DETAILED ACTION
Case Status
This office action is in response to remarks and amendments of 3 February 2026. Claims 1-4, 6-11, 13-18, 20-25, and 27-28 have been examined.
Pertinent Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
KR20220167056A
Pars. 44-48, 55-59
Learning a neural network for searching for a section in a video using video caption features and query textual features
20210109966
Abstract, par. 27
AI based video retrieval using embedded video metadata feature vectors and query embedded feature vectors
10678854
Abstract
Searching for start and end times of video sections that include queried textual content
20190266150
Pars. 34-35
Searching for segments of the video content that include textual content of interest.
20230418860
Abstract, par. 27
Video segment closed caption metadata analyzed to identify segments that correspond to queries
20210073551
Pars. 32-34, 42, 77
Receiving one video file with subtitles and a query, the video file having time based sequential frames/segments, the video’s time data and/or sequencing data and/or frame numbering data being associated with the subtitles
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-4, 6-11, 13-18, 20-25, and 27-28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Phillips et al., Pub. No.: US 20210193187 A1, hereinafter Phillips in view of Gibbon et al., Patent No.: US 6271892 B1, hereinafter Gibbon, and further in view of Parikh et al., Pub. No.: US 20140222834 A1, hereinafter Parikh.
As per claim 1, Phillips discloses A computer-implemented method for searching a video on a mobile device using an artificial neural network (ANN) (pars. 97, 130-131), comprising:
receiving, by the ANN, the video and a search query, the video comprising a sequence of frames and associated subtitle information (fig. 1, par. 46-47, 97 disclose a smartphone receiving a video and a query; par. 7, 60, 63, 67, 70 disclose OCR and obtaining on-screen text (i.e., associated subtitle information), captioned audio track data (associated subtitle information), and video captions which are further disclosures of associated subtitle information as seen in fig. 8A, item 830; at least pars. 5, 42, 67, 130-131 disclose the receiving is done by artificial neural networks on the smartphone) […].
generating, at the mobile device, by the ANN, first context representations based on […] each of a first set of words in the search query and second context representations based on […] each of a second set of words in the associated subtitle information (pars. 6, 7, 46, 47 disclose context-based encodings and representations of query terms and captions (subtitles));
determining, at the mobile device, by the ANN, a correlation between the first context representations and the second context representations (par. 47, 48), the ANN being trained to determine the correlation by distinguishing first words that are only in the first set of words in the search query from second words of the second set of words in the associated subtitle information (par. 83, 129-132 discloses a trained DNN model based semantic encoder; pars. 6, 9, 20, 21, 132 describe that the encoder encodes a query into a query vector and a video scene into a video scene vector, and that the video scene vector includes caption (subtitle) text. Par. 10, 132 makes it clear that they are compared semantically and with respect to similarity scores; this means they are not syntactically identical and that words that are only in one vector (along with all other words in the vector) will be correlated, distinguished, and compared with all words in the other vector to observe semantic (meaning) representations);
predicting, at the mobile device, by the ANN, a portion of the video including content responsive to the search query based on the correlation (par. 50, 64, 73, 100, 117); and
outputting, at the mobile device, an indication of a result of the search query based on the predicting (par. 93, 94, 100, 105, 109, 117).
Phillips does not explicitly disclose the subtitle information comprising preexisting closed captioning (CC) information, however, Gibbon in the related field of endeavor of image and video processing discloses this in at least col. 3, line 59 to col. 4, line 21. Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of the cited references because Gibbon would have allowed Phillips to support receiving video that comprises frames with preexisting closed captioning information and to store video along with closed captioning and audio information in an efficiently compressed manner for subsequent retrieval.
Phillips and Gibbon do not explicitly disclose considering a first importance of each query word and/or a second importance of each subtitle/caption word. However, Parikh in the related field of endeavor of natural language processing discloses this in at least pars. 86-88. Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of the cited references because Parikh would have allowed Phillips to apply particular weights to every word in queries and caption text based on one or more factors. This would allow the system to provide the user with more relevant results based on importance of textual content.
As per claim 2, Phillips as modified discloses The computer-implemented method of claim 1, in which the predicting further indicates a start time and an end time for the portion of the video including the content responsive to the search query (par. 61-63 disclose scene segment boundaries are associated with timepoints).
As per claim 3, Phillips as modified discloses The computer-implemented method of claim 2, further comprising displaying the portion of video included at the start time until the end time (see rejection of claim 2 as well as at least par. 100, 103, 108, 109).
As per claim 4, Phillips as modified discloses The computer-implemented method of claim 1, in which the ANN comprises a transformer neural network (pars. 5, 12, 19, 42, 67 disclose DNN’s which are transformer neural networks).
As per claim 6, Phillips as modified discloses The computer-implemented method of claim 1, in which the search query comprises one or more of a description of a scene, an event, a word or a phrase (see at least pars. 47, 87, 108).
As per claim 7, Phillips as modified discloses The computer-implemented method of claim 1, in which the search query is supplied via a speech input or text input of the mobile device (pars. 37, 47, 85, 87).
As per claims 1-4, 6-11, 13-18, 20-25, and 27-28, they are analogous to claims 1-7 and are therefore likewise rejected. The apparatus and medium of claims 8, 15 and 22 include hardware elements as per at least pars. 8-9 of the specification. See Phillips fig.’s 1 and 11 for the apparatus and mediums of claims 8-11, 13-18, 20-25, and 27-28.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s 3 February 2026 arguments with respect to the claims have been considered; Gibbon et al., Patent No.: US 6271892 B1, has been applied in response to claim amendments.
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 SYED HASAN whose telephone number is (571)270-5008. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8am - 5 pm.
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, Boris Gorney can be reached at (571)270-5626. 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.
/SYED H HASAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2154
Prosecution Insights