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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 12/16/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 4-14 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
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, 4-6, 10, 13 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Silverstein et al. (hereinafter ‘Silverstein’, Pub. No. 2021/0082300) in view of Younessian (Pub. No. 2024/0251134).
Regarding claims 1, 13 and 14, Silverstein teaches a system (100, Fig. 1, [0024]-[0030]) for modifying the presentation of pre-generated content to a user, the system comprising:
a user focus determination unit (IoT device 112, [0025]) configured to determine a level of user focus in respect to at least a portion of content being displayed to the user (215, Fig. 2; [0046]);
a user profile obtaining unit configured to obtain a user profile indicating one or more characteristics of the user ([0016]; [0020]; [0031]);
a content modification unit configured to modify, in response to a determination of the level of user focus falling below a threshold value (220, Fig. 2; [0018]; [0019]), a presentation of one or more portions of the pre-generated content, wherein the content modification unit is configured to determine that modification in dependence upon obtaining the user profile (225, Fig. 2; [0020]; [0021]; [0036]; [0047]; [0051]);
On the other hand, Silverstein does not explicitly teach
identify a subset of the one or more portions of the pre-generated content that are suitable for modification based in part on saliency information associated with the pre-generated content;
select between a plurality of alternative versions of the one or more portions of the pre-generated content corresponding to the identified subset suitable for modification, in dependence upon both the user profile and the determined level of user focus; and
wherein the content modification unit is configured to modify the presentation of the one or more portions of the pre-generated content by (1') increasing a playback speed of the one or more portions and/or editing a portion of the one or more portions so as to reduce a duration of the portion or (2) omitting a portion of the one or more portions during the presentation.
However, in an analogous art, Younessian teaches a system teaches a system that analyzes video content and creates metadata marking segments/frames of the video for future alignments at frames/section/segment replacement ([0040]-[0043]; [0055]). The metadata includes possible actions to be taken, excitement levels of the segments, etc. Upon the detection of a boring segment or any other type of negative sentiment of the user ([0038]) and considering the user preferences ([0061]) replacement of the segment/frame/region based on different versions ([0079]-[0081]) is performed in order to make the presented content more appealing and increase user’s interest over the content ([0040]; [0043]; [0055]; [0092]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Silverstein’s invention with Younessian’s feature of modifying a portion of the content based on user excitement data and user profile by replacing (omitting) the boring content with exciting content for the benefit of reducing the negative effects of the content displayed.
Regarding claim 4, Silverstein and Younessian teach wherein the user focus determination unit is configured to utilise one or more of biometric information, gaze tracking information, motion data, and/or audio inputs corresponding to the user to determine the level of user focus (Silverstein: [0018]; [0025]; [0046]).
Regarding claim 5, Silverstein and Lal teach wherein the content modification unit is configured to select of portions of the pre-generated portions to be presented to the user, wherein the portions include a plurality of portions representing alternatives to one another (Silverstein: [0044]; [0049], where the background can be changed or artifacts can be added, obscured, changed, etc.).
Regarding claim 6, Silverstein and Younessian teach wherein the content modification unit is configured to the audio associated with the pre-generated portion (Silverstein: [0049], where the audio is modified by increasing volume).
Regarding claim 10, Silverstein and Younessian teach wherein the pre-generated content is a cut-scene in a video game (Silverstein: [0035]; [0043]).
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Silverstein et al. (hereinafter ‘Silverstein’, Pub. No. 2021/0082300) in view of Lal et al. (hereinafter ‘Lal’, Pub. No. 2024/0139462) in further view of Asgekar et al. (hereinafter ‘Asgekar’, Pub. No. 2023/0162613).
Regarding claim 7, Silverstein and Younessian teach all the limitations of the claim it depends on. On the other hand, they do not explicitly teach wherein the modifications to the audio include changing an accent or language associated with speech.
However, in an analogous art, Asgekar teaches a system that provides educational content and modifies/customizes it based on cultural and contextual factors (Abstract; [0079]). The content can be text, video, audio, etc. ([0062]; [0079]; [0088]). The system can replace portions of the content, including languages based on the location of the students ([0060]; [0114]; [0135]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Silverstein and Younessian’s invention with Asgekar’s feature of modifying the language of the speech for the benefit of helping students to understand better the content with information according to their cultural and locality reality.
Claim(s) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Silverstein et al. (hereinafter ‘Silverstein’, Pub. No. 2021/0082300) in view of Younessian (Pub. No. 2024/0251134) in further view of Garg et al. (hereinafter ‘Garg’, Pub. No. 2023/0325611).
Regarding claim 8, Silverstein and Younessian teach all the limitations of the claim it depends on. On the other hand, they do not explicitly teach wherein the content modification unit is configured to perform a dialogue compression process to reduce the amount of dialogue in the pre-generated content.
However, in an analogous art, Garg teaches modifying video content to videos related to education, entertainment, etc. ([0028]). In particular, the modifications include translating the audio and changing the video using Artificial Intelligence ([0028]-[0032]). When the generated audio/video are shorter/longer than the original, the speed (and therefore, the length) is changed for reducing/extending the dialogue ([0060]-[0066]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Silverstein and Younessian’s invention with Garg’s feature of compressing the dialogue to reduce the amount of dialogue for the benefit of matching/aligning the video and audio in a modified video.
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Silverstein et al. (hereinafter ‘Silverstein’, Pub. No. 2021/0082300) in view of Younessian (Pub. No. 2024/0251134) in further view of Kim et al. (hereinafter ‘Kim’, Pub. No. 2024/0223780).
Regarding claim 9, Silverstein and Younessian teach all the limitations of the claim it depends on. On the other hand, they do not explicitly teach comprising a saliency determining unit configured to determine a saliency score for one or more frames, elements, scenes, and/or portions of the pre-generated content.
However, in an analogous art, Kim teaches a system that determines the areas of a presented content where the user shows more interest (Abstract; [0015]). The system determines interest values for the different regions of the video or objects in the video ([0028]-[0037]). With the interest values, the system encodes those regions at a higher quality or fidelity relative to the regions with lower interest levels ([0028]-[0037]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Silverstein and Younessian’s invention with Kim’s feature of determining a saliency score for one or more frames, elements, scenes and/or portions of the content for the benefit of “enabling more efficient storage, transmission, and processing of the interest information” based on region-based interest level (Kim: [0006]).
Claim(s) 11 and 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Silverstein et al. (hereinafter ‘Silverstein’, Pub. No. 2021/0082300) in view of Younessian (Pub. No. 2024/0251134) in further view of Bruckner et al. (hereinafter ‘Bruckner’, Pub. No. 2019/0147760).
Regarding claim 11, Silverstein and Younessian teach all the limitations of the claim it depends on. On the other hand, they do not explicitly teach wherein the content modification unit is configured to modify the presentation of the pre-generated content by inserting additional pre-generated portions in response to a determination of the level of user focus exceeding a second threshold value.
However, in an analogous art, Bruckner teaches a system that customizes content for teaching users (Abstract; [0022]). The system uses/receives biometric data, speech data, etc. to customize the content, including their interest ([0020]; [0025]-[0028]; [0049]). When the interest or the score of the educational goals are high, the system generates additional content to reinforce the learned concepts ([0020]; [0047]-[0050]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Silverstein and Younessian’s invention with Bruckner’s feature of inserting additional pre-generated portions in response to a determination of the level of the focus exceeding a second threshold value for the benefit of providing additional to enhance/reinforce the learning of engaged users or high performing students.
Regarding claim 12, Silverstein, Lal and Bruckner teach wherein the content modification unit is configured to generate additional dialogue to be inserted into the pre-generated portions (Bruckner: [0028]).
Conclusion
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/OMAR S PARRA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2421