DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to communication filed 8/12/2024. Claims 1-20 are pending for examination, the rejection cited as stated below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
2. 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.
3. 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-2, 4-9, 13-14, 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Balazs et al (US 20230143232) in view of Abello et al (US 20160112522).
As to claim 1, Balazs discloses a method for updating a non-persistent device identifier associated with a user device at a media exposure measurement location, the user device having one or more user device parameters and a user device time stamp that characterize an activity of the user device on a network at the media exposure measurement location (claim 1, “collecting second network traffic data related to the unknown second computing device; generating a second device application usage profile for the unknown second computing device based on the second network traffic data related to the unknown second computing device”; [0061]), the method comprising:
obtaining network traffic data via the network, the network traffic data specifying, for each
of a plurality of network devices communicatively coupled to the network at the media exposure
measurement location, a network device identifier associated with the network device, one or more
network device parameters associated with the network device, and a network time stamp that
characterizes a time of at least one communication over the network by the network device (claim 1, ““generating and maintaining a first device application usage profile for each one or more known first computing devices of a local network based on first network traffic data”;”[0061], “In an embodiment, the collected application network traffic metadata may be transmitted via the local router 310 but also sending directly via a network gateway is possible, for example when the device is not in the computer network. The collected application network traffic metadata may comprise following data but is not limited to it: an application name, an identification of the application, a version of the application, a network traffic protocol type (e.g. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS), User Datagram Protocol (UDP), Domain Name System (DNS), Multicast DNS (MDNS)), a timestamp of a connection, a connection target, a connection direction, number of transferred bytes to upstream and/or downstream, and a computer device identification running the dedicated software application”; [0050], “the unknown device may be identified as a known computing device only if a representative amount of same/similar values or conditions are detected based on comparing the device application usage profile of the unknown computing device and the device application usage profile of the one or more known computing devices.”)
comparing the one or more user device parameters to the one or more network device
parameters associated with the plurality of network devices and included in the network traffic data (see citation above [0050], “the unknown device may be identified as a known computing device only if a representative amount of same/similar values or conditions are detected based on comparing the device application usage profile of the unknown computing device and the device application usage profile of the one or more known computing devices” and claim 1 “comparing the second device application usage profile of the unknown second computing device with the first device application usage profile of the one or more known first computing devices of the local network”);
selecting, based on the parameter comparison, one or more candidate device identifiers
from the device identifiers associated with the plurality of network devices included in the network
traffic data (claim 1, “in response to detecting a difference between the second device application usage profile of the unknown second computing device and the first device application usage profile of the one or more known first computing devices of the local network satisfying a predetermined threshold, identifying the unknown second computing device as one of the one or more known first computing
devices of the local network”);
updating the non-persistent device identifier associated with the user device at the media
exposure measurement location using the target device identifier selected from the one or more
candidate device identifiers included in the network traffic data (claim 7, “updating the first device application usage profiles regularly by one or more of: a differential update, and generating one
or more new device application usage profiles” wherein the new device application usage profile necessarily incudes the identifier of said new device matched to one of the existing devices after the preceding comparison step of claim 1 of the reference).
Balazs also discloses comparing, for each candidate device identifier, the user device time stamp with the network time stamp associated with the candidate device identifier; and selecting, based on the time stamp comparison, a target device identifier from the one or more candidate device identifiers (see citation in rejection to the preceding limitations wherein comparing the device profile to existing device profile is disclose, wherein the device profile comprises timestamp obtained from the traffic data). If the limitation were to be construed narrowly, e.g., to require that only the time stamp is compared for the selection, then Balazs does not expressly disclose only comparing timestamps for the selection.
Abello discloses a concept of only comparing time stamps to select/align two devices ([0106]).
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious for an ordinary skilled in the art to combine Balazs with Abello. The suggestion/motivation of the combination would have been to align devices (Abello, [0106]).
As to claim 14, see similar rejection to claim 1.
As to claim 20, see similar rejection to claim 1.
As to claim 2, Balazs-Abello discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
based on updating the non-persistent device identifier associated with the user device using the target device identifier, determining media exposure data based at least on the network traffic data and the target device identifier; and associating the media exposure data with demographic data of a user associated with the user device represented by the target device identifier (Abello, [0002]; [0047]; [0056]).
As to claim 4, Balazs-Abello discloses the method of claim 1, wherein updating the non-persistent device identifier associated with the user device using the target device identifier selected from the one or more candidate device identifiers comprises:
replacing the non-persistent device identifier associated with the user device at the media
exposure measurement location with the target device identifier (Balazs, see citation in rejection to claim 1, wherein the unknown device’s identifier is updated with that of a known device. See also Balazs, [0031]).
As to claim 16, see similar rejection to claim 4.
As to claim 5, Balazs-Abello discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the device identifier of the user device and the device identifiers of the plurality of network devices comprise a Media Access Control (MAC) address (Balazs, [0031]).
As to claim 17, see similar rejection to claim 5.
As to claim 6, Balazs-Abello discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the user device comprises a mobile phone (Balazs, [0057]).
As to claim 18, see similar rejection to claim 6.
As to claim 7, Balazs-Abello discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the network traffic data is collected by a streaming meter configured to monitor the network to collect the network traffic data, and wherein the streaming meter is communicatively coupled to the plurality of network devices via the network (see citation in rejection to claim 1, wherein the entity that collects the network traffic data is equivalent to a streaming meter).
As to claim 19, see similar rejection to claim 7.
As to claim 8, Balazs-Abello discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
outputting the target device identifier as a new device identifier for the user device at the
media exposure measurement location (Balazs, see citation in rejection to claim 1 and [0031], it is to be noted that the claim does not require a specific destination for outputting the target device identifier, or a specific type of output entity).
As to claim 9, Balazs-Abello discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the one or more user device parameters and the one or more network device parameters comprise a device model and a device label (Balazs, [0031], wherein “device type” is a type of device model. See citation in rejection to claim 1, wherein “a computer device identification running the dedicated software application” is a device label”).
As to claim 13, Balazs-Abello discloses the method of claim 1, wherein comparing, for each candidate device identifier, the user device time stamp with the network time stamp associated with the candidate device identifier comprises: determining if a time gap between the user device time stamp and the network time stamp is above a threshold (Abello, [0117], “the audio received from the mobile device are compared when timestamps associated with the received audio represent approximately the same time. As used herein, timestamps represent the same time when the timestamps represent times within one second of each other”).
Allowable Subject Matter
6. Claims 3, 10-12 and 15 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 HUA FAN whose telephone number is (571)270-5311. The examiner can normally be reached on 9-6.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Umar Cheema can be reached at 571-270-3037. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/HUA FAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2458