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 § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-14 and 17-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Liu et al. (hereinafter ‘Liu’, Pub. No. 2016/0007093).
Regarding claim 1, 8, 14 and 17, Liu teaches a computing system (100, Figs. 1 and 2) (with corresponding method) comprising:
a processor; and memory comprising computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the processor (all these elements are inherent on computing devices such as servers; as seen on Fig. 10) , cause the computer system to:
determine for a content title of interest whether historical data for a metric satisfies a time threshold ([0004]; [0036]-[0040]; where the historical data used for a title starts from the release date or that has enough dataset points);
when the historical data of the metric is equal to or greater than the time threshold (when there is enough historical data for a show/episodes, a first model is selected to predict future views, [0020]; [0024]-[0029]) :
generate training data based on a title decay rate ([0004]; [0020]; [0022]); and
when the historical data of the metric is less than the time threshold (for a new episode, that has not been released, another model is used: seasonal model; [0044]):
generate training data based on a genre decay rate, wherein the genre decay rate is associated with a content genre of the content title of interest and generated based on one or more other content titles, wherein the one or more content titles belong to the content genre (the system, for a new episode of a series, a decay rate is generated, based on other multiple episodes already transmitted. Being of the same series, they have the same genre, [0028]; [0044]-[0052]); and
forecast the metric associated with the content title of interest using the generated training data applied to a forecasting model (predicted interest or release date is transmitted to an ad targeting manager to sell ad slots, [0026]; [0032]).
For claim 14,
when the content title of interest is associated with the seasonal trend:
generate training data via a first process; and when the content title of interest is not associated with the seasonal trend; generate training data via a second process (the system considers whether or not the video is released seasonally or not, and the model is adjusted, [0019]; [0028]; [0031]; [0048]; [0051]. It also works for movies (not series episodes), [0064]).
Regarding claims 2 and 9, Liu teaches wherein the time threshold is 10 days ([0036]; [0044], where the historical records or number of days x that could be any number, in particular, that fits a given number of data points).
Regarding claims 3, 4, 10 and 11, Liu teaches calculating the title decay rate based on a beginning portion and an ending portion of the historical data of the metric associated with the content title of interest (decay rate is calculated with the available historic view data starting at the release date of the episode, [0025]; [0028]; Figs. 6 and 7, [0059]-[0062]).
Regarding claims 5, 12 and 18, Liu teaches comprising generating the genre decay rate by aggregating one or more title decay rates of the one or more other content titles ([0047]; [0048]).
Regarding claims 6, 7, 13 and 19, Liu teaches wherein:
the metric comprises an inflow of the content title; and the inflow is specific to paid subscribers of a content provision platform of the content title, a particular tier of paid subscribers, or an ad-supported tier of subscribers ([0019]; [0022]).
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.
Claim(s) 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu et al. (hereinafter ‘Liu’, Pub. No. 2016/0007093) in view of Zhang et al. (hereinafter ‘Zhang’, Pub. No. 2025/0358470).
Regarding claim 20, Liu teaches all the limitations of the claim it depends on. On the other hand, Liu does not explicitly teach comprises determining to remove the content title of interest from a streaming platform based on the generated forecast.
However, in an analogous art, Zhang teaches a system that predicts future popularity of content through trained models (Abstract; Fig. 2; [0051]-[0055]). Upon establishing popularity, the system optimizes storage for the plurality of video and removes content that is believed to be unlikely to be requested by users in the future ([0023]; [0043]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Liu’s invention with Zhang’s feature of removing content from a streaming platform based on generated future for the benefit of optimizing storage capacity, reducing storage costs.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 15 and 16 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 OMAR S PARRA whose telephone number is (571)270-1449. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: Mostly 10-6PM.
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/OMAR S PARRA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2421