wherein assigning the tag for each of the plurality of image portions is further based on conditions of the communication network (Doron; paras. 15, 31, 36, and 41; Ding; paras. 16-22, 32, 35-37, 39-42, 47, and 50).
As to claim 10, the combination of Doron, Ding, and Wade teaches transmitting the media rendition record over the communication network to a viewer device, wherein the viewer device is configured to reconstruct the first video content from the encoded video content using the media rendition record (Doron; paras. 15-23, 31-41, and 55-56; Ding; paras. 16-22, 32, 35-37, and 39-42).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7, 8, 15, and 20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 10/29/2025 have been fully considered but they are moot in light of the new grounds of rejection presented 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 ZHIHAN ZHOU whose telephone number is (571)270-7284. The examiner can normally be reached Mondays-Fridays 8:30am-5pm.
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/ZHIHAN ZHOU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2482
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