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 .
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 1-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2020/0122043 to Benedetto et al. (hereinafter Benedetto) in view of US 2021/0146244 to Sherwani (hereinafter Sherwani).
Regarding claims 1, 8, 9, and 16, Benedetto teaches a method and system comprising:
determining that respective plural signals from respective plural computer game consoles indicate respective opt-ins to upload game videos for generating game help (e.g., the user may opt in and allow the remote networked service to associate videos with event and activity metadata and provide the videos to other users as guidance, as discussed in ¶ 23);
responsive to the opt-ins, determining whether new help submissions are still being accepted for a first computer game activity (e.g., the remote networked service may request users to publish user generated content (UGC) to be used as guidance. For example, for a particular in-game activity that the service does not have enough applicable help videos or content, the remote networked service may send a request to users that have successfully completed the in-game activity to publish a video of their gameplay in ¶ 22);
responsive to new help submissions still being accepted for the first computer game activity, determining, for each of respective video clips pertaining to the first computer game activity and uploaded from the respective computer game consoles (e.g., game console in ¶ 61), and
downloading at least one of the respective video clips pertaining to the first computer game activity and determined to qualify as a help clip to at least one computer game console other than the plural computer game consoles (e.g., providing the help videos to other users, as discussed in at least ¶ 23).
Further regarding claims 1, 8, 9, and 16, Benedetto teaches the invention substantially as described above, including whether the video clip qualifies as a help clip based at least in part on at least one time period associated with the video clip (e.g., the remote networked service skips to a particular time stamp in a provided video, the time stamp being associated with the in-game context. For example, if a user is on the fifth level of a game, the remote networked service may present a video walkthrough of the game and automatically skip to a time stamp associated with the beginning of the fifth level, or some particular part of the fifth level at which the user is currently playing in ¶ 17). However, Benedetto lacks in explicitly teaching that the qualifying is based at least in part on a comparison of a completion time period for the first computer game activity in the video clip with a measure of completion time periods from a community of players.
In a commonly-owned disclosure, Sherwani teaches a system using event data that is processed to provide assistance videos to improve activity completion rates in video games (abstract). More particularly, Sherwani teaches that event data may be collected for a given game segment, such as a timestamp, a success or failure of an activity, or a score or duration of time associated with a completed activity (see ¶ 73). Sherwani further teaches that a variety of videos for a game may be stored and sorted using a score factor (see ¶¶ 90-92 and 97-98) which may based on the duration between the start and the end of the activity (see ¶ 100). The group of candidate video portions may be assessed to have a score factor that is set as a function of the length of time of the video (e.g., a score that is greater for a shorter length of time in ¶ 100). This allows videos to be sorted according to their duration relative to the other candidate videos, which may include videos from other players. As such, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date to modify the system of Benedetto to include qualifying based at least in part on a comparison of a completion time period for the first computer game activity in the video clip with a measure of completion time periods from a community of players, as taught or suggested by Sherwani, in order to allow a user to quickly locate the most relevant help videos available.
Regarding claims 2 and 10, Benedetto teaches wherein the respective video clips comprise metadata associating respective times with respective game events (e.g., Metadata 312 may further include: a list of abilities exercisable by the user, effects of each action, telemetry indicative of when actions and effects take place including corresponding timestamps, locations, in-game statistics, items, lore, in-game zones and corresponding attributes regarding each statistic, item, lore, or zone in ¶¶ 40 and 41).
Regarding claims 3 and 11, Benedetto teaches wherein the metadata comprises an identification of a game associated with the video clip and an identification of an activity captured by the video clip (e.g., Metadata 312 may further include: a list of abilities exercisable by the user, effects of each action, telemetry indicative of when actions and effects take place including corresponding timestamps, locations, in-game statistics, items, lore, in-game zones and corresponding attributes regarding each statistic, item, lore, or zone in ¶¶ 40 and 41).
Regarding claims 4 and 12, Benedetto teaches determining whether a video clip qualifies as a help clip at least in part by determining whether a time period to complete a first computer game activity in the video clip has a relationship to play time periods from a community of players (e.g., The events 314 may include further information regarding a state of the application when the events 314 were triggered, for example a timestamp, a difficulty setting and character statistics at the time a user starts or ends an activity, success or failure of an activity, or a score or duration of time associated with a completed activity in ¶ 41).
Regarding claims 5 and 13, Benedetto teaches wherein determining whether a time period to complete the first computer game activity in the video clip has a relationship to play time periods from a community of players comprises: determining completion time periods for the first computer game activity from plural players; determining completion percentiles using the completion time periods; and determining that a video clip qualifies as a help clip based on the time period to complete the first computer game activity in the video clip is within a window of completion time periods (e.g., The events 314 may include further information regarding a state of the application when the events 314 were triggered, for example a timestamp, a difficulty setting and character statistics at the time a user starts or ends an activity, success or failure of an activity, or a score or duration of time associated with a completed activity in ¶ 41).
Regarding claims 6 and 14, Benedetto teaches wherein determining whether new help submissions are still being accepted for the first computer game activity comprises determining whether a predetermined maximum number of help clips are identified for the first computer game activity (e.g., for a particular in-game activity that the service does not have enough applicable help videos or content, the remote networked service may send a request to users that have successfully completed the in-game activity to publish a video of their gameplay in ¶ 22).
Regarding claims 7 and 15, Benedetto teaches wherein the first computer game activity comprises discovering an in-game item, and the method comprises: identifying an end time based on when the in-game item was discovered; identifying a start time using a default look back period from the end time; and generating the video clip as a help clip using video from the start time to the end time (e.g., monitored events include character statistics at the time a user starts or ends an activity, success or failure of an activity, or a score or duration of time associated with a completed activity in ¶ 41, wherein the remote networked service may provide video of a relevant game event and may skip to a moment before the event took place in at least ¶ 44).
Claims 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Benedetto and Sherwani in view of US 9,972,064 to Evangelista et al. (hereinafter Evangelista).
Regarding claim 17, the combination of Benedetto and Sherwani teaches the invention substantially as described above, including register uniform data system (UDS) events that occur in the game (see at least Benedetto ¶¶ 35-37 and 42-44). The combination lacks in explicitly teaching: as a computer game is played, capture at least a portion of the game automatically using a ring buffer. In a related disclosure, Evangelista teaches a system and method that allows non-intrusive and low-power recording of video data (abstract). Evangelista teaches that a system configured to store graphical commands in a circular buffer type storage may be configured to create an “always on” application recording, that, upon initiation (for example through a user pushing a button) may retrieve stored commands that can be executed to recreate the video output (for example portions of a video game) associated with the stored graphical commands (2:55-62). Evangelista teaches that a ring buffer is an exemplary type of circular buffer, which allows overwriting the oldest graphical command with the newest graphical command (4:7-15). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date to modify the combination of Benedetto and Sherwani to include a ring buffer to capture events of a video game as taught by Evangelista in order to continuously and efficiently record events for creating videos of the gameplay.
Regarding claim 18, the combination of Benedetto, Sherwani, and Evangelista teaches or suggests wherein the instructions are executable to: cause the ring buffer to match video segments to respective coordinated universal time (UTC) timestamps; and use the timestamps to generate a video clip for a game period indicated by the timestamps (e.g., the ring buffer of Evangelista and the timestamps used in coordination with the uniform data system in Benedetto ¶ 10).
Regarding claim 19, the combination of Benedetto, Sherwani, and Evangelista teaches or suggests automatically uploading the video clip to a server system along with an asset ID indicating a game being played, an activity ID indicating a game activity that is the subject of the video clip, and a user ID (e.g., source of help such as users or developers using video creator tags in Benedetto ¶ 21, data types including timestamp, name, descriptions, etc. at ¶ 10, and Fig. 5 at 520).
Regarding claim 20, the combination of Benedetto, Sherwani, and Evangelista teaches or suggests the invention substantially as describe above, but lacks in explicitly teaching after uploading the video clip, deleting a local copy of the video clip. Regardless, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date to modify the combination of Benedetto, Sherwani, and Evangelista to delete a local copy of a video after uploading to a server in order to save space on the local computing device.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the claims have been considered but are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 WILLIAM H MCCULLOCH whose telephone number is (571)272-2818. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30-5:30.
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/WILLIAM H MCCULLOCH JR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715
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