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 with respect to claims 1, 3-9, 11-15 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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 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.
Claims 1, 3-4, 7, 9, 11 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the “Coded Multisource Media Format (CMMF) for Content Distribution and Delivery” (cited and presented by applicant; from now on CMMF) in view of Luby, WO 2011/038013 A2.
Regarding claim 1, CMMF discloses a method of retrieving media data, the method comprising:
retrieving a manifest file indicating a plurality of network locations for at least a first segment of media data and a second segment of the media data, each network location among the plurality of network locations being hosted by a separate physical server device, the manifest file including source flow information for a media flow including at least a first portion of the first segment, the source flow information including a uniform resource locator (URL) for an object corresponding to the at least first portion of the first segment (figure 33, page 99, paragraph 1-4);
sending a first request for the at least first portion of the first segment to a first uniform resource locator (URL) (figure 33, page 99, paragraph 1-4);
retrieving the at least first portion of the first segment from a first network location of the plurality of network locations (figure 33);
sending a second request for a third portion of the first segment to a second URL (figure 33, page 99, paragraph 1-4);
retrieving at least a second portion of the second segment from a second network location of the plurality of network locations (figure 33); and
providing the at least first portion of the first segment and the at least second portion of the second segment to a decoder (figure 33, page 99, paragraph 1-4).
CMMF is silent about an availability start time indicating a time at which the object can be retrieved.
In an analogous art, Luby discloses an availability start time indicating a time at which the object can be retrieved (paragraph 279, 286, 392 and 536).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify CCMF’s method with the teachings of Luby. The motivation would have been to give the user the latest available data for the benefit of providing quality of service.
Claim 9 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 1.
Regarding claim 3, CMMF discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the at least first portion comprises an application object including media data, and wherein the third portion comprises a repair object for repairing the application object in the event of loss of a portion of the application object according to forward error correction (FEC) (figure 33, page 13-repair flow).
Claim 11 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 3.
Regarding claim 4, CMMF discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising combining the first at least portion and the third portion using forward error correction (FEC) decoding (page 13-repair flow).
Regarding claim 7, CMMF and Luby discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the manifest file includes data indicating an expiration time at which the manifest file needs to be updated, the method further comprising updating the manifest file by the expiration time (paragraph 308 and 324).
Claim 14 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 7.
Claims 8 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the CCMF in view of Luby in view of “3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Services and System Aspects; Multimedia Broadcast/Multimedia Service (MBMS); Protocols and Codecs” (cited and presented by applicant; from now on MBMS).
Regarding claim 8, CMMF and Luby disclose the method of claim 1.
CMMF and Luby are silent about sending feedback packets for one or more application data units (ADUs) of media data of a media streaming session by which the first segment was received.
In an analogous art, MBMS discloses sending feedback packets for one or more application data units (ADUs) of media data of a media streaming session by which the first segment was received (page 75 - 8.2).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify CCMF and Luby’s method with the teachings of MBMS. The motivation would have been to provide feedback about the transmission for the benefit of improving delivering quality.
Claim 15 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 8.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 16, 19-24 and 26-29 are allowed.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-6 and 12-13 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
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.
Contact
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to OSCHTA I MONTOYA whose telephone number is (571)270-1192. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 8 am - 5 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nathan Flynn can be reached on 571-272-1915. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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OM
Oschta Montoya
Patent Examiner
Art Unit 2421
/OSCHTA I MONTOYA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2421
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