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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 11/20/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 11/20/2025 have been considered but they are not persuasive.
On page 15, Applicant argues that,
Applicant respectfully submits that the cited reference do not teach at least the claimed "wherein obtaining the degrees of interest comprises performing interest degree prediction according to a first fusion feature vector of at least one piece of bullet comment content obtained by performing attention interaction on a plurality of vectors obtained from the object identifier and the at least one piece of bullet comment content."
Specifically, paragraphs [0092]-[0095] of Blong generally describe a "monitoring device" that provides an "interest level indicator" to a user device. Blong, at paragraph [0093]. For example, a "first portion of a playback bar may indicate a high level of interest" and a "second portion of the playback bar may indicate a low level of interest." Id., at paragraph [0095]. However, showing a level of interest via the playback bar does not teach performing interest degree prediction according to a first fusion feature vector of at least one piece of bullet comment content obtained by performing attention interaction on a plurality of vectors obtained from the object identifier and the at least one piece of bullet comment content to obtain a degree of interest. Therefore, Blong does not teach or suggest such subject matter. Additionally, Nashida and Gupta do not cure the deficiencies of Blong.
Additionally, the amendments are from claim 7, where the Office indicated that claim 7 recites allowable subject matter.
Based on at least the above reasons, Applicant respectfully submits that independent claim 1 is patentable over the cited references.
In response, after reconsidering claimed languages of previously presented claim 7 and Blong’s teachings in at least paragraphs [0081]-[0088], Examiner respectfully submits that:
Examiner interprets performing interest degree prediction as a result of aggregating various activity information indicating various types of interest degree into an aggregated interest degree, which is a predicated value of interest degree,
Examiner also interprets a vector as a value with its own meaning or type. In this case, Blong teaches a plurality of vectors of activity information: i.e. ‘fast-forward’ vector, ‘rewind’ vector, emotion vector comprising type and strength of emotion, obtained from the object, i.e. received activity information from one or more users including the user requesting to play the multimedia, and at least a bullet comment content, which is a vector itself.
Examiner also interprets a fusion feature vector is an aggregated vector obtained by aggregating a plurality of vectors above and the comment vector,
Examiner interprets encoding as placing data into any specific form or format, thus Blong teaches each piece of activity information is encoded into a tag indicating the user is interested of the corresponding portion of the media.
As such, Blong, in view of Nashida and Gupta, teaches the limitation of “obtaining the degrees of interest comprises performing interest degree prediction according to a first fusion feature vector of at least one piece of bullet comment content obtained by performing attention interaction on a plurality of vectors obtained from the object identifier and the at least one piece of bullet comment content” and the limitations of newly amended claim 7 as discussed in details below.
Applicant’s arguments are not persuasive.
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 1-7, 9-11, and 13-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blong et al. (US 2016/0366203 A1 – hereinafter Blong), Nashida et al. (US 2009/0252474 A1 – hereinafter Nashida), and Gupta et al. (US 2020/0311118 A1 – hereinafter Gupta).
Regarding claim 1, Blong discloses a multimedia resource playing method, performed by a computer device, comprising: obtaining a playing request for a multimedia resource to be played, the playing request carrying a multimedia identifier of the multimedia resource to be played ([0099] – obtaining a playing request from a user for a video content to be played, the playing request carrying a content identifier for the content to be played, i.e. ‘ghost.vid’); obtaining, based on the multimedia identifier, degrees of interest of a multimedia playing object in multimedia resource segments in different time intervals in the multimedia resource to be played ([0098]-[0099] – obtaining degrees of interest of the user stored in metadata associated with content identified by the identifier); generating a playback progress bar based on the degrees of interest of the multimedia playing object, a sliding granularity of the playback progress bar matching a division granularity of each time interval ([0092]-[0095]; Fig. 7B – generating a playback progress bar with indicators that indicates segments with corresponding degrees of interest based on the degrees of interest of the user); and playing the multimedia resource to be played, and displaying the playback progress bar on a playing page of the multimedia resource to be played during the playing of the multimedia resource to be played, the playback progress bar indicating a playback progress of the multimedia resource to be played and the degrees of interest of the plurality of multimedia playing object ([0092]-[0095]; Fig. 7B – displaying the content, and displaying the playback progress bar on a playing page as shown in Fig. 7B, the playback bar indicating a playback progress of the content and the degrees of interest of the users as described), wherein the displaying the playback progress bar includes a representation that indicates different degrees of interest at different time intervals (Fig. 7B), wherein obtaining the degrees of interest comprises performing interest degree prediction according to a first fusion feature vector of at least one piece of bullet comment content obtained by performing attention interaction on a plurality of vectors obtained from the object and the at least one piece of bullet comment content ([0081]-[0088] – performing aggregating various types of activity information, each of which corresponds to a vector, i.e. ‘fast-forward’ vector, ‘rewind’ vector, emotion vector comprising type and strength of emotion, obtained from the object, i.e. received activity information from one or more users including the user requesting to play the multimedia, and at least a bullet comment content, i.e. either a positive comment or a negative comment – thus performing interest degree prediction, i.e. calculating an aggregated value via aggregating various types of activity information including (1) activity information other than comments and (2) the comments).
However, Blong does not disclose the representation is a continuous waveform; obtaining the playing request carrying an object identifier of a multimedia playing object; and obtaining, based on the object identifier and the multimedia identifier, degrees of interest of the multimedia playing object in multimedia resource segments in different time intervals in the multimedia resource to be played.
Nashida discloses displaying the playback progress bar includes a representation, which is a continuous waveform, that indicates different degrees of interest at different time intervals (Fig. 10; [0110]-[0111]).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to incorporate the teachings of Nashida into the method taught by Blong to allow the user to easily recognize the level of interest in a finer resolution.
However, Blong and Nashida do not disclose obtaining the playing request carrying an object identifier of a multimedia playing object; and obtaining, based on the object identifier and the multimedia identifier, degrees of interest of the multimedia playing object in multimedia resource segments in different time intervals in the multimedia resource to be played.
Gupta discloses obtaining a request carrying an object identifier of a multimedia playing object ([0029] – a request carrying an identifier of a content, a user ID of a multimedia playing object); obtaining, based on the object identifier and the multimedia identifier, degrees of interest of the multimedia playing object in multimedia resource segments in different time intervals in the multimedia resource to be played ([0029] – obtaining, based on the user ID and the content identifier, a set of interest levels for the segments of the content).
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to incorporate the teachings of Gupta into the playing request in the method taught by Blong and Nashida to track user data more accurately so that data corresponding to each user can be managed independently or separately, thus enhancing management of user data. Further, one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the plurality of vectors are obtained from the object identifier taught by Gupta above.
Regarding claim 2, see the teachings of Blong, Nashida, and Gupta as discussed in claim 1 above. Gupta also discloses obtaining the degrees of interest of the multimedia playing object comprises: searching, according to the object identifier and the multimedia identifier, an interest degree storage space for the degrees of interest of the multimedia playing object, the interest degree storage space storing degrees of respective interest of a plurality of objects in multimedia resource segments in different time intervals in different multimedia resources, and the plurality of objects comprising the multimedia playing object ([0029] – based on the user ID and the content ID, searching metadata, which is the storage space, for the degrees of interest of the viewer in different segments of the content among metadata associated with other viewers).
The motivation for incorporating the teachings of Gupta into the method has been discussed in claim 1 above.
Regarding claim 3, Blong in view of Gupta also discloses the multimedia resource playing method according to claim 2, further comprising: obtaining interactive data of the multimedia playing object (Blong: [0081]-[0090] – obtaining various types of activity information) based on the object identifier (Gupta: [0029] – based on the user ID); determining an activity level of the multimedia playing object according to the interactive data (Blong: [0087]-[0090] – determining an activity level of the user according to the input); and based on the activity level of the multimedia playing object being higher than a first threshold (Blong: [0090] – based on a number of activity level to calculate a score for the interest level, thus implying thresholds of activity level according to which, the score is calculated), searching, according to the object identifier and the multimedia identifier, the interest degree storage space for the degrees of interest of the multimedia playing object in the multimedia resource segments in the different time intervals in the multimedia resource to be played (Blong: [0089] – updating the interest level of the segment for the program in view of Gupta disclosing, in [0029] – interest level of the program is stored for the user based on the user ID and the program ID).
The motivation for incorporating the teachings of Gupta into the method has been discussed in claim 1 above.
Regarding claim 4, Blong in view of Gupta also discloses the multimedia resource playing method according to claim 1, wherein obtaining the degrees of interest of the multimedia playing object comprises: obtaining a first object interest tag of the multimedia playing object (Blong: [0082] – the user bookmark, which is a tag, to indicate he or she is interested in a segment) according to the object identifier (Gupta: [0029] – based on the user ID), and obtaining, according to the multimedia identifier, multimedia resource information of the multimedia resource segments in the different time intervals in the multimedia resource to be played (Blong: [0098] – obtaining a start time and an end time of the segments in the program in view of Gupta disclosing according to the program ID of ‘ghost.vid’); and determining, based on the first object interest tag and the multimedia resource information of the multimedia resource segments in the different time intervals, the degrees of interest of the multimedia playing object in the multimedia resource segments in the different time intervals in the multimedia resource to be played (Blong: [0098] – determining a level of interest of the user in the segments).
The motivation for incorporating the teachings of Gupta into the method has been discussed in claim 1 above.
Regarding claim 5, Blong, Nashida, and Gupta also discloses the multimedia resource playing method according to claim 4, further comprising: obtaining interactive data of the multimedia playing object (Blong: [0081]-[0090] – obtaining various types of activity information) based on the object identifier (Gupta: [0029] – based on the user ID); determining an activity level of the multimedia playing object according to the interactive data (Blong: [0087]-[0090] – determining an activity level of the user according to the input); and, based on the activity level of the multimedia playing object being lower than a first threshold (Blong: [0090] – based on a number of activity level to calculate a score for the interest level, thus implying thresholds of activity level according to which, the score is calculated), obtaining the first object interest tag of the multimedia playing object according to the object identifier (Blong: [0082] – the user bookmark, which is a tag, to indicate he or she is interested in a segment in view of Gupta also disclosing based on the user ID in [0029]), and obtaining, according to the multimedia identifier, the multimedia resource information of the multimedia resource segments in the different time intervals in the multimedia resource to be played (Blong: [0054] – obtaining time index of the segments in the program in view of Gupta disclosing according to the program ID in [0029]).
Regarding claim 6, Blong also disclose the multimedia resource playing method according to claim 4, wherein the multimedia resource information comprises at least one piece of bullet comment content of the multimedia resource segment ([0087]-[0088] – either a positive comment or a negative comment), and wherein determining, based on the first object interest tag and the multimedia resource information of the multimedia resource segments in the different time intervals, the degrees of interest of the multimedia playing object comprises: for a multimedia resource segment in any time interval, calculating, according to the first object interest tag and at least one piece of bullet comment content in the multimedia resource segment, a degree of interest of the multimedia playing object in the at least one piece of bullet comment content ([0087]-[0088] – based on the comments, calculating an interest level for the user); and performing weighted summation based on the degree of interest in the at least one piece of bullet comment content to obtain a degree of interest of the multimedia playing object in the multimedia resource segment ([0055]; [0090] – weighting the data to calculate a score of interest level).
Regarding claim 7, Blong also discloses calculating, according to the first object interest tag and the at least one piece of bullet comment content in the multimedia resource segment, the degree of interest of the multimedia playing object in the at least one piece of bullet comment content comprises: encoding the first object interest tag to obtain a first object interest feature vector, and encoding the at least one piece of bullet comment content in the multimedia resource segment to obtain a bullet comment feature vector of the at least one piece of bullet comment content, wherein the plurality of vectors comprise the first object interest feature vector and the bullet comment content feature vector of the at least one piece of bullet comment content ([0081]-[0086] – Examiner interprets encoding as placing the data into a specific form or format; thus, in this case, Blong discloses activity information of various types, including pieces of comments, are encoded into specific forms or formats for reading for aggregation and analysis).
Regarding claim 9, Blong also discloses the multimedia resource playing method according to claim 6, further comprising: recording bullet comment content whose interest degree reaches a second threshold ([0087] – recording a comment whose interest degree reaches a threshold for being determined as ‘positive’); and based on movement of a slider of the playback progress bar to a first time interval presenting target bullet comment content on the playing page of the multimedia resource to be played, the target bullet comment content being bullet comment content whose interest degree reaches the second threshold, and the target bullet comment content belonging to at least one piece of bullet comment content of a multimedia resource segment in the first time interval (Fig. 7B; [0101] – based on movement of a slider to position 750, presenting the comment as shown in 740).
Regarding claim 10, Blong also discloses the multimedia resource playing method according to claim 1, further comprising: generating description information of the multimedia resource segments in the different time intervals (Fig. 7B – applying to other segments with comments); and in a process of playing the multimedia resource to be played, based on a control operation for the slider on the playback progress bar, controlling the slider to move to a second time interval, and presenting the description information of the multimedia resource segment in the second time interval (Fig. 7B; [0101] – based on movement of a slider to position 750, presenting the comment as shown in 740).
Regarding claim 11, Blong in view of Gupta also discloses the multimedia resource playing method according to claim 10, wherein generating the description information of the multimedia resource segments in the different time intervals comprises: obtaining a first object interest tag of the multimedia playing object (Blong: [0082] – the user bookmark, which is a tag, to indicate he or she is interested in a segment) according to the object identifier (Gupta: [0029] – based on the user ID), and obtaining, according to the multimedia identifier, the multimedia resource information of the multimedia resource segments in the different time intervals in the multimedia resource to be played ([0092]-[0095] – obtaining, according to the ID ‘ghost.vid’, segment indicators for the video); and for a multimedia resource segment in any time interval, generating the description information of the multimedia resource segment based on the first object interest tag and multimedia resource information of the multimedia resource segment with a description prediction model ([0093]-[0095] – generating description information for each segment as a determined color).
Regarding claim 13, Blong also discloses the multimedia resource playing method according to claim 11, wherein the multimedia resource information comprises at least one of multimedia resource content and bullet comment content ([0087]; [0093]-[0095] – either the video content or the comments).
Claim 14 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 1 above in view of Blong also disclosing a multimedia resource playing apparatus (Fig. 3; [0025]-[0031] – an apparatus 300): at least one memory configured to store program code ([0026]-[0027]; [0031]-[0108]; Fig. 3 – memory 330 or storage 340); and at least one processor configured to read the program code and operate as instructed by the program code, the program comprising code for performing the recited method (Fig. 3; [0026]; [0031] – processor 320 reads software instructions from memory 330 or storage 340 to execute the instructions).
Claim 15 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 2 above.
Claim 16 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 3 above.
Claim 17 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 4 above.
Claim 18 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 5 above.
Claim 19 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 6 above.
Claim 20 is rejected for the same reason as discussed in claim 1 above in view of Blong also disclosing a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer code which, when executed by at least one processor, causes the at least one processor to perform the recited method ([0026]-[0027]; [0031] – memory 330 or storage 340 storing software instructions to be executed by processor 320).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8 and 12 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HUNG Q DANG whose telephone number is (571)270-1116. The examiner can normally be reached IFT.
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, Thai Q Tran can be reached at 571-272-7382. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/HUNG Q DANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2484
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