DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
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 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.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 6/10/2026 has been entered.
Claim Status
Claims 21, 24, 29, 32, 37, and 40 are amended.
Claims 1-20, 22, 25-27, 30, 33-35 and 38 are cancelled.
No newly added claims.
Claims 21, 23, 24, 28, 29, 31, 32, 36, 37, 39 and 40 are presented for examination.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed in the amendment filed on 6/10/2026 have been fully considered but they are moot in new ground of rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 21, 23, 24, 28, 29, 31, 32, 36, 37, 39 and 40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims recite various steps that are a claim to "collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying certain results of the collection and analysis," where the data analysis steps are recited at a high level of generality such that they could practically be performed in the human mind, Electric Power Group v. Alstom, S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1353-54, 119 USPQ2d 1739, 1741-42 (Fed. Cir. 2016). “identifying viewing of a newest episode of a series by a device associated with the user profile, determining an oldness tolerance value associated with the user based at least in part on the identified viewing of the newest episode of the series by the device associated with the user profile, wherein the oldness tolerance value indicates a level of tolerance for content items with older air dates, selecting recommendations for one or more content items, based at least in part on the oldness tolerance value and the air date of each of the one or more content items,” Therefore the steps of, “identifying that user has watched newest episode of a series and determining user’s tolerance for content item with older air date based on user viewing the newest episode of the series, and recommending content item based on user’s tolerance for content item with older air date” in claims 21, 29, and 37 are taken to be steps that human mind can perform. The claims therefore recite the abstract idea of organizing human activity, such as following rules or instructions. Electric Power Group v. Alstom, S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1353-54, 119 USPQ2d 1739, 1741-42 (Fed. Cir. 2016). MPEP 2106.04(a).
The scope of these claims is limited to “recommended content item to be displayed” using via a display device. Microprocessor Enhancement Corp., 520 F.3d 1367, 1375 (emphasis original). Because “practicing the claimed method” includes only steps that are performed by a human, the claims can be interpreted as covering “collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying certain results of the collection and analysis.”
The claims include no additional limitations outside of the “collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying certain results of the collection and analysis” steps that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The preamble limitations describing the structure of the system in which the method is performed does not describe a practical application of the method steps. For example, using control circuity and memory for executing instructions the manner recited in claims 29 and 37 does not improve, or even alter, the manner in which the information can be collected, analyzed and displaying certain results of the analysis. Nor are the steps recited in claim 29 and 37 implemented using a specialized machine, because these steps are performed by a general purpose computer. MPEP 2106.05(f)(2), Use of a computer or other machinery in its ordinary capacity for economic or other tasks (e.g., to receive, store, or transmit data) or simply adding a general purpose computer or computer components after the fact to an abstract idea (e.g., a fundamental economic practice or mathematical equation) does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application or provide significantly more.
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. For reasons given above, the claims do not provide improvements to a computer, are not applied using a particular machine, and are only linked to a general technological environment.
Dependent claims 23, 24, 28, 31, 32, 36, 39 and 40 recite nothing more than well understood, routine and conventional features, such as organizing human activities such as ranking the information, selecting content item based on a genre of the content, content type, a frequency of presentation and a temporal length of the content item, These claims provide nothing beyond the abstract idea that integrates the judicial exception into an abstract idea or amounts to significantly more, thus are likewise ineligible under §101.
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 of this title, 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 21, 24, 28, 29, 32, 36, 37 and 40 are rejected under U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Dozoretz et al. (US 20090216727), in view of Pfeffer et al. (US 20130254815).
Regarding claim 21, Dozoretz discloses, a method comprising:
tracking viewing habits associated with a user profile with respect to a plurality of previously viewed content items (Par. 0039, user’s preferences based upon preferred values for one or more parameters, such as user that enjoys 1970’s television shows have a preference for media release date parameters having values between 1970 and 1979, A parameter may annotate media that a user has already watched, has already identified as "of interest" but unwatched, or otherwise identified as desirable, Par. 0047, A user's behavior (e.g., choosing parameters, choosing values for parameters, choosing media, skipping or viewing advertisements, and the like) may be stored. In some cases, a profile for a user is created using stored behavior. A profile may include media watched by the user parameters and/or values associated with media of interest (e.g., media viewed by the user), i.e. user behavior of viewing media and associated parameters and values is tracked and stored in user’s profile, parameters and values can be user liking TV shows with values between 1970 and 1979);
determining an air date of each content item of the plurality of previously viewed content items (Par. 0040, A user's preference for media may be used to propose or offer other (e.g., heretofore unwatched) media. A previously unknown item of content sharing values with a preferred set of media may be presented to a user based on the item's correlation with the user's preferences or the preferred set. Thus, the aforementioned watcher of 1970's TV shows may be offered other types of media (e.g., movies, songs) having RELEASE_DATE values between 1970 and 1979, i.e. here preference (i.e. media interest parameters associated with user’s profile) to see older content released between 1970 and 1979 = oldness tolerance for older content released between1970 and 1979 and affinity to see content older than threshold end date of 1979, here for TV shows, release date = air date as made available to public via airing on television medium);
determining an oldness tolerance value associated with the user profile, wherein the oldness tolerance value indicates a level of tolerance for content items with older air dates (Par. 0040, A user's preference for media may be used to propose or offer other (e.g., heretofore unwatched) media. A previously unknown item of content sharing values with a preferred set of media may be presented to a user based on the item's correlation with the user's preferences or the preferred set. Thus, the aforementioned watcher of 1970's TV shows may be offered other types of media (e.g., movies, songs) having RELEASE_DATE values between 1970 and 1979, i.e. here preference (i.e. media interest parameters associated with user’s profile) to see older content released between 1970 and 1979 = oldness tolerance for older content released between1970 and 1979 and affinity to see content older than threshold end date of 1979, here for TV shows, release date = air date as made available to public via airing on television medium);
selecting recommendations for one or more content items, based at least in part on the oldness tolerance value and the air date of each of the one or more content items, wherein the one or more content items is not one of the plurality of previously viewed content items (Par. 0040, user's preference for media may be used to propose or offer other (e.g., heretofore unwatched) media. Thus, the aforementioned watcher of 1970's TV shows may be offered other types of media (e.g., movies, songs) having RELEASE_DATE values between 1970 and 1979); and
causing, via a display device, the recommended one or more content items to be displayed (Par. 0040, a previously unknown item of content sharing values with a preferred set of media may be presented to a user based on the item's correlation with the user's preferences or the preferred set).
Dozoretz does not disclose, identifying viewing of a newest episode of a series by a device associated with the user profile;
Determining an oldness tolerance value associated with the profile based at least on part of the identified viewing of the newest episode of the series by the device associated with the user profile.
Pfeffer discloses, identifying viewing of a newest episode of a series by a device associated with the user profile (Par. 0134, based on subscriber history (i.e. user profile), subscriber that has watched every previous episode of a specific television program, i.e. subscriber that has watched every previous episode of a specific television program = determining that subscriber has watched newest episode of the series);
determining an oldness tolerance value associated with the profile based at least on part of the identified viewing of the newest episode of the series by the device associated with the user profile (Par. 0134, a subscriber that has watched every previous episode of a specific television program will likely watch the newest episode even if that episode was not specifically requested, i.e. subscriber likely to watch newest episode of program = subscriber likely will not want to watch older content = low value of tolerance for older content).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify Dozoretz by teaching of wherein identifying viewing of a newest episode of a series by a device associated with the user profile, determining an oldness tolerance value associated with the profile based at least on part of the identified viewing of the newest episode of the series by the device associated with the user profile, as taught by Pfeffer, to suggest list of content that user likely be interested in watching based on user preference, for better user experience, as disclosed in Pfeffer par. 0134.
Regarding claim 24, The method of claim 21,
Dozoretz in view of Pfeffer further discloses, wherein the oldness tolerance value is determined to be low based at least in part on viewing habits of the user profile indicating that a user associated with the user profile is watching the newest episode of the series (Pfeffer Par. 0134, a subscriber that has watched every previous episode of a specific television program will likely watch the newest episode even if that episode was not specifically requested, i.e. subscriber likely to watch newest episode of program = subscriber likely will not want to watch older content = low value of tolerance for older content).
Regarding claim 28, The method of claim 21,
Dozoretz further discloses, wherein the selecting the content item for display is further based at least in part on at least one of: a genre of the content item, a content type of the content item, a frequency of presentation of the content item, or a temporal length of the content item (Par. 0040, user's preference for media may be used to propose or offer other (e.g., heretofore unwatched) media. A previously unknown item of content sharing values with a preferred set of media may be presented to a user based on the item's correlation with the user's preferences or the preferred set. Thus, the aforementioned watcher of 1970's TV shows may be offered other types of media (e.g., movies, songs) having RELEASE_DATE values between 1970 and 1979, i.e. selecting to offer content item is based on content type being movies or songs).
Regarding claims 29, Dozoretz in view of Pfeffer meets the claim limitations as set forth in claim 21, respectively, Dozoretz further discloses, control circuitry (Par. 0022, a media information system comprising a processor connected to a computer readable storage medium having embodied thereon a program executable by the processor to perform one or more methods).
Regarding claims 32, Dozoretz in view of Pfeffer meets the claim limitations as set forth in claim 28.
Regarding claims 36, Dozoretz meets the claim limitations as set forth in claim 28.
Regarding claims 37, Dozoretz in view of Pfeffer meets the claim limitations as set forth in claim 21, respectively, Dozoretz further discloses, a non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions encoded thereon that, when executed by control circuitry, cause the control circuitry to (Par. 0022, a media information system comprising a processor connected to a computer readable storage medium having embodied thereon a program executable by the processor to perform one or more methods).
Regarding claims 40, Dozoretz in view of Pfeffer meets the claim limitations as set forth in claim 28.
Claims 23, 31 and 39 are rejected under U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Dozoretz et al. (US 20090216727), in view of Pfeffer et al. (US 20130254815), in view of Roberts (US 20110107374).
Regarding claim 23, The method of claim 21,
Dozoretz in view of Pfeffer does not disclose, wherein selecting the recommendations for the one or more content items further comprises:
ranking each of the one or more content items based on the air date of the each of the one or more content items.
Roberts discloses, wherein selecting the recommendations for the one or more content items further comprises:
ranking each of the one or more content items based on the air date of the each of the one or more content items (Par. 0025, a media content service provider (e.g., a distributor of media content providing a recommendation of a media content instance to a user based on user activity), Par. 0033, The generating of a media content watch list may include sorting media content watch list data included in the media content watch list. The sorting may be performed in any suitable way and based on one or more parameters, including predetermined parameters, including based on media content release or broadcast date).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify Dozoretz in view of Pfeffer by teaching of selecting the recommendations for the one or more content items includes ranking each of the one or more content items based on the air date of the each of the one or more content items, as taught by Roberts, to improve user experience in finding the content that user may be interested in, as disclosed in Roberts par. 0002.
Regarding claim 31, Dozoretz in view of Pfeffer in further view of Roberts meets the claim limitations as set forth in claim 23.
Regarding claim 39, Dozoretz in view of Pfeffer in further view of Roberts meets the claim limitations as set forth in claim 23.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AKSHAY DOSHI whose telephone number is (571)272-2736. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, JOHN W MILLER can be reached at (571)272-7353. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/A.D./Examiner, Art Unit 2422
/MICHAEL E TEITELBAUM, Ph.D./Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2422
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