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 .
Status of claims
This office action is in response to the amendment filed on 4/22/2026.
Claims 1, 9, and 15 have been amended.
Claims 1-6 and 9-22 are pending and have been examined.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-6 and 9-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1: Claims 1-6, 21, and 22 are directed to a computing system. Claims 9-14 are directed to a method. Claims 15-20 are directed to a non-transitory computer readable medium. Thus, on their face they fall within the four statutory categories of patentable subject matter.
Step 2A prong 1:
Claims 1, 9, and 15 recite virtually identical limitations and as such will be addressed together. Each claims additional elements will be addressed individually. The following limitations, when considered individually and as an ordered combination, are merely descriptive of abstract concepts:
Claims 1, 9, 15:
monitoring the media exposure of a specific panelist of panelists recruited by an audience measurement entity, wherein the specific panelist is carrying a respective portable media meter of the portable media meters;
presenting media to the panelists, wherein the specific panelist is using a specific entity;
further monitoring the media exposure of the specific panelist when using their respective specific entity:
generating corresponding monitoring data
receiving the generated monitoring data collected by the portable media meters associated with the panelist media devices in panel homes recruited by the audience measurement entity;
receiving automatic content recognition (ACR) data collected by multiple smart televisions which monitor media exposure in smart television households;
receiving return path data (RPD) collected by a media service provider, the RPD including tuning events associated with set-top boxes in RPD households;
receiving reference advertisement data collected by an advertisement provider system for an addressable advertisement, wherein the reference advertisement data corresponds to an addressable target file that identifies which set-top boxes or smart televisions were served the addressable advertisement and when ones of the set-top boxes or ones of the ACR devices served the addressable advertisement;
processing the reference advertisement data to identify served reportable addressable impressions associated with the ones of the smart televisions or the ones of the set-top boxes to which the addressable advertisement was served;
processing the generated monitoring data, ACR data, and the RPD to identify exposed reported addressable impressions associated with presentation of the addressable advertisement by ones of the panelist media devices, smart televisions, or set-top boxes;
estimating unreported addressable impressions for a plurality of unreported media devices for the addressable advertisement based on an impressions adjustment ratio of the served reportable addressable impressions to the exposed reported addressable impressions, wherein the impressions adjustment ratio is calculated by dividing a first number of served ACR or RPD reportable devices corresponding to the ones of the smart televisions or the ones of the set-top boxes to which the addressable advertisement was served by a second number of exposed reportable media devices corresponding to ones of the panelist media devices, the smart television, or the set-top boxes;
calculating at least one of reach or frequency for the addressable advertisement to account for the unreported media devices, the at least one of the reach or the frequency determined based on the exposed reported addressable impressions, the estimated unreported addressable impressions, and the impressions adjustment ratio; and
transmitting the at least one of the reach or the frequency to storage
The following dependent claim limitations, when considered individually and as an ordered combination, are merely further descriptive of abstract concepts:
Claims 2, 10, 16:
wherein the reference advertisement data identifies which households were served the addressable advertisement.
Claims 3, 11, 17:
wherein estimating the unreported addressable impressions comprises estimating the unreported addressable impressions by applying the impressions adjustment ratio to the exposed reported addressable impressions.
Claims 4,12, 18:
wherein calculating the at least one of the reach or the frequency comprises determining total campaign impressions for the addressable advertisement by determining a sum of the exposed reported addressable impressions and the estimated unreported addressable impressions.
Claims 5, 13, 19:
wherein calculating the at least one of the reach or the frequency comprises calculating a total reach by determining a sum of a first reach across reported households associated with the reporting media devices and a second reach across unreported households associated with the unreported media devices.
Claims 6, 14, 20:
wherein transmitting the at least one of the reach or the frequency to the storage comprises reporting the at least one of the reach or the frequency to an advertisement provider of the addressable advertisement.
Claim 21:
wherein the reach is defined as a number of impressions from unique audience members.
Claim 22:
wherein the frequency is defined as a total number of impressions divided by the reach.
The claims provide a manner of analyzing data to determine reported impressions and estimate the number or unreported impressions to calculate the reach or frequency of an advertisement. Thus, when considered individually and as an ordered combination, the claims embody certain methods of organizing human activity. Specifically, such activity is in the form of commercial interactions (in the form of advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors) as the claims analyze data to determine the reach or frequency of an advertisement.
Step 2A prong 2: This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claims include the following additional elements: computing system comprising a network interface (claim 1, 9); data center comprising a processor and a memory (claim 1, 9); database (claim 1); portable media meters (claim 1, 9, 15); mobile phone (claims 1, 9, 15); wherein the monitoring data includes hidden watermarks that identify the media associated with the panelist devices and processing the monitoring data that includes the hidden watermarks (claims 1,9, and 15); non-transitory computer readable medium having stored therein instructions (claim 15);
The computing system comprising a network interface, data center comprising a processor and a memory, database, and non-transitory computer readable medium having stored therein instructions, portable media meters, and mobile device are recited at a high level of generality and merely “apply it” (the abstract idea) using generic computing components (paragraph [0056], [0112]-[0124]) . The computing devices merely send and receive data (receiving, transmitting) and process data (identify, estimating, calculating, monitoring, presenting, generating). Therefore, nothing in the claims improves upon computers themselves, computer technology, or a technical field. (See MPEP 2106.05(f).)
The limitations of wherein the monitoring data includes hidden watermarks that identify the media associated with the panelist devices and processing the monitoring data that includes the hidden watermarks are insignificant extra solution activity of data gathering are recited at a high level of generality and merely “apply it” (the abstract idea) using generic computing devices. Nothing in the claims improves upon watermarking technology or a technical field. (See MPEP 2106.05(f)). Further, the use of watermarking is only tangentially related to the invention and is considered insignificant extra solution activity of data gathering (See MPEP 2106.05(g)).
Accordingly, when considered both individually and as an ordered combination, the additional elements do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
Step 2B: The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. Similarly, as above with regard to practical application, the additional elements when considered both individually and as an ordered combination, do not provide an inventive concept as they merely provide generic computing components used as a tool to implement the abstract idea and provide insignificant extra solution activity of data gathering.
Further, hidden watermarks that identify the media associated with the panelist devices and processing the monitoring data that includes the hidden watermarks to identify content was well-understood, routine, and conventional at the time of the invention. (See https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/j6r298/comment/g804ea7/ - “These days, it's more common to use a device which picks up inaudible tones embedded in the broadcast and uses this information to determine what station is being listened to and when.” – Oct 7, 2020; www.egta.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/2020_egta_insight_tam.pdf - Ipsos world’s largest market research offering measurement services in 21 countries including using audio matching and audio water marking to identify content – 2020; spec [0030] – “Existing audio watermarking techniques identify media by embedding one or more audio codes (e.g., one or more watermarks), such as media identifying information and/or an identifier that may be mapped to media identifying information, into an audio and/or video component.”; https://www.amazon.science/blog/audio-watermarking-algorithm-is-first-to-solve-second-screen-problem-in-real-time - conventional audio watermarking uses sequence of noise blocks and the detector looks for that sequence in the audio signal – Mar 28, 2019; McMillan et al – US 2011/0246202 – [0002] “Audio watermarking is a common technique used to identify media content, such as television broadcasts, radio broadcasts, downloaded media content, streaming media content, prepackaged media content, etc., presented to a media consumer. Existing audio watermarking techniques identify media content by embedding an audio watermark, such as identifying information or a code signal, into an audible audio component having a signal level sufficient to hide the audio watermark.” – Oct. 6, 2011;
As a result, the claims are not patent eligible.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-6 and 9-22 are allowed over the prior art, however, remain rejected under 35 USC 101.
Regarding prior art:
While each limitation can be found individually in the prior art, the examiner was unable to find a reasonable combination of references that teaches each and every limitation in the context of the claimed invention.
Muller et al (US 2016/0080789) is considered the closest prior art of record. Muller teaches receiving broadcast transmissions at multiple locations across a large area and identifying advertisements played during the transmission using fingerprinting. Reported advertisement sequences may be determined and compared to observed advertisement sequences to identify and/or confirm content rendered. Further, an estimate of how many households actually received the advertisement can be determined based on using a ratio of the number that reported the advertisement divided by the total number in the sample and multiplying that by the number oof households for an entire region.
Muller does not expressly teach using hidden watermarks to identify media, transmitting the at least one of the reach or the frequency to a computer database, portable media meters, wherein each portable media meter is configured to monitor the media exposure of a specific panelist of panelists recruited by an audience measurement entity and to generate corresponding monitoring data, wherein the specific panelist is carrying a respective portable media meter of the portable media meters; panelist media devices configured to present media to panelists, the panelist media devices including mobile phones of the panelists, wherein the specific panelist is using a specific mobile phone of the mobile phones, wherein the respective portable media meter is further configured to monitor the media exposure of the specific panelist when using their respective specific mobile phone and to generate the corresponding monitoring data or receive the generated monitoring data collected by the portable media meters associated with the panelist media devices in panel homes recruited by the audience measurement entity, and wherein the impressions adjustment ratio is calculated by dividing a first number of served ACR or RPD reportable devices corresponding to the ones of the smart televisions or the ones of the set-top boxes to which the addressable advertisement was served by a second number of exposed reportable media devices corresponding to ones of the panelist media devices, the smart television, or the set-top boxes.
McMillan et al (US 2011/0246202) teaches the technique of identifying content using hidden watermarks.
Zhou et al (US 2017/0213241) teaches a report data store storing report data that includes information about reports generated for advertiser requests and describes the reach and frequency of online audience viewing or interacting advertisements provided by the advertisers.
Guiterrez (2014/0273822) teaches mobile device peripherals and/or accessories that include metering equipment to monitor media presented via mobile devices and/or to monitor near-field communications of mobile devices. One or more sensors include a microphone to collect an audio signal generated by the mobile device.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments regarding rejections under 35 USC 103 are found persuasive. As a result, such rejection has been withdrawn.
The examiner has considered but does not find persuasive applicant’s arguments regarding rejections under 35 USC 101. With regard to methods of organizing human activity, the examiner respectfully disagrees. The claims very clearly are directed to gathering data regarding advertisement exposure and using that data to calculate the reach or frequency of an advertisement. As such, the claims are directed to commercial interactions in the form advertising, marketing, or sales behaviors.
With regard to practical application the examiner respectfully disagrees. Any alleged improvement is to the business idea regarding the data analysis of determining how many people saw an advertisement. The calculations and estimations of reach are not a technical improvement. This analysis appears to essentially be the use of sampling in a particular environment (i.e. measure information about a subgroup and apply that to the whole). The claims do not improve upon any of the technology used to gather such data. The media meters are recited at a high level of generality and provide no improvements to monitoring technology or a technical field. Further, the technique of watermarking to identify content is recited at a high level of generality and such technique is well-understood, routine, and conventional at the time of the invention. The claims gather data by sending and receiving information from computing devices regarding tracking of advertisement impressions and analyze the data to determine reported impressions. This is then used to estimate the number of unreported impressions in order to calculate the reach or frequency of an advertisement.
Similarly, regarding inventive concept, the claims fall short. The examiner did not claim the technical improvement of claim 1 was well understood, routine, or conventional. The applicant is not claiming to have invented the technique of watermarking. Applicant is merely using the well-understood, routine, and conventional technique of watermarking to identify content provided to a device. Thus, the use of watermarking for its typical purpose, (i.e. identifying content) is not a technical improvement. As a result, such rejections have been maintained.
The examiner consulted the TQAS specialists to discuss the 101 rejections as it is the last remaining rejection. They recommended focusing more on the technical aspects, particularly including more specifics regarding the meters monitoring the panelists devices and providing more details with regard to the watermarking. They said this could potentially be a path forward with regard to 101.
Conclusion
The following references are considered relevant though not currently relied upon;
Cui et al (US 2015/0332310) – generally teaches calculating ad reach based on a sample and extrapolating the reach for an entire population to determine an estimated total reach
Shimizu et al (US 2012/0053991) – teaches using meters to capture audio data for identifying content
Kim et al (US 2014/0244447) – teaches using ACR from smart tvs to identify content including advertisements
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
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CHRISTOPHER STROUD
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3621
/CHRISTOPHER STROUD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3621
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