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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 5/6/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
This office action is in response to communications filed 5/6/2026. Claims 1, 8 and 15 are amended. Claims 5-6, 12-13, 19-20 and 22 are cancelled. Claims 1-4, 7-11, 14-18, 21, 23-24 are pending in this action.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-4, 7-11, 14-18, 21, 23-24 have been considered but are not persuasive.
In response to Applicants’ arguments on pages 8-9 that “Applicant respectfully submits the rejections are overcome. With regard to the previously claimed feature, "generate aggregate viewing information based on a plurality of data feeds," the Office Action cites Nijim, col 1, lines 44-56, col 2, lines 46-64, col 3, lines 33-40, col 4, line 60 - col 5, line 11, col 5, lines 36-6. With regard to the previously claimed feature, "select, based at least on the aggregate viewing information, one or more pre-encoded media assets from a plurality of pre-encoded media assets for insertion to a media feed associated with a channel," the Office Action cites Nijim, col 4, lines 15-33, col 7, lines 7-23. Applicant disagrees, but has amended the claims to further distinguish the claims from Nijim.
Amended independent Claim 1 recites in some form or another, "generate aggregate viewing information based on a plurality of data feeds, wherein the aggregate viewing information comprises at least an aggregate interest level of a plurality of users," and "select, based at least on the aggregate viewing information comprising at least the aggregate interest level of a plurality of users, one or more pre-encoded media assets from a plurality of pre- encoded media assets for insertion to a media feed."
Nijim fails to teach or suggest the above recited features. Nijim describes analysis of a user's social networks to identify socially trending items. "The trending content items may be personalized based on the user's social networks and may differ for various user profiles within the household." Nijim, Col. 1. 11 52-55. Although Nijim discloses, "The popularity may be measured by one or more algorithms including parameters such as number of views, comments, tweets, likes, thumbs up, rating, speed at which the popularity increases etc," (Nijim, Col. 2 11. 54-61), the number of views is collected from a social network used by the subject user. Nijim fails to teach or suggest aggregating viewing information from a plurality of data feeds, and further fails to teach or suggest, "select, based at least on the aggregate viewing information, one or more pre-encoded media assets from a plurality of pre-encoded media assets for insertion to a media feed associated with a channel," as set forth by amended Claim 1”, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. The Examiner first notes that the limitation as claimed is “generate aggregate viewing information based on a plurality of data feeds, wherein the aggregate viewing information comprises at least an aggregate interest level of a plurality of users”. Nijim teaches:
at least at col 5, line 54 – col 6, line 3, that “As an example embodiment, with respect to sorting by popularity, a content item that may gain popularity at a relatively higher rate may also be considered as a parameter to decide the priority when displaying the trending content items in the applicable format. For example, if there are three content items A, B and C trending on Twitter® with 5,000 tweets, 7,000 tweets and 10,000 tweets, respectively, content item C may be at the top due to the highest number of tweets (10,000 tweets), content item B may be second and content item A may be third on the list of trending content items. In this example, the system may be operable to monitor in real time or at regular intervals based on business rules, the social media postings, number of tweets and identify if there is any change in popularity. In case if the number of tweets for content item B changes to 12000 tweets from 7000, then it may become first on the trending content item list (other tweets remaining relatively similar)”. Nijim’s system uses, for example, tweets (i.e., viewing information) of users in their Twitter feeds (i.e., plurality of data feeds) about the content items as indications of the interest of the users/the popularity of the content. This reasonably constitutes “aggregate viewing information based on a plurality of data feeds”, and the number of tweets reasonably constitutes “an aggregate interest level of a plurality of users”, as claimed.
Furthermore, Nijim teaches:
at least at col 4, lines 15-32, that “The client application 108 may be operable to receive information regarding the user profile, viewing device, viewing location, viewing time of the day and provide it to the server 120 wherein the data mining engine 122 may be operable to analyze the information received from the client application 108 in relation with the various social networks that may be associated to the user profile in the trending content server 106, etc. The client application 108 may then be able to present the trending content items to the user in the form of a guide or one or more channel(s). According to embodiments, if the user's viewing device may not have the capability to view a certain trending content item, the client application 108 may be operable to provide an option to record, providing the user with the availability to record and view the same when the user may be able to consume the recorded trending content item via a device in communication with the set top box 118 with capabilities to present the content”; and
at least at col 7, lines 7-23, that “ FIG. 4 is a flow chart of a method 400 for creating a content guide and/or content channels to provide trending content associated with social media, according to an embodiment. The method 400 starts at OPERATION 402 and proceeds to an optional OPERATION 405, where the user may be identified and associated with the applicable social networks. According to embodiments, the social networks may either be added by the user or may be associated based on the location, demographic profile, etc. The method 400 may then proceed to OPERATION 410 where the trending content data and metadata from the social networks associated with the user profile may be identified and saved. The saved trending content data and metadata is analyzed and a list of the trending content items may be created to be displayed in the form of a guide or one or more channel(s) from the user's associated social network(s) at OPERATION 415”.
Nijim’s list of trending content that is presented to the user for the user’s channel, then, is reasonable to meet the limitation of “select, based at least on the aggregate viewing information comprising at least the aggregate interest level of a plurality of users, one or more pre-encoded media assets from a plurality of pre-encoded media assets”, as claimed. Therefore, the rejection of record is maintained.
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, 4, 8, 11, 15, 18, 21 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over O’Malley (of record) in view of Nijim (of record) and Jacobs (of record).
Regarding claims 1, 8, and 15, O’Malley discloses a system comprising memory and one or more processors communicatively coupled to the memory (see O’Malley, at least at Figs. 2-3, and related text), the one or more processors configured to:
select one or more pre-encoded media assets from a plurality of pre-encoded media assets for insertion to a media feed (see O’Malley, at least at [0015]-[0017], [0024], [0041], and other related text);
receive a plurality of manifests (see O’Malley, at least at [0024]-[0025], [0067], [0129], and other related text), each corresponding to one of a plurality of channels (see O’Malley, at least at [0015]-[0017], [0024]-[0025], [0067], [0079], and other related text);
generate a first updated manifest and a second updated manifest (see O’Malley, at least [0025], [0129], and other related text) by inserting one or more references to the one or more pre-encoded media assets (see O’Malley, at least at [0025], [0067]-[0070], [0079], [0129], and other related text) into a first manifest and a second manifest from the plurality of manifests (see O’Malley, at least at [0025], [0067]-[0070], [0079], [0129], and other related text), wherein the first updated manifest and the second updated manifest are generated independently of an encoding operation for the one or more pre-encoded media assets (see O’Malley, at least at [0015]-[0016], [0024], [0067]-[0070], [0079], and other related text); and
transmit the first updated manifest and the second updated manifest (see O’Malley, at least [0025], [0129], and other related text) to a content delivery network (see O’Malley, at least at [0014], [0017], [0023], [0102]-[0103], and other related text), along with an instruction for the content delivery network to stream the channel, based on the updated manifest, to one or more client devices (see O’Malley, at least at [0014], [0017], [0023], [0102]-[0103], and other related text).
O’Malley does not specifically disclose the one or more processors configured to generate aggregate viewing information based on a plurality of data feeds, wherein the aggregate viewing information comprises at least an aggregate interest level of a plurality of users; or to
select, based at least on the aggregate viewing information comprising at least the aggregate interest level of a plurality of users, the one or more assets; or
an instruction to stream at least one of a first channel corresponding to the first updated manifest or a second channel corresponding to the second updated manifest, based on the first updated manifest or the second updated manifest, to one or more client devices.
In an analogous art related to a system for assembling channel content, Nijim discloses one or more processors (see Nijim, at least at Figs. 1-2 and 6-7, and related text) configured to:
generate aggregate viewing information based on a plurality of data feeds (users’ tweets in Twitter feeds, see Nijim, at least at col 1, lines 44-56, col 2, lines 46-64, col 3, lines 33-40, col 4, line 60 – col 5, line 11, col 5, lines 36-67, and other relates text), wherein the aggregate viewing information comprises at least an aggregate interest level of a plurality of users (i.e., number of tweets, see Nijim, at least at col 1, lines 44-56, col 2, lines 46-64, col 3, lines 33-40, col 4, line 60 – col 5, line 11, col 5, lines 36-67, and other relates text); and
select, based at least on the aggregate viewing information comprising at least the aggregate interest level of a plurality of users, one or more media assets from a plurality of media assets (see Nijim, at least at col 4, lines 15-33, col 7, lines 7-23, and other related text).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the system of O’Malley to include the limitations as taught by Nijim for the advantage of more efficiently providing alternatives that are more desirable to a user.
O’Malley in view of Njiim does not specifically disclose an instruction to stream at least one of a first channel corresponding to the first updated manifest or a second channel corresponding to the second updated manifest, based on the first updated manifest or the second updated manifest, to one or more client devices.
In an analogous art relating to a system of provisioning content, Jacobs discloses an instruction to stream at least one of a first channel corresponding to the first updated manifest or a second channel corresponding to the second updated manifest, based on the first updated manifest or the second updated manifest, to one or more client devices (see Jacobs, at least at [0044], [0048]-[0049], and other related text).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the invention to modify the system of the system of O’Malley in view of Nijim to include the limitations as taught Jacobs for the advantage of maintaining viewer satisfaction.
Regarding claim 4, 11 and 18, O’Malley in view of Nijim and Jacobs discloses wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:
identify the one or more pre-encoded media assets based at least in part on external data received from an external data source (i.e., data source external to server, see O’Malley, at least at [0044]-[0045], and other related text).
Regarding claims 21 and 23, O’Malley in view of Nijim and Jacobs discloses wherein the one or more processors are further configured to modify a programming schedule based on the one or more pre-encoded media assets (see O’Malley, at least at [0070], and other related text).
Claims 2-3, 9-10 and 16-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over O’Malley (of record) in view of Nijim (of record) and Jacobs (of record) , as applied to claims 1 and 13 above, and further in view of Bieschke (of record).
Regarding claims 2, 9 and 16, O’Malley in view of Nijim and Jacobs does not specifically disclose wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:
identify the one or more pre-encoded media assets based at least in part on a content context analysis of the plurality of pre-encoded media assets.
In an analogous art relating to a system for outputting media, Bieschke discloses identifying the one or more pre-encoded media assets based at least in part on a content context analysis of the plurality of pre-encoded media assets (see Bieschke, at least at [0022]-[0023], [0039]-[0040], and other related text).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the system of O’Malley in view of Nijim and Jacobs to include the limitations as taught by Bieschke for the advantage of more efficiently providing alternatives that are more desirable to a user.
Regarding claims 3, 10 and 17, O’Malley in view of Nijim and Jacobs, and further in view of Bieschke discloses wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:
identify the one or more pre-encoded media assets based at least in part on a user-selection (see Bieschke, at least at [0022]-[0023], [0039]-[0040], and other related text).
Claims 7 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over O’Malley (of record) in view of Nijim (of record) and Jacobs (of record), as applied to claims 1 and 13 above, and further in view of Kang of record) and Arghandiwal (of record).
Regarding claims 7 and 14, O’Malley in view of Nijim and Jacobs discloses wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:
provide adaptive bitrate streaming of the one or more pre-encoded media assets by accessing the plurality of pre-encoded media assets using the one or more references, wherein the plurality of pre-encoded media assets is stored at a plurality of quality levels (see O’Malley, at least at [0041]-[0043], and other related text), but does not specifically disclose wherein the plurality of pre-encoded media assets is stored at a plurality of quality levels and a plurality of content encryption modes corresponding to a plurality of delivery methods.
In an analogous art relating to a system for providing content, Kang discloses a plurality of pre-encoded media assets having one or more references, wherein the plurality of pre-encoded media assets is stored at a plurality of quality levels and a plurality of content encryption modes (see Kang, at least at [0009], [0035], [0054]-[0057], [0067]-[0068] and [0086]).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the system of O’Malley in view of Nijim and Jacobs to include the limitations ad taught by Kang for the advantage of efficiently providing content to users while protecting the rights of the content owners.
O’Malley in view of Nijim and Jacobs, and further in view of Kang does not specially disclose the plurality of pre-encoded media assets is stored at a plurality of content encryption modes corresponding to a plurality of delivery methods.
In an analogous art relating to a system for content provision, Arghandiwal discloses plurality of pre-encoded media assets is stored at a plurality of content encryption modes corresponding to a plurality of delivery methods (see Arghandiwal, at least at [0041]-[0045]).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing data of the invention to modify the system of O’Malley in view of Nijim, Jacobs and Kang to include the limitations as taught by Arghandiwal for the advantage of providing a more robust system that efficiently optimizes system resources.
Claim 24 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over O’Malley (of record) in view of Nijim (of record) and Jacobs (of record), as applied to claims 1 and 13 above, and further in view of Lewis et al. (US20120047542, hereinafter Lewis).
Regarding claim 24, O’Malley in view of Nijim and Jacobs does not specifically disclose wherein the first updated manifest and the second updated manifest are generated independently of the encoding operation based on a re- use of the one or more pre-encoded media assets.
In an analogous art relating to a system for provisioning content, Lewis discloses updated manifests generated independently of an encoding operation based on a re-use of one or more pre-encoded media assets (see Lewis, at least at [0019], and other related text).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing data of the invention to modify the system of O’Malley in view of Nijim and Jacobs include the limitations as taught by Lewis for the advantage of providing a more robust system that efficiently optimizes system resources.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHENEA DAVIS whose telephone number is (571)272-9524 and whose email address is CHENEA.SMITH@USPTO.GOV. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 8:00 am - 4:00 pm.
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/CHENEA DAVIS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2421
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