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 the Claims
This is a final office action prepared in response to Remarks submitted by Applicant on March 12, 2026 relating to U.S. Patent Application No. 18/494,534 filed on October 25, 2023, which is a continuation of U.S. Patent Application No. 17/660,583, filed on April 25, 2022, now U.S. Patent 11,836,689, which is a continuation of U.S. Patent Application 15/979,773, filed on May 15, 2018, now U.S. Patent 11,341,467. None of the current Claims (11-30) have been amended. Claims 31-33 have been added. Claims 11-33 are pending and have been examined.
Response to Arguments
The Remarks submitted by Applicant on March 12, 2026 have been fully considered.
With respect to the Section 103 rejection, Applicant asserts that the cited references, when taken alone or in combination do not teach or suggest the combination of features recited in independent Claim 11 particularly, that Wheeler does not teach the elements of receiving and encoding content consumption data and Vanderhook does not teach use of blockchain and anonymous consumer identifiers. Applicant further asserts that the Office improperly applies a "substitution rational" that would have been obvious "to substitute the anonymous consumer identifiers taught by Wheeler for the UserIDs taught by Vanderhook and "to substitute the conventional storage of content consumption data disclosed by Vanderhook for storage of data in a blockchain as taught by Wheeler (Remarks, p. 8). Examiner respectfully disagrees. Wheeler and Vanderhook teach each and every element of the amended claims. The combination is obvious and the substitution does not produce any new and unexpected result. (See Section 103 rejection below). The Section 103 rejection is maintained.
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 11, 14, 16, 18, 21, 24, 26 and 28-33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vanderhook et al., US 2009/0070443 A1, (“Vanderhook”), in view of Wheeler et al., US 2019/0102850 A1, (“Wheeler”).
Claim 11:
Vanderhook teaches:
receiving, from a device of a plurality of devices, content consumption data indicating a viewing event associated with operation of the device (See Vanderhook, Par. 56, Fig 3A disclosing receipt of data regarding a plurality of users’ visits to a web site (each a “viewing event”), each user identified by a UserID and further disclosing that “in certain embodiments, the log data comprises … IP address of the user” (thus the content consumption data is associated with operation of a user device operating from the IP address)
encoding … the content consumption data into a record of the viewing event … indicating a content asset accessed by the device during the viewing event (See Vanderhook, Par. 56, Fig 3A disclosing that the viewing data is encoded and stored in a table (see Fig. 3A) which includes a SiteID indicating a website visited) and comprising an identifier configured to identify a user of the device (See Vanderhook, Par. 56, Fig 3A disclosing that the encoded data includes a UserID identifying the user).
Vanderhook does not expressly disclose that the viewing data is encoded as a distributed ledger transaction in a distributed ledger, or that the encoding of the identifier configured to identify a user of the device is done while maintaining anonymity of the user to at least a portion of the plurality of devices. However, use of anonymous user IDs in blockchains was known at the time of the invention. In analogous art, Wheeler teaches use of blockchain and smart contract technologies to implement a commodity exchange (See Par. 1). Wheeler further teaches use of anonymous consumer identifiers in ledgers (See at Par. 29, last sentence), which ledgers are stored in blockchains (See at least Fig. 3, elements 324, 328, 340, 342, 370, 372).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to have substituted the anonymous consumer identifiers taught by Wheeler for the UserIDs taught by Vanderhook and to have substituted the conventional storage of content consumption data disclosed by Vanderhook for storage of data in a blockchain as taught by Wheeler, in order to enable better consumer anonymity (See Wheeler, Par. 38). Further, one of ordinary skill in the art could have substituted the blockchain with anonymous user identifiers disclosed by Wheeler for the table with UserIDs disclosed by Vanderhook and the results of the substitution would have been predictable.
Claim 14:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 11 above.
Vanderhook further teaches:
retrieving, based on the identifier and from a demographic information source, demographic information associated with the user; and associating the demographic information with the distributed ledger transaction (See Vanderhook, entire disclosure, especially [0005]-[0008], [0084]-[0087], [0092], Fig. 11 disclosing automated derivation of a user’s demographic profile from the user’s online behavior, at least [0048] disclosing manners of storage of same and at least [0117]-[0142] for an extensive discussion of the retrieval and use of such stored user demographic profiles to profile websites).
Claim 16:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 14 above.
Vanderhook further teaches:
determining, from at least the demographic information, viewership data associated with the content asset (See Vanderhook, Par 85 (The users of the predetermined group of users are anonymous and providing the plurality of user demographic profiles in the operational block 410 comprises assigning at least some of the users of the predetermined group of users to one or more demographic
subgroups based on known or derived demographic profiles of the websites visited by these users. The assigned users are selected from web traversal history files obtained from internet service providers (ISPs). These web traversal history files contain lists of users and the URLs of the websites visited by the listed users.), Par. 87 (The web traversal history files include a plurality of lines each having a plurality of fields. In certain embodiments, only some of these fields are used in the subsequent analysis, and some of these fields are ignored. The fields used in the subsequent analysis can include, but are not limited to: UserID, EpochTime, Delta, and URL. User ID is a unique identification string provided by the ISP to identify the user, and URL is the URL as sent by the user's computer to the ISP. EpochTime is the number of seconds that had elapsed between the moment the user first accessed the URL and a predetermined moment.))
Claim 31:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 11 above.
Vanderhook further teaches:
the distributed ledger transaction comprises a timestamp generated by the device. (See Vanderhook, Par. 56 (As shown in FIG. 3A, in certain embodiments, each log data line 200 of the log data file 210 can comprise a
plurality of fields. In certain such embodiments, these fields include the user identification data of the user (UserID), date and time information regarding the user's visit to the website 20 (TimeStamp), and the site identification data identifying the site visited by the user (SiteID).))
Claim 32:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 11 above.
Vanderhook does not expressly disclose, however, Wheeler teaches:
the distributed ledger transaction comprises a hash of the content consumption data. (See Wheeler, Par. 36 (Verification may be recorded as a hash value corresponding to a Merkle-tree node that points to the block in the Blockchain of interest.))
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine with the teachings of Vanderhook discussed above, a step for hashing a transaction, as taught by Wheeler. Vanderhook teaches a system for generating a record of visits to a website by an anonymous user. It would be obvious for Vanderhook as part of his system to include a step for hashing a transaction so as to include it on a blockchain. Since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, Vanderhook’s system for generating a record and Wheeler’s step for hashing a transaction, and in the combination each element would have performed the same function it performed separately, one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Claim 33:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 11 above.
Vanderhook does not expressly disclose, however, Wheeler teaches:
encoding the content consumption data as the distributed ledger transaction comprises transmitting the distributed ledger transaction to validator nodes of the distributed ledger. (See Wheeler, Par. 34 (The public ledgers rely on Blockchain technology and are repeated across the network as identical copies, as needed. Thus, changing one ledger will change them all, so the consumers 110 and service providers 130 cannot secretly release their resources to entertain multiple, but unrelated negotiations. Blockchains implement a class of algorithms called practical byzantine fault tolerance (PBFT) whose main objective is to ensure each node in the mesh has a consistent copy of the distributed data set.))
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine with the teachings of Vanderhook discussed above, a step to transmit the distributed ledger transaction to validator nodes on the distributed ledger, as taught by Wheeler. Vanderhook teaches a system for generating a record of visits to a website by an anonymous user. It would be obvious for Vanderhook as part of his system to include a step to transmit the distributed ledger transaction to validator nodes on the distributed ledger so as to insure the integrity of the transaction data on the distributed ledger. Since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, Vanderhook’s system for generating a record and Wheeler’s step for transmitting the distributed ledger transaction to validator nodes on the distributed ledger, and in the combination each element would have performed the same function it performed separately, one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Claim 18:
Vanderhook teaches:
receiving, from a device of a plurality of devices, content consumption data indicating a viewing event associated with operation of the device (See Vanderhook, Par. 56, Fig 3A disclosing receipt of data regarding a plurality of users’ visits to a web site (each a “viewing event”), each user identified by a UserID and further disclosing that “in certain embodiments, the log data comprises … IP address of the user” (thus the content consumption data is associated with operation of a user device operating from the IP address)
encoding … the content consumption data into a record of the viewing event … indicating a content asset accessed by the device during the viewing event (See Vanderhook, Par. 56, Fig 3A disclosing that the viewing data is encoded and stored in a table (see Fig. 3A) which includes a SiteID indicating a website visited) and comprising an identifier configured to identify a user of the device (See Vanderhook, Par. 56, Fig 3A disclosing that the encoded data includes a UserID identifying the user).
Vanderhook does not expressly disclose that the viewing data is encoded as a distributed ledger transaction in a distributed ledger, or that the encoding of the identifier configured to identify a user of the device is done while maintaining anonymity of the user to at least a portion of the plurality of devices. However, use of anonymous user IDs in blockchains was known at the time of the invention. In analogous art, Wheeler teaches use of blockchain and smart contract technologies to implement a commodity exchange (See Par. 1). Wheeler further teaches use of anonymous consumer identifiers in ledgers (See at Par. 29, last sentence), which ledgers are stored in blockchains (See at least Fig. 3, elements 324, 328, 340, 342, 370, 372).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to have substituted the anonymous consumer identifiers taught by Wheeler for the UserIDs taught by Vanderhook and to have substituted the conventional storage of content consumption data disclosed by Vanderhook for storage of data in a blockchain as taught by Wheeler, in order to enable better consumer anonymity (See Wheeler, Par. 38). Further, one of ordinary skill in the art could have substituted the blockchain with anonymous user identifiers disclosed by Wheeler for the table with UserIDs disclosed by Vanderhook and the results of the substitution would have been predictable.
Claim 21:
Vanderhook teaches:
receiving, from a device of a plurality of devices, content consumption data indicating a viewing event associated with operation of the device (See Vanderhook, Par. 56, Fig 3A disclosing receipt of data regarding a plurality of users’ visits to a web site (each a “viewing event”), each user identified by a UserID and further disclosing that “in certain embodiments, the log data comprises … IP address of the user” (thus the content consumption data is associated with operation of a user device operating from the IP address)
encoding … the content consumption data into a record of the viewing event … indicating a content asset accessed by the device during the viewing event (See Vanderhook, Par. 56, Fig 3A disclosing that the viewing data is encoded and stored in a table (see Fig. 3A) which includes a SiteID indicating a website visited) and comprising an identifier configured to identify a user of the device (See Vanderhook, Par. 56, Fig 3A disclosing that the encoded data includes a UserID identifying the user).
Vanderhook does not expressly disclose that the viewing data is encoded as a distributed ledger transaction in a distributed ledger, or that the encoding of the identifier configured to identify a user of the device is done while maintaining anonymity of the user to at least a portion of the plurality of devices. However, use of anonymous user IDs in blockchains was known at the time of the invention. In analogous art, Wheeler teaches use of blockchain and smart contract technologies to implement a commodity exchange (See Par. 1). Wheeler further teaches use of anonymous consumer identifiers in ledgers (See at Par. 29, last sentence), which ledgers are stored in blockchains (See at least Fig. 3, elements 324, 328, 340, 342, 370, 372).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to have substituted the anonymous consumer identifiers taught by Wheeler for the UserIDs taught by Vanderhook and to have substituted the conventional storage of content consumption data disclosed by Vanderhook for storage of data in a blockchain as taught by Wheeler, in order to enable better consumer anonymity (See Wheeler, Par. 38). Further, one of ordinary skill in the art could have substituted the blockchain with anonymous user identifiers disclosed by Wheeler for the table with UserIDs disclosed by Vanderhook and the results of the substitution would have been predictable.
Claim 24:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 21 above.
Vanderhook further teaches:
retrieving, based on the identifier and from a demographic information source, demographic information associated with the user; and associating the demographic information with the distributed ledger transaction (See Vanderhook, entire disclosure, especially [0005]-[0008], [0084]-[0087], [0092], Fig. 11 disclosing automated derivation of a user’s demographic profile from the user’s online behavior, at least [0048] disclosing manners of storage of same and at least [0117]-[0142] for an extensive discussion of the retrieval and use of such stored user demographic profiles to profile websites).
Claim 26:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 24 above.
Vanderhook further teaches:
determining, from at least the demographic information, viewership data associated with the content asset (See Vanderhook, Par 85 (The users of the predetermined group of users are anonymous and providing the plurality of user demographic profiles in the operational block 410 comprises assigning at least some of the users of the predetermined group of users to one or more demographic
subgroups based on known or derived demographic profiles of the websites visited by these users. The assigned users are selected from web traversal history files obtained from internet service providers (ISPs). These web traversal history files contain lists of users and the URLs of the websites visited by the listed users.), Par. 87 (The web traversal history files include a plurality of lines each having a plurality of fields. In certain embodiments, only some of these fields are used in the subsequent analysis, and some of these fields are ignored. The fields used in the subsequent analysis can include, but are not limited to: UserID, EpochTime, Delta, and URL. User ID is a unique identification string provided by the ISP to identify the user, and URL is the URL as sent by the user's computer to the ISP. EpochTime is the number of seconds that had elapsed between the moment the user first accessed the URL and a predetermined moment.))
Claim 28:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 21 above.
Vanderhook does not expressly disclose, however, Wheeler teaches:
the record is one of a plurality of records associated with the distributed ledger (See Brillinger, Par. 26 (The invention 100 comprises a front-end for client
access, a back end repository 103 for storing content and resources, the path between the front end and back end being mediated by an analytics engine. Records setting forth which course content a user has accessed and viewed and user certifications are maintained and secured in database 106 using local or global
blockchain technology.))
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art just before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to substitute a distributed ledger with a plurality of records per the teaching of Brillinger for the use of more general storage of content viewing events taught by Vanderhook, in order to leverage the efficiency, verifiability and permanence provided by use of a blockchain (See Brillinger, at least [0026]).
Claim 29:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 28 above.
Vanderhook further teaches:
determining, based at least in part on the plurality of records, a pattern of access to the content asset (See Vanderhook, Par 109 (In certain embodiments, the profiled users are selected, at least in part, from the total list of users by identifying users who actively access the web with sufficient activity on a regular basis.))
determining, based on the pattern of access to the content asset, second demographic information associated with the content asset, wherein the second demographic information is associated with the at least the portion of the plurality of devices (See Vanderhook, Par 109 (In certain embodiments, the profiled users are selected, at least in part, from the total list of users by identifying users who actively access the web with sufficient activity on a regular basis. In certain embodiments, a stable user is defined as one who is active at least once a week in a sample data of four consecutive weeks. The process of identifying a set of stable users can be executed on a regular basis. For example, the set of stable users can be identified weekly for a four-week window on a rolling basis. For every window of four weeks, the remaining processes described herein can be executed for the set of stable users identified in this window. In certain embodiments, the set of stable users is identified to facilitate demographic analysis at day and day-part (e.g., hourly) levels.))
determining, based at least in part on the second demographic information, a consumption rating for the content asset (See Vanderhook, Par. 110 (The demographics (e.g., age group and gender) of the profiled users are estimated using the time spent by the users on a skewed website and the skewness of the website for a particular demography.), Par. 111 (The probabilities for a given user appearing in different web traversal history files are aggregated together in certain embodiments. The aggregate probabilities are generated using the following formula: NCumProb=(CumProb* AvgTS*(N-1)+ (NewProb*NewTS)) / (AvgTS*(N-l)+NewTS), where N is the total number of web traversal history files in which the user is present, CumProb is the cumulative probability from the previous web traversal history files, Avg TS is the average time spent by the user on skewed websites in the previous web traversal history files, New Prob is the probability calculated from the latest web traversal history file, New TS is the time spent by the user on skewed websites in the latest web traversal history file, NcumProb is the aggregate probability incorporating the results from all of the web traversal history files, and NAvgTS is the average time spent by the user on skewed websites for all of the web traversal history files, and is equal to (AvgTS*(N-l)+NewTS)/N.
Claim 30:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 28 above.
Vanderhook further teaches:
determining, based at least in part on the plurality of records, consumption information associated with the content asset (See Vanderhook, Par. 110 (The demographics (e.g., age group and gender) of the profiled users are estimated using the time spent by the users on a skewed website and the skewness of the website for a particular demography.), Par. 111 (The probabilities for a given user appearing in different web traversal history files are aggregated together in certain embodiments. The aggregate probabilities are generated using the following formula: NCumProb=(CumProb* AvgTS*(N-1)+ (NewProb*NewTS)) / (AvgTS*(N-l)+NewTS), where N is the total number of web traversal history files in which the user is present, CumProb is the cumulative probability from the previous web traversal history files, Avg TS is the average time spent by the user on skewed websites in the previous web traversal history files, New Prob is the probability calculated from the latest web traversal history file, New TS is the time spent by the user on skewed websites in the latest web traversal history file, NcumProb is the aggregate probability incorporating the results from all of the web traversal history files, and NAvgTS is the average time spent by the user on skewed websites for all of the web traversal history files, and is equal to (AvgTS*(N-l)+NewTS)/N.
associating the consumption information with demographic information associated with the at least the portion of the plurality of devices (See Vanderhook, Par. 110 (The demographics (e.g., age group and gender) of the profiled users are estimated using the time spent by the users on a skewed website and the skewness of the website for a particular demography.), Par. 111 (The probabilities for a given user appearing in different web traversal history files are aggregated together in certain embodiments. The aggregate probabilities are generated using the following formula: NCumProb=(CumProb* AvgTS*(N-1)+ (NewProb*NewTS)) / (AvgTS*(N-l)+NewTS), where N is the total number of web traversal history files in which the user is present, CumProb is the cumulative probability from the previous web traversal history files, Avg TS is the average time spent by the user on skewed websites in the previous web traversal history files, New Prob is the probability calculated from the latest web traversal history file, New TS is the time spent by the user on skewed websites in the latest web traversal history file, NcumProb is the aggregate probability incorporating the results from all of the web traversal history files, and NAvgTS is the average time spent by the user on skewed websites for all of the web traversal history files, and is equal to (AvgTS*(N-l)+NewTS)/N.
Claims 12, 19 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vanderhook et al., US 2009/0070443 A1, (“Vanderhook”), in view of Wheeler et al., US 2019/0102850 A1, (“Wheeler”), in further view of Orlowski, US 2019/0058917 A1, (“Orlowski”).
Claim 12:
Vanderhook and Brillinger teach each and every element of Claim 11 above.
Vanderhook does not expressly disclose, however, Orlowski teaches:
anonymity of the user is maintained by encrypting at least a portion of the identifier using a key (See Orlowski, Par. 44 (Once the data is enriched, key identifiers can be hashed or encrypted or de-identified to protect the identity of the viewer.))
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art just before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include a step for encrypting key identifiers of the viewer, as taught by Orlowski for the anonymous viewers taught by Vanderhook, in order to protect the identity of the viewer and to provide data security (See Orlowski, Pars. 44-45).
Claim 19:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 18 above.
Vanderhook does not expressly disclose, however, Orlowski teaches:
anonymity of the user is maintained by encrypting at least a portion of the identifier using a key (See Orlowski, Par. 44 (Once the data is enriched, key identifiers can be hashed or encrypted or de-identified to protect the identity of the viewer.))
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art just before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include a step for encrypting key identifiers of the viewer, as taught by Orlowski for the anonymous viewers taught by Vanderhook, in order to protect the identity of the viewer and to provide data security (See Orlowski, Pars. 44-45).
Claim 22:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 21 above.
Vanderhook does not expressly disclose, however, Orlowski teaches:
anonymity of the user is maintained by encrypting at least a portion of the identifier using a key (See Orlowski, Par. 44 (Once the data is enriched, key identifiers can be hashed or encrypted or de-identified to protect the identity of the viewer.))
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art just before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include a step for encrypting key identifiers of the viewer, as taught by Orlowski for the anonymous viewers taught by Vanderhook, in order to protect the identity of the viewer and to provide data security (See Orlowski, Pars. 44-45).
Claims 13, 20 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vanderhook et al., US 2009/0070443 A1, (“Vanderhook”), in view of Wheeler et al., US 2019/0102850 A1, (“Wheeler”), in further view of Kaehler, US 2018/0034642 A1, (“Kaehler”).
Claim 13:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 11 above.
Vanderhook does not expressly disclose, however, Kaehler teaches:
the record is signed with a digital signature associated with the device, and wherein the digital signature is capable of being decrypted using a key to verify the device generated the record (See Kaehler, Abstract (After receiving a content request, a sender device can send a record to a receiver device making the
request. The record can comprise a sender signature created using the sender device's private key. The receiver device can verify the authenticity of the sender signature using the sender device's public key.))
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art just before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include a step for a record associated with a device can be decrypted using a key, as taught by Kaehler for the records created by Vanderhook, in order to verify the authenticity of the sender’s record (See Kaehler, Par. 8).
Claim 20:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 18 above.
Vanderhook does not expressly disclose, however, Kaehler teaches:
the record comprises a digital signature of the device, wherein the digital signature comprises an encryption of at least a portion of the record using a key (See Kaehler, Abstract (After receiving a content request, a sender device can send a record to a receiver device making the request. The record can comprise a sender signature created using the sender device's private key. The receiver device can verify the authenticity of the sender signature using the sender device's public key.))
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art just before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include a step for a record associated with a device can be decrypted using a key, as taught by Kaehler for the records created by Vanderhook, in order to verify the authenticity of the sender’s record (See Kaehler, Par. 8).
Claim 23:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 21 above.
Vanderhook does not expressly disclose, however, Kaehler teaches:
the record is signed with a digital signature associated with the device, and wherein the digital signature is capable of being decrypted using a key to verify the device generated the record (See Kaehler, Abstract (After receiving a content request, a sender device can send a record to a receiver device making the request. The record can comprise a sender signature created using the sender device's private key. The receiver device can verify the authenticity of the sender signature using the sender device's public key.))
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art just before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include a step for a record associated with a device can be decrypted using a key, as taught by Kaehler for the records created by Vanderhook, in order to verify the authenticity of the sender’s record (See Kaehler, Par. 8).
Claims 15 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vanderhook et al., US 2009/0070443 A1, (“Vanderhook”), in view of Wheeler et al., US 2019/0102850 A1, (“Wheeler”), in further view of Igoe et al., US 8,930,204 B1, (“Igoe”).
Claim 15:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 14 above.
Vanderhook does not expressly disclose, however, Igoe teaches:
identifying, based on the associating the demographic information with the distributed ledger transaction, a second content asset and sending the second content asset to the user (See Igoe, Col. 40, lines 64-67 (A collaborative recommendation engine might recommend a content item to a particular demographic group due to the content item's popularity with users with the same, or similar, demographic profiles.))
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art just before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include a step for identifying a second content based on demographic information, as taught by Igoe from the records created by Vanderhook, in order recommend additional content to users with the same demographics (See Igoe, Cols. 41-42).
Claim 25:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 24 above.
Vanderhook does not expressly disclose, however, Igoe teaches:
identifying, based on the associating the demographic information with the distributed ledger transaction, a second content asset and sending the second content asset to the user (See Igoe, Col. 40, lines 64-67 (A collaborative recommendation engine might recommend a content item to a particular demographic group due to the content item's popularity with users with the same, or similar, demographic profiles.))
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art just before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include a step for identifying a second content based on demographic information, as taught by Igoe from the records created by Vanderhook, in order recommend additional content to users with the same demographics (See Igoe, Cols. 41-42).
Claims 17 and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vanderhook et al., US 2009/0070443 A1, (“Vanderhook”), in view of Wheeler et al., US 2019/0102850 A1, (“Wheeler”), in further view of Knox, US 2020/0364588 A1, (“Knox”).
Claim 17:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 16 above.
Vanderhook does not expressly disclose, however, Knox teaches:
identifying, from the viewership data, a second content asset (See Knox, Par. 112 (Recommendation engine 508 generates media content lists for presentation to any authorized user 516, 518 derived from aggregated media consumption preference data from newly detected and historical ubicomp data 514 collected from a defined group of users 516 on system 500 or a group of networked systems 500.))
determining, from at least the demographic information, a second user and
sending the second content asset to the second user (See Knox, Par. 112 (Computer application 78 implements automated recommendation engine 508 processes to identify and recommend media content and media content lists based
on individual user media consumption preference data or aggregated data from a group or group network of system 500 users. Authorized users 516, 518 may request media content lists using API 512 controls to create and define media consumption preference data parameters with automated programming or manually created parameters such as demographics, consumption category, geography, device, lifestyle habits, and etc.))
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art just before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include a step for identifying a second content for a second user, as taught by Knox from the records created by Vanderhook, in order recommend additional content to users with the same demographics (See Knox, Par. 8).
Claim 27:
Vanderhook and Wheeler teach each and every element of Claim 26 above.
Vanderhook does not expressly disclose, however, Knox teaches:
identifying, from the viewership data, a second content asset (See Knox, Par. 112 (Recommendation engine 508 generates media content lists for presentation to any authorized user 516, 518 derived from aggregated media consumption preference data from newly detected and historical ubicomp data 514 collected from a defined group of users 516 on system 500 or a group of networked systems 500.))
determining, from at least the demographic information, a second user and
sending the second content asset to the second user (See Knox, Par. 112 (Computer application 78 implements automated recommendation engine 508 processes to identify and recommend media content and media content lists based
on individual user media consumption preference data or aggregated data from a group or group network of system 500 users. Authorized users 516, 518 may request media content lists using API 512 controls to create and define media consumption preference data parameters with automated programming or manually created parameters such as demographics, consumption category, geography, device, lifestyle habits, and etc.))
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art just before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include a step for identifying a second content for a second user, as taught by Knox from the records created by Vanderhook, in order recommend additional content to users with the same demographics (See Knox, Par. 8).
Conclusion
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GEORGE PROIOS whose telephone number is (571)272-4573. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5.
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, Bennett M Sigmond can be reached on 303-297-4411. 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.
/GEORGE N. PROIOS/Examiner, Art Unit 3694
/BENNETT M SIGMOND/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3694
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