Response to Amendment
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 .
This action is in response to amendment and RCE filed on 11/10/25.
Claims 1, 8 and 15 are amended. Claims 1-20 are presented for examination, with claims 1, 8 and 15 being independent.
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 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 of this title, 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 1-2, 7-9, 14-16 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li, US 2014/0075310 (hereinafter “Li”), in view of Lermant et al., US 2008/0082486 (hereinafter “Lermant”), and further in view of Nichols et al., US 2013/0173533 (hereinafter “Nichols”).
Regarding claim 1, Li discloses, A method comprising:
establishing, by at least one cloud based device, a communication link with a media device based upon a user defined keyword tag ( par. 86, “cloud” server, and fig. 19, items 920 and 970, par. 139, user defined tag comprise viewing preferences of the user, and par. 141, sharing/providing user defined excerpt or a link to a target recipient, note that the shared excerpt/link is a communication link based on user defined keyword tag that may be shared with a target/second recipient, Li)
receiving, from the media device via the communication link (par. 141, except/link, Li), a user defined keyword tag that has been defined by a user of the media device (e.g. the media management and playback system has an electronic communications interface that receives the first signal indicating that the user has engaged the button 140A. The first signal may also include information indicating at what time during the playback of the media program the button 140A is engaged. For example, in the embodiment shown, the user pressed the button 140A to begin defining his/her favorite excerpt at 1 hour and 20 minutes and 45 seconds into the movie. User can name the excerpt [as a user defined keyword tag], Li: [0029] and [0034]. The creation of a user-defined excerpt, e.g. “tag” the media program, stored in an electronic database of the media management and playback system, Li: [0030],[0037] and [0069]. Wherein, the media program is being played on an electronic device. The electronic device may be a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a tablet computer (for example, APPLE's.RTM. IPAD.RTM. or various ANDROID.RTM. or WINDOWS.RTM. powered tablets), a mobile telephone (for example, APPLE's.RTM. IPHONE.RTM. or various ANDROID.RTM. or WINDOWS.RTM. powered smart-phones), or a television (TV) set with an external or integrated set-top box [as media device],and see fig. 19 as rejected above, Li: [0019]);
performing, by the at least one cloud-based device, a search of a plurality of user defined keyword tags in a keyword tag database for one or more instances where the user defined keyword tag from the media device matches with one or more user defined keyword tags defined by other user devices stored in the keyword tag database (e.g. the user may base his/her search on an excerpt that he/she has defined and ask the media management and playback system to search its database for other media programs or user-defined excerpts (or even the media program from which the user-defined excerpt is made) that are similar to the excerpt that he has defined, Li: [0054]);
wherein the result includes at least one identifier of at least one media content event associated with the one or more instances (e.g. in Fig. 6, the user interface 100F displays a list of available user-defined excerpts 190 [as search result] that are associated with this particular media program M. In other words, the user John Doe has previously defined each of these excerpts 190 for this particular media program M, e.g. "Battle Scene 1" [as identifier] may correspond to a time portion from 55 minutes and 33 seconds to 59 minutes and 12 seconds [as instances] of the media program M [interpreted as identifiers of media content event associated with the one or more instances], Li: [0040]-[0041] and Fig. 6).
Li further suggests user defined keyword tags defined by the other users (fig. 19, item 960, plurality of user defined tags from a plurality of users is collected, Li),
Li does not explicitly disclose:
sending, to the media device, a result of the search,
at least one of the one or more user defined keyword tags defined by the other user devices corresponding to the at least one media content event, and
information identifying at least one user associated with the one or more user defined keyword tags that match the user defined keyword tag; but,
Lermant teaches:
sending, to the media device, a result of the search, (e.g. The search engine queries the content index and tag index to identify content items having matching tags and keywords [as user defined keyword tags]. Based on this search result set, the search provider identifies intermediate tags, and presents the user with the search result set [as sending a result of the search] and the intermediate tags [as identifiers] based on the search result set, Lermant: [0018]-[0019], [0025] and Fig. 2),
at least one of the one or more user defined keyword tags defined by the other user devices corresponding to the at least one media content event (e.g. The results set includes suggest tags [as defined keyword tags] that have been weighted in accordance with a popularity for the content item with which the tag is associated and the number of users [as user devices] who have tagged the content item [as media content event] with the given tag, Lermant: [0018]-[0019], [0025] and Fig. 2) and
information identifying at least one user associated with the one or more user defined keyword tags that match the user defined keyword tag (e.g. The system may also include a tag ranker operative to rank tags associated with content items. The tag ranker may rank tags based on a measure of popularity of each tag. For example, the number of users using the tag, the number of users associating the tag with a given content item, or the number of content items having associated with it the tag may measure the popularity of a given tag, Lermant: [0009]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify method of managing media playback as disclosed by Li to include methods and systems for facilitating the search and retrieval of content items as taught by Lermant to provide most popular tags to the user to use as intermediate tags to refine the search.
Li in view of Lermant does not directly or explicitly disclose:
adjusting, by the at least one cloud-based device, a programing schedule of the at least one media content event based on a number of matching keyword tags in the one or more instances.
Nichols teaches:
adjusting, by the at least one cloud-based device, a programing schedule of the at least one media content event based on a number of matching keyword tags in the one or more instances (e.g. a user, e.g. user device 108 in Fig. 1 as cloud-based device, may view multiple user preference tag clouds simultaneously on a display screen. The user may then be provided with the ability to compare and edit [as adjusting] the underlying taste profile via the user preference tag clouds, e.g., in response to the user accessing display screen 400. A comparison of taste profiles may involve comparing each of the media content attributes [as number of matching keyword tags] stored in one taste profile to the media content attributes of the other taste profile to determine matching attributes and/or non-matching attributes. The user may edit one or both of the taste profile corresponding to user preference tag clouds 402 and 452 [as a programing schedule of the at least one media content event]. Generally, the user may interact with a user preference tag cloud to remove or add media content attributes thereby removing or adding the same media content attributes from the underlying taste profile. The tag cloud may automatically readjust to accommodate these modifications. In some embodiments, the readjustment is real-time and dynamically displayed to the user, Nichols: [0073]-[0079] and Fig. 4).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify method of managing media playback as disclosed by Li in view of Lermant to include Systems and methods for sharing user profile information using tag clouds as suggested by Li (fig. 9, item 970 “viewing preferences for each user and for the plurality of users collectively, Li) and taught by Nichols to provide tools for user to publish or transmit their profiles to other users (see above, Nichols).
Regarding claim 2, Li further discloses:
receiving, from the media device, an identifier of a media content event associated with the user defined keyword tag (e.g. the media management and playback system has an electronic communications interface that receives the first signal indicating that the user has engaged the button 140A. The first signal may also include information indicating at what time during the playback of the media program. For example, in the embodiment shown, the user pressed the button 140A to begin defining his/her favorite excerpt at 1 hour and 20 minutes and 45 seconds into the movie. User can name the excerpt [as a user defined keyword tag], Li: [0029] and [0034]);
receiving, from the media device, user information that identifies the user of the media device (e.g. an account of the user, Li: [0030], [0114]); and
storing the user defined keyword tag, the identifier of the media content event, and the user information that identifies the user of the media device in the keyword tag database (e.g. the media management and playback system may then record this information in association with the media program [as an identifier of a media content event] and link it to an account of the user. For example, the media management and playback system may record (e.g., as a database entry) that the user A has defined a beginning of a favorite excerpt for the movie "Example Movie M" at 1 hour 20 minutes and 45 seconds into the movie, Li: [0030]and [0049]).
Regarding claim 7, Li further discloses, wherein the keyword tag database includes the plurality of user defined keyword tags, and a plurality of identifiers identifying respective media content events (e.g. the creation of the user-defined excerpts can be stored in an electronic database of the media management and playback system and associated with the user's account, Li: [0037]).
Claims 8-9 and 14 recite, A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a computing system, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising steps are similar to subject matter of claims 1-2 and 7. Therefore, claims 8-9 and 14 are rejected by the same reasons as discussed in claims 1-2 and 7.
Claims 15-16 and 20 recite, A system comprising steps are similar to subject matter of claims 1-2 and 7. Therefore, claims 15-16 and 20 are rejected by the same reasons as discussed in claims 1-2 and 7.
Claims 3, 5-6, 10, 12-13, 17 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li, in view of Lermant and Nichols, and further in view of Garcea et al., US 2008/0022308 (hereinafter “Garcea”).
Li in view of Lermant and Nichols does not directly or explicitly disclose claim 3.
Regarding claim 3, Garcea teaches:
receiving, from the media device, a request for media content event information in the keyword tag database (e.g. receiving a viewer-initiated search request at the television-based client device to identify related media content assets associated with the value through a communication network, Garcea: [0005], [0052] and [0070]); and
communicating, via the communication link to the media device, the media content event information (e.g. functions are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network, Garcea: [0052]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify method of managing media playback as disclosed by Li in view of Lermant and Nichols, to include instructions to prepopulated search results in EPG data as taught by Garcea to provide a list of the related media content assets without initiating a request to an EPG server.
Regarding claim 5, Garcea further teaches:
receiving, via the communication link, user information that identifies the user of the media device to a keyword tag system residing in the at least one cloud based device (e.g. receiving a viewer-initiated search request at the television-based client device to identify related media content assets associated with the value through a communication network, Garcea: [0005], [0052] and [0070] and Li, par. 86, cloud server communication).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify method of managing media playback as disclosed by Li in view of Lermant and Nichols, to include instructions to prepopulated search results in EPG data as taught by Garcea to provide a list of the related media content assets without initiating a request to an EPG server.
Regarding claim 6, Garcea further teaches:
in response to the media device powering on, from the at least one cloud based device a request for the new user defined keyword tags via the communication link (e.g. functions are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network, Garcea: [0052]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify method of managing media playback as disclosed by Li in view of Lermant and Nichols, to include instructions to prepopulated search results in EPG data as taught by Garcea to provide a list of the related media content assets without initiating a request to an EPG server.
Claims 10, 12-13, 17 and 19 are similar to subject matter of claims 3 and 5-6. Therefore, claims 10, 12-13, 17 and 19 are rejected by the same reasons as discussed in claims 3 and 5-6.
Claims 4, 11 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li, in view of Lermant and Nichols, and further in view of in view of Bajpai, US 2012/0159550 (hereinafter “Bajpai”).
Li in view of Lermant and Nichols does not directly or explicitly disclose claim 4.
Regarding claim 4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
sending the plurality of user defined keyword tags to an entity to prepare programming and scheduling of one or more media content events (e.g. an electronic program guide (EPG) feature that allows the viewer to find and select current or future television broadcasts [as scheduling]. To provide just one example, a program guide entry relating to a future sporting event could have a combination of static and dynamic content that is presented to the viewer. Static information provided in a first screen 142 may include conventional EPG information such as the program start time, name of the program, short summary, network/channel and/or the like. Other screens 143-144 may provide additional content related to the program in any manner. This dynamic content could provide information from any number of categories, such as information about the team (e.g., team schedule, record, roster, history or trivia, etc.), information about the game (e.g., stadium history, weather forecast for the venue, legal betting information, etc.), information about the league (standings, schedules, trivia, etc.), information about the players (history, statistics, etc.) or any number of other features as appropriate, Bajpai: [0003] and [0043]) .
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify method of managing media playback as disclosed by Li in view of Lermant and Nichols, to include system and method providing dynamic content with an electronic program guide as taught by Bajpai to provide additional space for presenting information about one or more programs from within the electronic program guide itself.
Claims 11 and 18 are similar to subject matter of claim 4. Therefore, claims 11 and 18 are rejected by the same reasons as discussed in claim 4.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference or reference mapping applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
In light of the amendment to the independent claims, the claims comprise practical application as alleged by the applicant and the Abstract rejection is therefore withdrawn.
The amended claims are rejected in view of a new non final office action. Please refer to the office action for details.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure in the field of personal tags and social media:
USPN. 2013/0339877 pars. 101-105, user profile, tag, filtering
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARCIN R FILIPCZYK whose telephone number is (571)272-4019. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7-4 EST.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kavita Stanley can be reached at 571-272-8352. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
March 2, 2026
/MARCIN R FILIPCZYK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2153