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 .
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 12, 20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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, 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) 1-3,5-11,13-19,21-24 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Versteeg (US 2009/0217318) in view of Schiller (US 2007/0055983) in view of Lipcznynski (US 2020/0068232) in view of Dion (US 2015/0341812).
Regarding claim 1, 9, 17, Versteeg discloses A method of inserting content in a multi-rail splicer system, comprising:
receiving, by a processing system in a server computing device, a first cue request message from a first splicer (fig. 2(27)) associated with a first rail in the multi-rail splicer system (fig. 2, [0047-0048, 0058, 0065, 0112- 0113] The IP splicer (fig. 2(27) sends a cue request message to the ad server (fig 2. (35) in order to retrieve and insert an ad at a splice point)
receiving a second cue request message from a second splicer (fig. 2(28)) associated with a second rail in the multi-rail splicer system(fig. 2, [0047-0048, 0058, 0065, 0112- 0113] The IP splicer (fig. 2(28) sends a cue request message to the ad server (fig 2. (36) in order to retrieve and insert an ad at a splice point)
determining a second splice time value for the second splicer(fig. 2, [0047-0048, 0058, 0065, 0112- 0113])
sending commands to the first and second splicers to insert the content stream into their respective rails at their determined splice time values ([0047, 0053, 0056, 0061] Advertisements are inserted into the first and second splicers based on their respective cue times/splice points);
multicasting ([0045, 0047, 0050]) a content stream to the first and second splicers, the content stream including audio, video in a data packet identifier (PID) ([0039, 0053, 0069] Content streams are multicasted to the respective splicers);
Versteeg does not specifically disclose determining a first splice time value for the first splicer based on a time included in the received first cue request message.
However, Schiller discloses determining a first splice time value for the first splicer based on a time included in the received first cue request message ([0043-0044] an scte message is sent from the splicer to ad server). It would have been obvious before the filing date of the invention to incorporate the signaling of Schiller into the system of Versteeg in order to improve ad retrieval and management by including timing information in the request from splicer to ad server.
Versteeg in view of Schiller does not specifically disclose an ad beacon in a data packet identifier (PID).
However, Lip discloses an ad beacon in a data packet identifier ([0034, 0037]). It would have been obvious before the filing date of the invention to incorporate the ad beacon of Lip into the system of Versteeg in view of Schiller in order to verify ad impressions and insertions to the ad provider in a simple manner.
Versteeg in view of Schiller in view of Lip does not specifically disclose consolidating content insertion results from the first and second splicers into a single verification file.
However, Dion discloses consolidating content insertion results from the first and second splicers into a single verification file ([0220]). It would have been obvious before the filing date of the invention to incorporate the consolidated verification file of Dion into the system of Versteeg in view of Schiller in view of Lip in order to provide the ad provider with a consolidated report of ad insertions/impressions.
Regarding claim 2,10, 18, Versteeg in view of Schiller discloses determining whether the second cue request message is received before a time threshold value, wherein determining the second splice time value for the second splicer comprises determining the second splice time value for the second splicer based on one of: a timestamp included in the received second cue request message in response to determining that the second cue request message is received before the time threshold value ([0013, 0015, 0057, 0066] of Veersteeg, [0043-0044] of Schiller); or an adjusted time value determined based on a time difference between the first and second splicers from a previous ad insertion break in response to determining that the second cue request message is not received before the time threshold value.
Regarding claim 3, 11, 19,Dion discloses wherein consolidating the content insertion results from the first and second splicers into the single verification file comprises consolidating the content insertion results SO that: the consolidated result is marked as a failure in response to determining that the content insertion results from the first or second splicer indicate a failure; or the consolidated result is marked as a success in response to determining that the content insertion results from the first splicer or the second splicer indicate a success ([0219, 0220]).
Regarding claim 5, 13, 21, Dion discloses wherein consolidating the content insertion results from the first splicer and the second splicer into the single verification file comprises consolidating the content insertion results based on feedback from downstream devices indicating an active rail ([0201, 0205, 0206, 0220]).
Regarding claim 6, 14, 22, Lip discloses determining success of content insertion operations based on a presence of the ad beacon in the PID ([0034, 0037]).
Regarding claim 7, 15, 23, Versteeg discloses multicasting the content stream to the first splicer and the second splicer comprises synchronizing transmission of the content stream with the determined first splice time and second splice time ([0050, 0105]).
Regarding claim 8, 16, 24, Versteeg discloses wherein receiving the first cue request message from the first splicer associated with the first rail in the multi-rail splicer system further comprises monitoring program boundaries in the stream against a schedule and automatically generating the cue request message when the stream approaches a predefined slot for advertisements ([0056, 0057, 0058, 0061]).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL HYUN HONG whose telephone number is (571)270-1553. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00-5:30.
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/MICHAEL H HONG/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2426