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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks pg. 6-7, filed 6/24/2026, with respect to the obviousness rejection under 35 U.S.C. 130 have been fully considered. The examiner notes that the applicant’s arguments are directed, inter alia, to newly amended limitations, of dependent claims, not previously presented. Therefore, in view of the newly amended limitations, the examiner will set forth an obviousness rejection in order to address the newly amended limitations not previously presented with newly found prior art.
Additionally, Applicant also presents arguments regarding the obviousness rejection of claims 1, 8, 15 under 35 U.S.C. 103. In particular, Applicant argues the following:
Claims 1, 8, and 15 are the only independent claims in the present application. Applicant respectfully disagrees with the rejections and traverses the same. Each of these claims includes a feature neither disclosed by, nor made obvious in view of the cited references...Applicant respectfully submits that these features are not taught or suggested in the cited references. The other amended independent claims recite features of similar scope, and are allowable for similar reasons as amended independent claim 1.
The Examiner relied on McIntire, referring to paragraphs [0310], [0338], and [0419] of McIntire. However, Paragraph [0310] of McIntire merely mentions "articles appearing in the media stream."
Paragraph [0338] of McIntire only generally describes "supplemental content," and narrowly describes supplemental content "about the actor." Also, the supplemental content is based on a movie database entry. This seems to be the result of a mere database query, where no analysis is performed. As such, paragraph [0338] of McIntire teaches away from analyzing the content while the media item is being presented to a user, determining a story from the analysis of the content, and analyzing plot points of the story and characters of the story, as claimed.
Paragraph [0419] of McIntire merely mentions "movie plots" in a list of possible supplemental content. Similar to paragraph [0338] of McIntire, paragraph [0419] of McIntire fails to describe analyzing the content while the media item, determining a story from the analysis of the content, and analyzing plot points of the story and characters of the story, as claimed....
The examiner respectfully disagrees with Applicant’s arguments. First, in response to the Applicant’s argument, the test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981). More importantly, on the issue of obviousness, the Supreme Court stated that when a patent simply arranges old elements with each performing the same function it had been known to perform and yields no more than one would expect from such an arrangement, the combination is obvious. KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007) (citing Sakraida v. AG Pro, Inc., 425 U.S. 273, 96 S. Ct. 1532, 47 L. Ed. 2d 784 (1976)). The Court further reiterated that in circumstances where the combination of two pre-existing elements did no more than they would in separate, sequential operation, the patent failed under 35 U.S.C. 103. See id. at 416-417 (citing Anderson's-Black Rock, Inc. v. Pavement Salvage Co., 396 U.S. 57, 90 S. Ct. 305, 24 L. Ed. 2d 258 (1969)). The analysis of a rejection on obviousness grounds need not seek out precise teachings directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged claim, for a court can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ. See id. at 418. The obvious analysis cannot be confined by a formalistic conception of the words teaching, suggestion, and motivation. Id. at 419. Further, the Court stated that common sense teaches, however, that familiar items may have obvious uses beyond their primary purposes, and in many cases a person of ordinary skill will be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle. See id. at 420.
With respect to Applicant’s arguments regarding the teachings of McIntire, the Examiner that the teachings of McIntire were cited for the significant teaching value regarding the deficiencies of Ratsch. Furthermore, whereas the Applicant argues that “Paragraph [0310] of McIntire merely mentions "articles appearing in the media stream." The examiner notes that the cited portions of McIntire must be viewed in context with the invention of McIntire. For example, with respect to paragraph 0310 of McIntire, the disclosure is cited for the significant teaching value regarding the client device being able to detecting that the media item is being presented on the media device and generating media information associated with the media item while the media item is being presented on the media device. See also paragraphs pertaining to Fig. 9 described as part of paragraph 0310. Whereas McIntire does indeed disclose “articles appearing in the media stream,” said identified articles correspond to supplemental data to be provided to the viewer/user. For example, McIntire further states “…one or more optical character recognition (OCR) techniques to the images associated with the indicated portion of the media stream (e.g., video OCR, text recognition, object recognition, logo recognition, etc.). In this manner, text, logos, objects and individuals appearing in the media stream (and in which the viewer may be interested) can be identified.” Based on the teachings of McIntire, when viewed in context, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have reasonably inferred that the articles to be provided as supplemental data disclosed in McIntire also pertain to non-commercial (e.g., See McIntire paragraph 0068 stating “media streams may be annotated and mapped to items of supplemental content of a non-commercial nature, such as content that is merely informative or aesthetic.”). More importantly, McIntire paragraph 0338 teaches the supplemental content provided to the viewer pertains to a particular actor and not necessarily commercial opportunities. With respect to the supplemental content/articles disclosed in McIntire, when viewed in context of the full disclosure also recognizes the following:
[0145] - In one embodiment, all of the associated items of supplemental content that are associated with a given segment of the media stream, regardless of viewer type, are displayed simultaneously (e.g., items of supplemental content that will be shown to males and items of supplemental content that will be shown to females; the "hip hop" version, etc.). In one embodiment, the items of supplemental content are presented in various summary formats, such as a written descriptor (i.e., without an image of the supplemental content), a "thumbnail" image, and other similar means. In one embodiment, all of the items of supplemental content that would appear to a viewer are shown to a user reviewing the mapping, so that the user can easily review the overall viewer experience (e.g., verify the order in which the items of supplemental content appear on a viewer display). In one embodiment, the user is allowed to review all items of supplemental content that include a particular element of information (e.g., a particular article), so that uniformity across various items of supplemental content can be preserved and/or differences among items of supplemental content can be confirmed as being intended.
[0158] In some embodiments, supplemental content includes keywords, tags, instructions or other identifying or indexing information that is intended to assist in the identification and retrieval of subject matter of interest...The present invention provides a superior approach to tagging because tags can be applied as specifically as frame-by-frame to identify the information being conveyed by a media stream
[0239] The method 700 thereby allows a user (e.g., a content creator) to create a mapping from segment identifiers associated with a media stream to one or more items of supplemental content. In one embodiment, mappings are made between segment identifiers identifying temporal segments of the media stream and one or more items of supplemental content (e.g., the first minute of the media stream may be associated with the first item of supplemental content, the second minute of the media stream associated with the second item of supplemental content and so on)....For example, the user may configure the mapping so that when the media stream is paused, the viewer is presented with a specific item of supplemental content, regardless of the subject matter appearing in the particular scene of the media stream at which the media stream was paused. In another embodiment, mappings to items of supplemental content may be made with respect to metadata included in the encoding in the primary media stream or added to the encoding by the user or by the access provider (e.g., segment identifiers, cue points and the like).
All things considered McIntire teaches the supplemental content is determined in-real time such that supplemental content articles includes a frame-by-frame to identify the information being conveyed by a media stream and/or in each scene. Therefore, the Applicant’s arguments regarding the teachings of McIntire are not persuasive and the obviousness rejection of claim 1 is maintained.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim(s) 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ratsch; Peter Werner et al. US 20090300674 A1 (hereafter Ratsch) and in further view of Yamato, Jun-Ichi et al. US 20020104101 A1 (Yamato) and in further view of McIntire; John P. et al. US 20070250901 A1 (hereafter McIntire) and in further view of Ramachandran; Kumar et al. US 20100086283 A1 (hereafter Ramachandran).
Regarding claim 1, “a system comprising: one or more processors; and logic encoded in one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media for execution by the one or more processors and when executed operable to cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising: detecting that a media item is being presented on a media device; generating media information associated with the media item while the media item is being presented on the media device, wherein the media information comprises a description and analysis of content presented in association with the media item, and wherein the description of the content comprises a synopsis of a story of the media item; analyzing the content while the media item is being presented to a user; determining a story from the analysis of the content; analyzing plot points of the story and characters of the story; and providing the media information to a user of the media device” ” Ratsch para 82-84 and Fig. 3B disclose that after a channel has been currently selected, a media item is presented and media information related to the presented media item. See also para 65-72 enhanced content is distributed while the programing that it pertains to is broadcast such that identifying that the programming is selected for viewing, then the enhancement information is presented along with the programming content. With respect to “wherein the media information comprises a description and analysis of content presented in association with the media item” Ratsch para 81-83 teaches an enhancement information 302 is used to present the enhanced information 304 associated with a programming event occurring on a so-called "currently selected channel" and enhanced information associated with the currently selected channel is displayed in an enhancement information pop-up 302C window which is overlaid over a portion of the basic programming grid information and wherein Ratsch para 66-72 discloses displaying enhancement data which comprises description and analysis of content presented in association of the media item because dynamic program description describes persons and events occurring in the media item.
Additionally, whereas Ratsch does not use the terms “detecting” when a media item is being presented on a media device in order to generate media information as claimed. Whereas Ratsch does disclose the claimed synopsis and characters as actors, Ratsch does not reference plot points. See Ratsch para 38, 46, 64. In an analogous art, Yamato Fig. 1-2 and para 43-52 disclose a system for detecting that a terminal apparatus 50 is presenting program video content received from broadcasting station 10 in order to enable a remote server 30 to transmit information that has been linked in the content information that has been stored in server 30 and displayed according to instructions from that user that is viewing the program. See also Fig. 29 and para 53-57 disclosing a terminal apparatus for displaying media information window for displaying a program that is transmitted from broadcasting station 10 and simultaneously displaying content information linked to media information of said program and received from server 30. Yamato para 151 teaches synopsis and cast corresponding to characters.
In an analogous art, McIntire teaches analyzing media content to determine objects pertinent to viewer interests and provides supplemental content comprising actors and plots (see McIntire para 310, 338, and 419).
The prior art discloses a motivation for modifying the teachings of Ratsch and Yamato wherein Ramachandran para 67-81 teaches simultaneously displaying media information comprises a description and analysis of content presented in association with the media item because a benefit to the audience can be that the descriptive data presented with the video enhances the viewing experience. There can be at least three broad categories of value added to the audience. One category is trusted, valuable data. The descriptive data (such as "metadata". "contextual data" or "context") can come from credible sources and is relevant to the video's subject matter.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Ratsch’s invention for providing enhanced content to a client terminal device presenting programing associated with said enhancement content/information by further incorporating known elements of Yamoto’s invention for detecting that a user terminal apparatus is presenting program video content received from broadcasting station to enable a remote server to transmit information that has been linked in the content information stored in said server in order to be displayed according to instructions from that user that is viewing the program such that after identifying that the programming is selected for viewing, then the enhancement information is presented along with the programming content because the prior art to Ramachandran teaches simultaneously displaying media information comprises a description and analysis of content presented in association with the media item and recognizes the benefit to the audience can be that the descriptive data presented with the video enhances the viewing experience. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Ratsch and Yamoto’s invention for providing enhanced content to a client terminal device presenting programing associated with said enhancement content/information by further incorporating known elements of McIntire teaches analyzing media content to determine objects pertinent to viewer interests and provides supplemental content comprising actors and plots because the prior art to Ramachandran teaches simultaneously displaying media information comprises a description and analysis of content presented in association with the media item and recognizes the benefit to the audience can be that the descriptive data presented with the video enhances the viewing experience.
Regarding claim 2, “wherein the logic when executed is further operable to cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising: determining what happened in previously watched portions of media item; and summarizing what happened in the previously watched portions of content” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claim 1 wherein Ratsch para 19,26 disclosing movies and shows; See also Yamato para 10, 144-147 disclosing movies. See also the teachings McIntire wherein paragraph 0310 of McIntire, the disclosure is cited for the significant teaching value regarding the client device being able to detecting that the media item is being presented on the media device and generating media information associated with the media item while the media item is being presented on the media device (i.e., on the fly). See also paragraphs pertaining to Fig. 9 described as part of paragraph 0310. Whereas McIntire does indeed disclose “articles appearing in the media stream,” said identified articles correspond to supplemental data to be provided to the viewer/user. For example, McIntire further states “…one or more optical character recognition (OCR) techniques to the images associated with the indicated portion of the media stream (e.g., video OCR, text recognition, object recognition, logo recognition, etc.). In this manner, text, logos, objects and individuals appearing in the media stream (and in which the viewer may be interested) can be identified.” Based on the teachings of McIntire, when viewed in context, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have reasonably inferred that the articles to be provided as supplemental data disclosed in McIntire also pertain to non-commercial (e.g., See McIntire paragraph 0068 stating “media streams may be annotated and mapped to items of supplemental content of a non-commercial nature, such as content that is merely informative or aesthetic.”). More importantly, McIntire paragraph 0338 teaches the supplemental content provided to the viewer pertains to a particular actor and not necessarily commercial opportunities. With respect to the supplemental content/articles disclosed in McIntire, when viewed in context of the full disclosure also recognizes the following:
[0145] - In one embodiment, all of the associated items of supplemental content that are associated with a given segment of the media stream, regardless of viewer type, are displayed simultaneously (e.g., items of supplemental content that will be shown to males and items of supplemental content that will be shown to females; the "hip hop" version, etc.). In one embodiment, the items of supplemental content are presented in various summary formats, such as a written descriptor (i.e., without an image of the supplemental content), a "thumbnail" image, and other similar means. In one embodiment, all of the items of supplemental content that would appear to a viewer are shown to a user reviewing the mapping, so that the user can easily review the overall viewer experience (e.g., verify the order in which the items of supplemental content appear on a viewer display). In one embodiment, the user is allowed to review all items of supplemental content that include a particular element of information (e.g., a particular article), so that uniformity across various items of supplemental content can be preserved and/or differences among items of supplemental content can be confirmed as being intended.
[0158] In some embodiments, supplemental content includes keywords, tags, instructions or other identifying or indexing information that is intended to assist in the identification and retrieval of subject matter of interest...The present invention provides a superior approach to tagging because tags can be applied as specifically as frame-by-frame to identify the information being conveyed by a media stream…
[0239] The method 700 thereby allows a user (e.g., a content creator) to create a mapping from segment identifiers associated with a media stream to one or more items of supplemental content. In one embodiment, mappings are made between segment identifiers identifying temporal segments of the media stream and one or more items of supplemental content (e.g., the first minute of the media stream may be associated with the first item of supplemental content, the second minute of the media stream associated with the second item of supplemental content and so on)....For example, the user may configure the mapping so that when the media stream is paused, the viewer is presented with a specific item of supplemental content, regardless of the subject matter appearing in the particular scene of the media stream at which the media stream was paused. In another embodiment, mappings to items of supplemental content may be made with respect to metadata included in the encoding in the primary media stream or added to the encoding by the user or by the access provider (e.g., segment identifiers, cue points and the like).
All things considered McIntire teaches the supplemental content is determined in real-time such that supplemental content articles includes a frame-by-frame to identify the information being conveyed by a media stream and/or in each scene such that analysis of live content would be performed in real-time and would generate supplemental content for media that has already been viewed by the user.
Regarding claim 3, “wherein the media information comprises people information about people associated with a creation of the media item” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-2 wherein Yamato para 78-80, 256 teaches information that relates to the program, such as the actors appearing in the program.
Regarding claim 4, “wherein the media information comprises content information about content associated with the media item” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-3 wherein Yamato para 89 teaches information "a" and "e" that each relate to a person, object, or building that appears in a particular scene of the program may be, for example, the name of the maker of clothing worn by an actor, stores that carry the clothing, or the user's comments regarding the clothing; information regarding an object such as the name and manufacturer of a product, stores that carry the product, the URL of a sales site, or the user's comments regarding the product; information or comments regarding a food item (the maker or store); the name and location of a store appearing in a scene, the URL of the store's Web page, or the user's comments.
Regarding claim 5, “wherein the logic when executed is further operable to cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising performing a search for media information based on content associated with the media item, wherein the content is currently being presented on the media device” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-4 wherein Yamato Fig. 1-2 and para 43-52 disclose a system for detecting that a terminal apparatus 50 is presenting program video content received from broadcasting station 10 in order to enable a remote server 30 search for information related to the presented program in order to transmit information that has been linked in the content information that has been stored in server 30 and displayed according to instructions from that user that is viewing the program. See also Fig. 29 disclosing a terminal apparatus for displaying media information window for displaying a program that is transmitted from broadcasting station 10 and simultaneously displaying content information linked to media information of said program and received from server 30.
Regarding claim 6, “wherein the logic when executed is further operable to cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising displaying the media information to the user, wherein the media information is displayed based on content that is currently being presented on the media device” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-5 wherein Ratsch para 82-84 and Fig. 3B disclose that after a channel has been currently selected, a media item is presented and media information related to the presented media item. See also para 65-72 enhanced content is distributed while the programing that it pertains to is broadcast such that identifying that the programming is selected for viewing, then the enhancement information is presented along with the programming content. Yamato Fig. 1-2 and para 43-52 disclose a system for detecting that a terminal apparatus 50 is presenting program video content received from broadcasting station 10 in order to enable a remote server 30 to transmit information that has been linked in the content information that has been stored in server 30 and displayed according to instructions from that user that is viewing the program. See also Fig. 29 and para 53-57 disclosing a terminal apparatus for displaying media information window for displaying a program that is transmitted from broadcasting station 10 and simultaneously displaying content information linked to media information of said program and received from server 30.
Regarding claim 7, “wherein the logic when executed is further operable to cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising performing an analysis of the media information while the media item is being presented to a user” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-6 wherein Yamato Fig. 1-2 and para 43-52 disclose a system for detecting that a terminal apparatus 50 is presenting program video content received from broadcasting station 10 in order to enable a remote server 30 to transmit information that has been linked in the content information that has been stored in server 30 and displayed according to instructions from that user that is viewing the program. See also Fig. 29 and para 53-57 disclosing a terminal apparatus for displaying media information window for displaying a program that is transmitted from broadcasting station 10 and simultaneously displaying content information linked to media information of said program and received from server 30.
Regarding the non-transitory computer readable media claims 8-14 and method claims 15-20 are grouped and rejected with the system claims 1-7 because the steps of the method claims are met by the disclosure of the apparatus and methods of the reference(s) as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-7 and because elements of the system are easily converted into elements of computer implemented methods by one of ordinary skill in the art.
CONCLUSION
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 ALFONSO CASTRO whose telephone number is (571)270-3950. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday to Friday from 10am to 6pm.
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/ALFONSO CASTRO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2421
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