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 .
In the response to this office action, the Examiner respectfully requests that support be shown for language added to any original claims on amendment and any new claims. That is, indicate support for newly added claim language by specifically pointing to page(s) and line numbers in the specification and/or drawing figure(s). This will assist the Examiner in prosecuting this application.
Status of claims
Claims 1-20 are pending and have been rejected based on new ground of rejection due to new found prior art references for the reasons as set forth below.
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, 10-12, 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Dimitroval et al (US 2002/0147782) in view of Fingal et al (US 2014/0181910).
Regarding claim 1, Dimitrova discloses a system, comprising: a storage module (see memory 15 in fig. 1 and [0027]); and at least one processor (element 40 or 80 or 90 shown in fig. 1, [0027]: “memory 15 can provide memory storage functions for feature extraction circuitry 40, analyzer circuitry 80 and multimedia processor 90. It should be noted that feature extraction circuitry 40 and analyzer circuitry 80 may themselves be or include separate multimedia processors, and/or dispatch processing functions through multimedia processor 90”) each coupled to the storage module and configured to: receive a filtering instruction for a media device (e.g., a TV set, a settop box, or a personal video recorder, see [0020]), wherein the media device is configured to store a user profile (e.g., a user-specified filtering criteria reads on the claimed “user profile”, see [0016]) comprising a plurality of content filtering rules including a list of predefined filtering contents, wherein the filtering instruction is selected from the list of predefined filtering contents included in the plurality of content filtering rules; identify, by a content filtering system, based on the filtering instruction and an audio fingerprint (e.g., based on applicant’s disclosure, some specific words or phrases of an audio content can be considered an audio fingerprint of a filtering content (note: unwanted word(s) or phrase(s) of an audio content of Dimitrova can be used to identify unwanted audio content and thus those unwanted word(s) or phrase(s) of Dimitrova reads on the claimed audio fingerprint based on how applicant defines audio fingerprint of audio content (note: according to applicant’s own disclosure in [0054], a word can be considered an audio fingerprint of an audio content : “content filtering system 440 may use multiple examples of the audio of an inappropriate word (or words) for audio fingerprint identification”), the filtering content in an audio track of a content stored in a content server (note: it is inherent that contents received by a TV is stored in a content server since a content server is responsible for storing content that is provided to a TV to ensure that the content is available for viewing on media device such as a TV); filter out, by the content filtering system, the filtering content in the audio track of the content to generate filtered content; and present the filtered content on a display device (see Abstract, [0016]-[0020],[0027], [0036], [0055]) .
Dimitrova does not disclose that the plurality of content filtering rules includes a first content filtering rule for daytime and prime time and a second content filtering rule for late nighttime.
However, Fingal teaches content filtering rules includes a content filtering rule for a certain times of a day (see Fingal, [0035]- [0036] and [0045]: “Parental control settings may also prevent the user of a specific user profile from accessing certain content sources or prevent the user from accessing specific content sources at certain times of the day”).
Thus it would have been obvious to apply the teaching of Fingal to modify the content filtering rules of Dimitrova so that contents from different times of a day could have been selectively filtered based on user’s desire since it just uses well known technology to yield predictable results. It would also have been obvious that the plurality of content filtering rules of Dimitrova as modified by Fingal would have included a first content filtering rule for daytime and prime time and a second content filtering rule for late nighttime since it would have been an obvious design choice based on designer or user’s needs/preferences which produces no unexpected results.
Independent claims 11 and 17 recite similar limitations as that of independent claim 1, note the discussion of the rejection of claim 1, Dimitrova as modified by Fingal teaches all claim limitations for the similar reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 1 (see Dimitrova: Abstract, [0016]-[0020], [0027] [0036], [0055] and Fingal: [0035]- [0036] and [0045], it is inherent that the software executed by the processor 10 as shown in fig. 1 of Dimitrova is stored in a computer-readable medium since that is how it works in a computer system, or otherwise it does not work ).
Regarding claims 2 and 12, Dimitroval teaches the processor is configured to receive a selection of the filtering content from a predefined list of filtering contents (see Dimitroval, Abstract, [0016]-[0020], [0036], [0055]).
Regarding claim 3, Dimitroval teaches wherein to identify the filtering content in the audio track of the content, the at least one processor is configured to determine the audio fingerprint of the filtering content and identify the audio fingerprint in the audio track of the content (see discussion in the rejection of claim 1, Dimitroval, Abstract, [0016]-[0020], [0036], [0055]; (note: unwanted word(s) or phrase(s) of an audio content of Dimitrova can be used to identify unwanted audio content and thus those unwanted word(s) or phrase(s) of Dimitrova reads on the claimed audio fingerprint based on how applicant defines audio fingerprint of audio content (note: according to applicant’s own disclosure in [0054], a word can be considered an audio fingerprint of an audio content : “content filtering system 440 may use multiple examples of the audio of an inappropriate word (or words) for audio fingerprint identification”)).
Regarding claim 4, Dimitroval teaches wherein the filtering instruction includes a text input and the at least one processor is further configured to: identify the filtering content in captioning data of the content based on the text input; and identify the filtering content in the audio track of the content based on timestamp correspondence between the captioning data and the audio track (see Dimitroval, Abstract, [0016]-[0020], [0030], [0036], [0055]).
Regarding claim 10, Dimitroval teaches the filtering content comprises a word, a phrase or a sentence (see Dimitroval, Abstract, [0016]-[0020], [0030], [0036], [0055]).
Claims 5-8, 13-16 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Dimitroval et al (US 2002/0147782) in view of Fingal et al (US 2014/0181910) and further in view of Ditzik (US Patent 6167376).
Regarding claim 5, Dimitroval does not mention that the filtering instruction can be entered by a user’s voice input and the at least one processor determines an audio fingerprint of the voice input and identify the filtering content in the audio track of the content based on the audio fingerprint of the voiceinput. However, Ditzik (US Patent 6167376) teaches it is well known in the art that a user can provide a voice input which can be captured by a microphone and processed by a voice recognition system by using audio fingerprint to identify audio content (US Patent 6167376, see column 3 line 19-column 4 line 17, note that the feature vectors extracted by the voice recognition unit are audio fingerprints)). Thus it would have been obvious to use the teaching of Ditzik to modify the system of Dimitroval as modified by Fingal so that users can have an additional option to enter user’s command effectively. Note the discussion of the rejection of claim 3, the voice recognition system of the device of Dimitroval as modified by Fingal and Ditzik would have had used audio fingerprint of the voice input to identify the filtering content in the audio track of the content since the operation principle is similar to using audio fingerprint of a word or a phrase to identify the filtering content in the audio track of the content (see Dimitroval, Abstract, [0016]-[0020], [0030], [0036], [0055]).
Regarding claims 6-7 and 8, Dimitroval as modified by Fingal and Ditzik teaches the claim limitations for the similar reasons as set forth for the rejections of claims 4-5.
Dependent claims 13-16 and 18-20 recite similar limitations as that of claims 4-8 and thus the device of Dimitroval as modified by Fingal and Ditzik meets the limitations for the similar reasons as that of claims 4-8.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Dimitroval et al (US 2002/0147782) in view of Fingal et al (US 2014/0181910) and further in view of Shoemake et al (US 20150070516).
Regarding claim 9, Dimitroval does not teach identify an audience within a vicinity of the media device and determine the filtering content for the identified audience based on a content filtering rule. However, Shoemake et al (US 20150070516) teaches it is well known in the art to provide capability to identify an audience within a vicinity of the media device and determine the filtering content for the identified audience based on a content filtering rule (see paragraph 0127). Thus it would have been obvious for one skill in the art to apply the teaching of Shoemake to the device of Dimitroval as modified by Fingal so that certain audiences would be prevented to be exposed to inappropriate media presentation.
Conclusion
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/VIVIAN C CHIN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2695
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