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 .
This office correspondence is in response to “Amendment and Response under 37 C.F.R. 1.111 filed on March 6, 2026 in response to a non-final office action issued on December 10, 2025.
Claims 1 – 20 are pending.
Claims 1, 7 and 13 are amended.
Claims 1 – 20 are rejected.
Applicant’s arguments filed on 3/06/2026 has been fully considered:
In regard to claims 1 – 16 and 19 – 20 which were rejected on the ground of non-provisional non-statutory anticipatory-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1- 18 of U.S. Patent 10,834,180, the applicant is holding in abeyance a response, therefore the rejections are not withdrawn.
In regard to claims 1 – 20 which were rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 at least one argument is persuasive to the rejection of claims from the last office action and said rejections are withdrawn, but applicant’s amendment necessitated a new search and consideration resulting in a new grounds of rejections for claims 1 – 20 under 35 U.S.C. 103. The examiner here now responds to each argument. Underlined text indicates claim language that was amended since the last office action.
In regard to claims 1 – 2, 4 – 8, 10 – 14, and 16, the applicant argues the prior art combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi, and Leddy fails to anticipate, disclose or teach:
“based on said determining in (A), determining a given time by which to prefetch the certain content in anticipation of future requests in a second geographic region west of the first geographic region based on a certain content popularity on the first geographic region, “ (as recited in claim 1 and substantially replicated in claims 7 and 13).
The applicant states:
“ . . . The Office Action rejected claims 1-2, 4-8, 10-14, and 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Sivasubramanian in view of Phillips in further view of Choi in further view of Leddy. Applicant respectfully submits that the cited reference does not provide a prima facie case of obviousness for the rejected claims as the cited reference does not teach or suggest each and every limitation of independent claims 1, 7, and 13.
Claims 1, 7, and 13 are independent claims upon which claims 2, 4-6, 8, 10-12, 14, and 16, depend. Independent claims 1, 7, and 13 are currently amended to recite, inter alia, "determining a given time by which to prefetch the certain content in anticipation of future requests in a second geographic region west of the first geographic region based on the certain content popularity in the first geographic region, wherein the given time is determined based on a time-zone difference between the first geographic region and the second geographic region." Support for this amendment can be found in paragraph [0025] of the Application as filed.
Applicant respectfully submits that the cited prior art does not disclose or suggest such
limitations.
The Office Action admits that Sivasubramanian and Phillips fail to teach the claimed step
(c) but relies on paragraphs [0032]-[0033] and [0036] in Choi to remedy this deficiency. See Office Action, pages 18-19. . . Applicant respectfully submits that Choi is silent regarding "determining a given time by which to prefetch the certain content in anticipation of future requests in a second geographic region west of the first geographic region based on the certain content popularity in the first geographic region, wherein the given time is determined based on a time-zone difference between the first geographic region and the second geographic region" as recited in amended independent claims 1, 7, and 13.
For at least the foregoing reasons, Applicant respectfully submits that amended independent claims 1, 7, and 13 and their respective dependent claims, claims 2, 4-6, 8, 10-12, 14, and 16, are patentable over Sivasubramanian in view of Phillips in further view of Choi in further view of Leddy. Applicant therefore respectfully requests withdrawal of the rejection of claims 1- 2, 4-8, 10-14, and 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Sivasubramanian in view of Phillips in further view of Choi in further view of Leddy. . . “ (Applicant’s remarks pages 7 – 9).
In response to applicant’s argument:
The applicant’s amendments substantially changed the scope of the independent claims by further indicating that the prefetch of the certain content in anticipation of future requests in a second geographic region west of the first geographic region is based on a certain content popularity on the first geographic region. The applicant is persuasive because the combination of prior art does not provide such specificity. As such the 35 USC 103 rejections under Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi, and Leddy, are withdrawn, but a new search and consideration of the amended claims discovered new grounds of rejection under 35 USC 103, and said claims are therein rejected as being unpatentable over Sivasubramanian (US 2014/0143320A1; herein referred to as Sivasubramanian) in view of Phillips et al. (U.S. 2015/0012593 A1; herein referred to as Phillips) in further view of Choi (US 2012/0131146 A1; herein referred to as Choi) in further view of Philpott et al. (U.S. 8,495,675 B1; herein referred to as Philpott). The new prior art reference of Philpott is analogous art that is directed to dynamically inserting content into a streaming media program, and when inserting advertising in real time using previous decisioning from an earlier time zone, and not having to create a new manifest. Philpott provides a decisioning server that can dynamically change the advertising content after the stream is rendered on the east coast to when it is rendered on the west coast, in part, based on the advertiser’s impact in the previous time zone. (see Philpott Col 10: Lines 34 – 60). The applicant is referred to the updated claim rejections described below.
The examiner re recommends that the applicant review the specification for disclosure that if integrated into the independent claims would distinguish the amended claims from the cited prior art. The applicant may want to integrate dependent claims 19 – 20 into the independent claims 1,7, and 13 to advance prosecution. The applicant should file the terminal disclaimer for the double patenting prior to the next response. The applicant is invited to contact the examiner for an interview to discuss how to move the prosecution forward.
Authorization for Internet Communications
The examiner encourages Applicant to submit an authorization to communicate with the examiner via the Internet by making the following statement (from MPEP 502.03):
“Recognizing that Internet communications are not secure, I hereby authorize the USPTO to communicate with the undersigned and practitioners in accordance with 37 CFR 1.33 and 37 CFR 1.34 concerning any subject matter of this application by video conferencing, instant messaging, or electronic mail. I understand that a copy of these communications will be made of record in the application file.”
Please note that the above statement can only be submitted via Central Fax (not Examiner's Fax), Regular postal mail, or EFS Web using PTO/SB/439.
Priority
This application claims priority to U.S. Patent Application 17/087672 filed on November 30, 2020 (now abandoned). Co-pendency between the current application and the prior application is required. Since the applications were co-pending at the time of the instant application’s file date, the applicant is entitled to the benefit claim to the prior-filed application, which claimed the benefit as a continuation of U.S. Patent Application 15/727704 filed on October 9, 2017, (issued as U.S. Patent 10,834,180). Thus, the applicant is entitled to a priority date of 10/9/2017.
Double Patenting
The non-statutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A non-statutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on non-statutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP §§ 706.02(l)(1) - 706.02(l)(3) for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based e-Terminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An e-Terminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about e-Terminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/process/file/efs/guidance/eTD-info-I.jsp.
Claims 1 – 16 and 19 - 20 are rejected on the ground of non-provisional non-statutory anticipatory-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1- 18 of U.S. Patent 10,834,180. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patently distinct from each other because both sets of claims are directed to the same invention. This is a non-provisional non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection since the claims directed to the same invention have in fact been patented.
In regard to claim 1:
Application 18/805934
U.S. Patent 10,834,180
A computer-implemented method, in a content delivery (CD) network, wherein said CD network (CDN) delivers content on behalf of multiple content providers, the method comprising:
1. A computer-implemented method, in a content delivery (CD) network, wherein said CD network (CDN) delivers content on behalf of multiple content providers, the method comprising:
(A)determining that certain content is trending in a first geographic region during a first time period, the certain content provided to the CDN by a first content provider of the multiple content providers, wherein said determining is based on requests made at the CDN for said certain content;
(A) determining that certain content is trending in a first geographic region during a first time period, the certain content provided to the CDN by a first content provider of the multiple content providers; 2. The method of claim 1 wherein said determining in (A) is based on requests made at the CDN for said certain content
(B) based on said determining in (A), determining a given time by which to prefetch the certain content in a second geographic region following the sun, wherein the given time is determined based on a time-zone difference between the first geographic region and the second geographic region;
(B) based on said determining in (A), determining a given time by which to prefetch the certain content in a second geographic region, wherein the given time is determined based on a time-zone difference between the first geographic region and the second geographic region;
(C) based on the determining in (A), increasing a number of CD servers bound to said first content provider in said second geographic region; and
(C) based on the determining in (A), increasing a number of CD servers bound to said first content provider in said second geographic region;
(D) causing said certain content to be prefetched by at least one cache of said CDN in the second geographic region by the given time.
(D) causing said certain content to be prefetched by at least one cache of said CDN in the second geographic region by the given time;
(E) determining, after the given time, a score for the certain content based on requests for the certain content in the second geographic region;
(F) determining that second content provided to the CDN by the first content provider is trending in the first geographic region during a subsequent time period; and
(G) determining, based on the score, whether to cause the second content provided by the first content provider to be prefetched by the at least one cache of the CDN in the second geographic region.
It is clear that all of the elements of the instant application 18/805924 (herein ‘934) claim 1 are to be found in U.S. Patent 10,834,180 (herein ‘180) claim 1 (as the instant application ‘934 claim 1 fully encompasses Patent ‘180 claim 1). The difference between ‘934 claim 1 and ‘180 claim 1 lies in the fact that the ‘180 claim includes many more elements and is thus much more specific. Thus the invention of claim 1 of the 180 patent is in effect a “species” of the “generic” invention of ‘934 claim 1. It has been held that the generic invention is “anticipated” by the “species”. See In re Goodman, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Since the ‘934 claim 1 is anticipated by claim 1 of ‘180, it is not patently distinct from ‘180 claim 1.
In regard to claim 2, see claim 4 of ‘180.
In regard to claim 3, see claim 5 of ‘180.
In regard to claim 4, see claim 3 of ‘180.
In regard to claim 5, see claim 6 of ‘180.
In regard to claim 6, see claim 7 of ‘180.
In regard to claim 7:
Application 18/805934
U.S. Patent 10,834,180
An article of manufacture comprising a non-transitory computer-readable medium having program instructions stored thereon, the program instructions, operable on a computer system in a content delivery network (CDN), said device implementing at least one content delivery (CD) service, wherein execution of the program instructions by one or more processors of said computer system causes the one or more processors to carry out the acts of:
8. An article of manufacture comprising a non-transitory computer-readable medium having program instructions stored thereon, the program instructions, operable on a computer system in a content delivery network (CDN), said device implementing at least one content delivery (CD) service, wherein execution of the program instructions by one or more processors of said computer system causes the one or more processors to carry out the acts of:
(A)determining that certain content is trending in a first geographic region during a first time period, the certain content provided to the CDN by a first content provider, wherein said determining is based on requests made at the CDN for said certain content by a popularity server;
(A) determining that certain content is trending in a first geographic region during a first time period, the certain content provided to the CDN by a first content provider; 9. The article of manufacture of claim 8, wherein said determining in (A) is based on requests made at the CDN for said certain content.
(B) based on said determining in (A), determining a given time by which to prefetch the certain content in a second geographic region following the sun, wherein the given time is determined based on a time-zone difference between the first geographic region and the second geographic region;
(B) based on said determining in (A), determining a given time by which to prefetch the certain content in a second geographic region, wherein the given time is determined based on a time-zone difference between the first geographic region and the second geographic region;
(C) based on the determining in (A), increasing a number of CD servers bound to said first content provider in said second geographic region; and
(C) based on the determining in (A), increasing a number of CD servers bound to said first content provider in said second geographic region;
(D) causing said certain content to be prefetched by at least one cache of said CDN in the second geographic region by the given time.
(D) causing said certain content to be prefetched by at least one cache of said CDN in the second geographic region by the given time;
(E) determining, after the given time, a score for the certain content based on requests for the certain content in the second geographic region;
(F) determining that second content provided to the CDN by the first content provider is trending in the first geographic region during a subsequent time period; and
(G) determining, based on the score, whether to cause the second content provided by the first content provider to be prefetched by the at least one cache of the CDN in the second geographic region.
It is clear that all of the elements of the instant application 18/805934 (herein ‘934) claim 7 are to be found in U.S. Patent 10,834,180 (herein ‘180) claim 8 (as the instant application ‘934 claim 7 fully encompasses Patent ‘180 claim 8). The difference between ‘934 claim 7 and ‘180 claim 8 lies in the fact that the ‘180 claim includes many more elements and is thus much more specific. Thus the invention of claim 8 of the 180 patent is in effect a “species” of the “generic” invention of ‘934 claim 7. It has been held that the generic invention is “anticipated” by the “species”. See In re Goodman, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Since the ‘934 claim 7 is anticipated by claim 8 of ‘180, it is not patently distinct from ‘180 claim 8.
In regard to claim 8, see claim 11 of ‘180.
In regard to claim 9, see claim 12 of ‘180.
In regard to claim 10, see claim 10 of ‘180.
In regard to claim 11, see claim 13 of ‘180.
In regard to claim 12, see claim 14 of ‘180.
In regard to claim 13:
Application 18,805,934
U.S. Patent 10,834,180
A device in a content delivery network (CDN), wherein said CDN delivers content on behalf of at least one content provider, said device implementing a content delivery (CD) service, the device comprising:
at least one processor;
memory, operatively connected to the at least one processor and containing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the device to perform a method, the method comprising:
15. A device in a content delivery network (CDN), wherein said CDN delivers content on behalf of at least one content provider, said device implementing a content delivery (CD) service, the device comprising:
at least one processor;
memory, operatively connected to the at least one processor and containing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the device to perform a method, the method comprising:
(A) determining that certain content is trending in a first geographic region during a first time period, the certain content provided to the CDN by a first content provider of the at least one content provider, wherein said determining is based on requests made at the CDN for said certain content;
(A) determining that certain content is trending in a first geographic region during a first time period, the certain content provided to the CDN by a first content provider of the at least one content provider; 16. The device of claim 15, wherein said determining in (A) is based on requests made at the CDN for said certain content.
(B) based on said determining in (A), determining a given time by which to prefetch | the certain content in a second geographic region following the sun, wherein the given time is determined based on a time-zone difference between the first geographic region and the second geographic region;
(B) based on said determining in (A), determining a given time by which to prefetch the certain content in a second geographic region, wherein the given time is determined based on a time-zone difference between the first geographic region and the second geographic region;
(C) based on the determining in (A), increasing a number of CD servers bound to said first content provider in said second geographic region; and
(C) based on the determining in (A), increasing a number of CD servers bound to said first content provider in said second geographic region;
(D) causing said certain content to be prefetched by at least one cache of said CDN in the second geographic region by the given time.
(D) causing said certain content to be prefetched by at least one cache of said CDN in the second geographic region by the given time;
(E) determining, after the given time, a score for the certain content based on requests for the certain content in the second geographic region;
(F) determining that second content provided to the CDN by the first content provider is trending in the first geographic region during a subsequent time period; and
(G) determining, based on the score, whether to cause the second content provided by the first content provider to be prefetched by the at least one cache of the CDN in the second geographic region.
It is clear that all of the elements of the instant application 18/805934 (herein ‘934) claim 13 are to be found in U.S. Patent 10,834,180 (herein ‘180) claim 15 (as the instant application ‘934 claim 13 fully encompasses Patent ‘180 claim 15). The difference between ‘934 claim 13 and ‘180 claim 15 lies in the fact that the ‘180 claim includes many more elements and is thus much more specific. Thus the invention of claim 15 of the 180 patent is in effect a “species” of the “generic” invention of ‘934 claim 13. It has been held that the generic invention is “anticipated” by the “species”. See In re Goodman, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Since the ‘934 claim 13 is anticipated by claim 15 of ‘180, it is not patently distinct from ‘180 claim 15.
In regard to claim 14, see claim 17 of ‘180.
In regard to claim 15, see claim 18 of ‘180.
In regard to claim 16, see claim 14 of ‘180.
In regard to claim 19, see claim 15 of ‘180.
In regard to claim 20, see claim 15 of ‘180.
Claim Analysis - 35 USC § 101 (Judicial Exception)
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1 - 20 are directed to statutory subject matter and no 35 USC 101 rejection is applied for the judicial exception. The claims are directed to non-abstract improvements in computer related technology. The claimed subject matter is integrated into a practical application under Prong 2 of the Step 2A analysis described in MPEP 2016.04(d). A claim is non-statutory when it is directed to a judicial exception (e.g. either one of mathematical concepts, mental processes, or certain methods of organizing human activity) without significantly more. The claimed invention is not directed to a judicial exception. Instead, the claimed invention is directed to a technological improvement for delivering content in a CDN by determining that certain content is trending in a first geographic region during a first time period; and, based on the determining, causing the certain content to be prefetched by the CDN in a second geographic region by a given time after said first time period, wherein, during the first time period, the time in the second geographic region is earlier (e.g. follow the sun) than the time in the first geographic region. The ordered combination of the limitations and elements recited in the claimed invention bounds the claimed invention to specific improvements for predictive load migration and control in a content delivery network.
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 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.
Claims 1 – 2, 4 – 8, 10 – 14, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sivasubramanian (US 2014/0143320A1; herein referred to as Sivasubramanian) in view of Phillips et al. (U.S. 2015/0012593 A1; herein referred to as Phillips) in further view of Choi (US 2012/0131146 A1; herein referred to as Choi) in further view of Philpott et al. (U.S. 8,495,675 B1; herein referred to as Philpott).
In regard to claim 1, Sivasubramanian teaches A computer-implemented method, in a content delivery (CD) network, wherein said CD network (CDN) delivers content on behalf of multiple content providers, the method comprising (see fig. 1, and abstract (“ . . . A content delivery network service provider determines a class associated with a set of client computing devices and monitors resources requests for the determined class. The content delivery network service provider then identifies at least one cache component for providing additional content, such as advertisement content or other additional content provided in anticipation of future resource requests, to client computing devices as a function of the determined class. In other embodiments, instead of cache components, the content delivery network service provider identifies a second set of client computing devices as a function of the determined class for providing the additional content information . . .”, and ¶ [0021] “ . . . the content delivery environment 100 can further include a CDN service provider 106 in communication with the one or more client computing devices 102 and the content providers 104 via the communication network 108. The CDN service provider 106 illustrated in FIG. 1 corresponds to a logical association of one or more computing devices associated with a CDN service provider. Specifically, the CDN service provider 106 can include a number of Point of Presence ("POP") locations 116, 122, 128 that correspond to nodes on the communication network 108. Each POP 116, 122, 128 includes a DNS component 118, 124, 130 made up of a number of DNS server computing devices for resolving DNS queries from the client computers 102. Each POP 116, 122, 128 also includes a resource cache component 120, 126, 132 made up of a number of cache server computing devices for storing resources from content providers and transmitting various requested resources to various client computers. The DNS components 118, 124 and 130 and the resource cache components 120, 126, 132 may further include additional software and/or hardware components that facilitate communications including, but not limited, load balancing or load sharing software/hardware components . . .”) :
(A)determining that certain content is trending in a first geographic region during a first time period(see fig. 5, and ¶ [0040] Content is preloaded in first time zone means first geographic region based on the request, Para [0044] Referring content is a baseball match score, Baseball content refer as a trending data which is uploaded in New York, and time zone refers as day/night, holiday see also ¶ [0035]) , the certain content provided to the CDN by a first content provider of the multiple content providers (see para [0044] content is preloaded by the content provider, ¶ [0021] and ¶ [0047] refer as plurality of CDN providers.(see also fig. 7)),
(B) based on said determining in (A), determining a given time by which to prefetch the certain content (see ¶ [0053] content is caching(i.e. prefetching) into the second time zone (second geographical region), Note: caching is called prefetching)) (see para ¶ [0054] second time zone is different.) ;
(D) causing said certain content to be prefetched by at least one cache of said CDN in the second geographic region by the given time (see para ¶ [0054] Baseball content¶ [0044] cashing/prefetching into second time zone San Francisco, CA (i.e. called second geographical region.)).
Sivasubramanian fails to explicitly teach,
wherein said determining is based on requests made at the CDN for said certain content;
in anticipation of future requests in a second geographic region west of the first geographic region based on the certain content popularity in the first geographic region,
(C) based on the determining in (A), increasing a number of CD servers bound to said first content provider in said second geographic region;
However Phillips teaches wherein said determining is based on requests made at the CDN for said certain content (see Fig. 2A ¶ [0032] “ . . . FIG. 2A depicts an example network environment 200 wherein a popularity policy management system 212 may be provided according to an embodiment of the present patent disclosure. It should be appreciated that the popularity policy management system 212 is illustrative of the system 118 shown in FIG. 1, and may be configured as a data processing node for effectuating one or more processes whereby content may be determined, pre-determined, forecasted or otherwise estimated to be popular by location and/or demographics using a plurality of sources. By way of implementation, the popularity policy management system 212 may be provided as part of a CDN 202 (which is illustrative of CDN 102 shown in FIG. 1) or as an element of an external network configured to provide popularity-based policy management interfacing and/or other related control inputs to CDN 202. Regardless of the specific implementation, the popularity policy management system 212 is provided with a number of interfaces for communicating with and obtaining information from one or more commercial and/or non-commercial databases, private and/or public databases, Internet-based data sources, content provider network databases, network operator databases, etc. based on content-related query/response mechanisms or push notifications effectuated over a public wide-area packet-switched network (e.g., the Internet) 214 and/or a combination of intranets, extranets, enterprise networks, and the like. Illustratively, such data may be related to a particular content (e.g., the movie Lawless) that is designated or otherwise subject to a delivery agreement between the OTT service provider, original content owner/provider and the operator of CDN 202 for delivery to a plurality of subscribers in a geographical region serviced by the infrastructure of CDN 202. Depending on the content and/or the scope of delivery, a geographical region serviced by CDN 202 may be worldwide, country-wide, region-wide, or any portion thereof. Interface 216-1 of the popularity policy management system 212 is operative to obtain trend data relative to the particular content available from various Internet search engine trend databases 218-1 associated with one or more search engines. For example, such databases 218-1 may be associated with search engines offered by Google.RTM., Bing.RTM., Yahoo.RTM., and the like, where searches performed by Internet users relative to the content may be monitored and compiled based on geographic locations (e.g., by country, state, county, city/town, municipality, etc.), and may comprise searches involving keywords, one or more terms of the content's plot synopsis, title of the content, as well as searches relating to key actors, actresses, producers, directors, or other key personnel involved in the production/publishing of the content. Because such data may vary over time, temporal distributions or trending data of the searches is also monitored for purposes of providing as an input into one or more appropriate statistical/mathematical modeling techniques for forecasting the popularity of the content based on a suitable metric. Interfaces 216-2 and 216-3 are illustrative of interfaces operative to obtain marketing, sales, or other revenue data related to the content. Reference numeral 218-2 is illustrative of a box office revenue database system from which the popularity policy management system 212 may obtain the box office receipts data for the content (e.g., Lawless), which may be sorted or grouped based on spatial and/or temporal distributions (i.e., by location and/or trending). Similar to the Internet search trending data, the revenue/marketing data of a program content product may be made available at different granular levels (e.g., with a coarse granularity of a country-wide basis or with a finer granularity of a provincial or regional distribution within a country). Reference numeral 218-3 is illustrative of a retail sales database system that provides data of sales of storage media having the content such as Blu-ray, DVD, HD, and CD discs (i.e., content program products), etc. as well the quantities of units sold and any ranking data. Interface 216-4 may be provided with the popularity policy management system 212 that is operative to obtain content-specific data and/or metadata from an information system 218-4 having detailed information regarding the content, which information may be used by the system 212, for example, to determine the terms whose search trends and distributions need to be monitored, in order to perform or estimate relationships between the plot synopsis, geographical locations of interest (e.g., places where the plot takes place), actor biographies/profiles, etc. and the spatial clustering of the trends, sales, and the like, inter alia . . .”);
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the applicant’s invention to incorporate a system and method for popularity-driven pre-provisioning of content in a content delivery network (CDN) where a network element may obtain trend data relative to a particular content to be distributed by the CDN, and after obtaining demographic data of subscribers serviced by the CDN, an expected popularity distribution of the particular content is forecasted based on a metric derived from at least one of the trend data and the demographic data, so that a push policy for pushing and/or pre-provisioning of the content to one or more nodes of the CDN is effectuated at the network element based on the expected popularity distribution of the content relative to the geographical region serviced by the CDN, as taught by Phillips, into a system and method for management and processing of resource requests in a content delivery network where a service provider determines a class associated with a set of client computing devices and monitors resources requests for the determined class, as taught by Sivasubramanian. Such incorporation enables requests for specific content to be recognized as to trending in a specific geographical region.
The combination of Sivasubramanian and Phillips fails to explicitly teach
following the sun
(C) based on the determining in (A), increasing a number of CD servers bound to said first content provider in said second geographic region However Choi teaches, (C) based on the determining in (A), increasing a number of CD servers bound to said first content provider in said second geographic region (see fig. 4 (410 and 420), and ¶ [0032] A content is uploaded to the EAST (i.e. New York), and the content is being published/cached in the WEST (i.e. California);
And ¶ [0033] and ¶ [0036] Due to on demand (or popularity) for the content from the larger user’s side in west (or, multiple areas), increasing the number of streaming servers edge servers, and storage of the remote storage cluster.
Note: deploying/increasing edge server in second geographic regions (see para ¶ [0033] The set of edge servers 440 includes one or more edge servers that are placed at specific locations within various geographic regions. The specific locations include high traffic locations of the Internet (e.g., primary Internet exchange points) or other data networks. Each region may cover one or more municipalities, cities, states, countries, or areas.) (See Choi: ¶ [0007] and ¶ [0038])
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to incorporate a system and method for content streaming that includes a set of streaming server clusters, a remote storage server, and a set of distributed servers, where each streaming server cluster includes at least one streaming server and a local storage server for distributing a content stream that is uploaded to the streaming server while also recording the content stream to the local storage server of that particular cluster, as taught by Choi, into a system and method for management and processing of resource requests in a content delivery network where a service provider determines a class associated with a set of client computing devices and monitors resources requests for the determined class, while pre-provisioning of content in a content delivery network (CDN) where a network element may obtain trend data relative to a particular content to be distributed by the CDN, and after obtaining demographic data of subscribers serviced by the CDN, an expected popularity distribution of the particular content is forecasted based on a metric derived from at least one of the trend data and the demographic data, so that a push policy for pushing and/or pre-provisioning of the content to one or more nodes of the CDN is effectuated at the network element based on the expected popularity distribution of the content relative to the geographical region serviced by the CDN, as taught by the combination of Sivasubramanian and Phillips. Such incorporation provides a means to increase the amount of servers being used to distribute the content in a particular geographic region.
The combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, and Choi fails to explicitly teach,
However Philpott teaches in anticipation of future requests (see Philpott Col 9: Lines 8-17 “ . . . dynamic content decisioning server 120 selects one or more pieces of streaming media content, whose total duration equals the available timespan for the inserted content, to be provided to rendering device 104 for playback as dynamically inserted content. Dynamic content decisioning server 120 informs (134) a dynamic content delivery network 136, or other suitable source, of the identity of the decisioned content to be provided to rendering device 104 for playback during the break from the main program. in a second geographic region west of the first geographic region based on the certain content popularity in the first geographic region, (see Philpott Col 10: Lines 34 – 60 “ . . . with the present invention conditioned advertising campaigns can be executed. For example, a pizza delivery firm may wish to show its advertisement up to five times during a program, but not after a viewer has responded to the advertisement. If the advertisement features an interactive "click here to order your pizza" link and the user does so to order a pizza, dynamic content decisioning server 120 can decision other advertisements into the subsequent mURI durations previously allocated to the pizza delivery firm during that program. This allows the content provider to potentially increase advertisement revenue by selling those subsequent durations to other advertisers. Another advantage of the present invention is that it allows advertisements to be sold for playback at a particular time. For example, a fast food delivery advertiser can purchase advertisement space at dinner time (in the relevant region/timezone) and, with no change to the manifest created for a program, dynamic content decisioning server 120 can relate mURIs to that advertiser's content when those mURIs are forwarded to dynamic content decisioning server 120 from a rendering device 104 at dinner time (however defined) in the timezone/region in which that rendering device 104 is located. As will be apparent, in such a case two rendering devices 104, one on the east coast of the US at 9:00 PM EST and one on the west of the US at 6:00 PST, each playing the same manifest 116 will be provided with different dynamic content for their viewers, the west coast viewers seeing the advertisement for the fast food delivery firm while the viewers on the east coast see an advertisement from a different company. . . .”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to incorporate a system and method for dynamically inserting content into a streaming media program that will stream to different geographical regions, as taught by Philpott, into a system and method for management and processing of resource requests in a content delivery network where a service provider determines a class associated with a set of client computing devices and monitors resources requests for the determined class, while pre-provisioning of content in a content delivery network (CDN) where a network element may obtain trend data relative to a particular content to be distributed by the CDN, and after obtaining demographic data of subscribers serviced by the CDN, an expected popularity distribution of the particular content is forecasted based on a metric derived from at least one of the trend data and the demographic data, so that a push policy for pushing and/or pre-provisioning of the content to one or more nodes of the CDN is effectuated at the network element based on the expected popularity distribution of the content relative to the geographical region serviced by the CDN, and within the region a streaming server cluster to include at least one streaming server and a local storage server for distributing a content stream that is uploaded to the streaming server while also recording the content stream to the local storage server of that particular cluster as taught by the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, and Choi. Such incorporation introduces east to west content and content selection across the different time zones.
In regard to claim 2, the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi and Philpott teaches wherein said determining in (A) is based on references to said certain content outside of said CDN(see Sivasubramanian ¶ [0044] “ . . . the CDN service provider monitors resource requests associated with a class of computing devices and associates the resources requested with the class. The CDN service provider then, in one embodiment, preloads content at a resource cache component of the CDN as a function of the class. This function can involve a matching determination in which the CDN service provider matches a class of the client computing device with a class associated with the resources. For example, the CDN provider may match a topic of interest class, such as basketball scores, with resources that have been associated with the same class based on previous requests. Alternatively, the function can involve a correlation determination in which the CDN service provider correlates a class of the client computing device with a different class associated with the resources. For example, the CDN service provider may correlate a first geographic class, such as New York City, with another geographic class, such as San Francisco. In an illustrative embodiment, determination of matching or correlation may be facilitated through a manual process, such as by an administrator, or based on observed behaviors . . . “) (e.g. Data is moved from first region to second region - one datacenter is in the East coast (New York City), and Data is cached (same data/reference data) on the West coast San Francisco(i.e. outside of same CDN.).
In regard to claim 4, the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi and Philpott teaches wherein said content comprises one or more resources [i.e. data storage] served by the CDN on behalf of the first content provider to the CDN (see Sivasubramanian ¶ [0017] “ . . . the present disclosure is directed to the management and processing of resource requests made to a content delivery network ("CDN") service provider from client computing devices. Specifically, aspects of the disclosure will be described with regard to monitoring resource requests from a cluster of client computing devices and managing content for delivery to one or more client computing devices based on the monitored resource requests for the cluster. Further aspects of the disclosure are directed to monitoring resource requests corresponding to classes associated with client computing devices based on such monitored resource requests. . . “).
In regard to claim 5, the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi and Philpott teaches wherein said second geographic region (e.g. San Francisco) is west of said first geographic region (see Sivasubramanian ¶ [0044] “ . . . the function can involve a correlation determination in which the CDN service provider correlates a class of the client computing device with a different class associated with the resources. For example, the CDN service provider may correlate a first geographic class, such as New York City, with another geographic class, such as San Francisco. . . .”)
In regard to claim 6, the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi and Philpott wherein said second geographic region is in an earlier time zone than said first geographic region (see Sivasubramanian ¶ [0040] “ . . . where the class information corresponds to content requests monitored for a set of client computing devices in a region having a first time zone, the CDN service provider processes the class information to identify a set of frequently requested resources in the first time zone. The CDN service provider then preloads content associated with the identified set of frequently requested resources at a cache component which is authorized to service a set of client computing devices in a different time zone. Accordingly, the CDN service provider is able to thereafter provide such preloaded content at lower delivery latencies. One skilled in the relevant art will further appreciate that the cache component authorized for servicing the set of client computing devices located in a different time zone can preload content at any suitable time based on processing constraints applicable to the individual cache component. . . .”).
In regard to claim 7, Sivasubramanian teaches An article of manufacture comprising a non-transitory computer-readable medium having program instructions stored thereon, the program instructions, operable on a computer system in a content delivery network (CDN) (see ¶ [0058] “ . . . a computer-readable medium and loaded into memory of the computing device using a drive mechanism associated with a computer readable storing the computer executable components such as a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, or network interface further, the component and/or data can be included in a single device or distributed in any manner. Accordingly, general purpose computing devices may be configured to implement the processes, algorithms and methodology of the present disclosure with the processing and/or execution of the various data and/or components described above. . . “), said device implementing at least one content delivery (CD) service, wherein execution of the program instructions by one or more processors of said computer system causes the one or more processors to carry out the acts of (see fig. 1, abstract, ¶ [0021] as described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein) :
(A) determining that certain content is trending in a first geographic region during a first time period(see fig. 5, and ¶ [0040] as described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein) , the certain content provided to the CDN by a first content provider (see para [0044] content is preloaded by the content provider, ¶ [0021] and ¶ [0047] refer as plurality of CDN providers.(see also fig. 7)),
(B) based on said determining in (A), determining a given time by which to prefetch the certain content (see ¶ [0053] as described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein) (see para ¶ [0054] second time zone is different.) ;
(see para ¶ [0054] Baseball content¶ [0044] cashing/prefetching into second time zone San Francisco, CA (i.e. called second geographical region.);.
Sivasubramanian fails to explicitly teach
wherein said determining is based on requests made at the CDN for said certain content;
in anticipation of future requests in a second geographic region west of the first geographic region based on the certain content popularity in the first geographic region,
(C) based on the determining in (A), increasing a number of CD servers bound to said first content provider in said second geographic region;
However Phillips teaches wherein said determining is based on requests made at the CDN for said certain content(see Fig. 2A ¶ [0032] as described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein) by a popularity server ( see Fig. 5, ¶ [0039]” . . FIG. 5 depicts a flowchart of an example popularity-based content provisioning and delivery method 500 according to an embodiment of the present patent application. Blocks 502A, 502B and 502C are illustrative of operations, acts and steps with respect to obtaining content trend data, subscriber demographic data, as well as licensing data, market/revenue data and related data, respectively. Block 504 is illustrative of operations, acts and steps with respect to forecasting or predetermining expected popularity distributions of a particular content in different geographical areas, which may be time-dependent. A push policy may be effectuated for pushing the particular content to one or more nodes of a CDN based on the expected popularity distributions relative to the geographical area serviced by the CDN (block 506). For example, local edge servers and/or regional distribution nodes that are closest to the popularity clusters may be pre-provisioned with the media files of the particular content ahead of the licensing window start dates and/or subscribers' requests in order to optimize CDN traffic flow to CDN servers that may expect increased traffic . . .”; see ¶ [0046]” . . . It should be appreciated that when a push pre-provisioning policy is effectuated in a CDN, QoS requirements for pull content delivery may likely be impacted. Such a situation may arise especially where the request rerouting/redirection mechanisms of the CDN reroute a subscriber request for a particular content to a local edge server that is pre-provisioned for push content delivery because of the expected popularity distributions of the content. It can be seen that possible bandwidth limitations may occur once the content is initially determined or pre-determined to be popular and new joining subscribers for that content are redirected to the closest "popular" edge because the content flows from the regional distribution node through the connecting regional distribution pipe to the closest/redirected edge server where the content is cached as it is being delivered to the client device. FIG. 8A depicts a flowchart of an example pull pipe bandwidth management methodology according to an embodiment of the present patent application that addresses the foregoing concerns, inter alia. At block 852, a subscriber client device requests content from a content provider, e.g., an OTT service provider. The subscriber's request for the content is redirected to the closest local edge server (i.e., "redirected edge server" or "target edge server") that is pre-provisioned based on a popularity distribution of the requested content (block 854). . .”);
The motivation to combine Phillips with Sivasubramanian is described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein.
The combination of Sivasubramanian and Phillips fails to explicitly teach in anticipation of future requests in a second geographic region west of the first geographic region based on the certain content popularity in the first geographic region
(C) based on the determining in (A), increasing a number of CD servers bound to said first content provider in said second geographic region;
However Choi teaches
(C) based on the determining in (A), increasing a number of CD servers bound to said first content provider in said second geographic region (see fig. 4 (410 and 420), and ¶ [0032] A content is uploaded to the EAST (i.e. New York), and the content is being published/cached in the WEST (i.e. California);
And ¶ [0033] and ¶ [0036] Due to on demand (or popularity) for the content from the larger user’s side in west (or, multiple areas), increasing the number of streaming servers edge servers, and storage of the remote storage cluster.
Note: deploying/increasing edge server in second geographic regions (see para ¶ [0033] The set of edge servers 440 includes one or more edge servers that are placed at specific locations within various geographic regions. The specific locations include high traffic locations of the Internet (e.g., primary Internet exchange points) or other data networks. Each region may cover one or more municipalities, cities, states, countries, or areas.) (See Choi: ¶ [0007] and ¶ [0038]);
The motivation to combine the teachings of Choi with the combination of Sivasubramanian and Phillips is described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein.
The combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, and Choi fails to explicitly teach,
However Philpott teaches in anticipation of future requests (see Philpott Col 9: Lines 8-17 as described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein) in a second geographic region west of the first geographic region based on the certain content popularity in the first geographic region, (see Philpott Col 10: Lines 34 – 60 as described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein).
The motivation to combine Philpott with the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, and Choi is described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein.
In regard to claim 8, the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi, and Philpott teaches wherein said determining in (A) is based on references to said certain content outside of said CDN (see Sivasubramanian ¶ [0044] as described for the rejection of claim 2 and is incorporated herein)
In regard to claim 10, the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi, and Philpott teaches wherein said content comprises one or more resources[i.e. data storage] served by the CDN on behalf of the first content provider to the CDN (see Sivasubramanian ¶ [0017] as described for the rejection of claim 4 and is incorporated herein)
In regard to claim 11, the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi and Philpott teaches wherein said second geographic region (e.g. San Francisco) is west of said first geographic region (see Sivasubramanian ¶ [0044] as described for the rejection of claim 5 and is incorporated herein)
In regard to claim 12, the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi and Philpott teaches wherein said second geographic region is in an earlier time zone than said first geographic region (see Sivasubramanian ¶ [0040] as described for the rejection of claim 6 and is incorporated herein).
In regard to claim 13, Sivasubramanian teaches A device in a content delivery network (CDN), wherein said CDN delivers content on behalf of at least one content provider, said device implementing a content delivery (CD) service (see fig. 1, and abstract (“ . . . A content delivery network service provider determines a class associated with a set of client computing devices and monitors resources requests for the determined class. The content delivery network service provider then identifies at least one cache component for providing additional content, such as advertisement content or other additional content provided in anticipation of future resource requests, to client computing devices as a function of the determined class. In other embodiments, instead of cache components, the content delivery network service provider identifies a second set of client computing devices as a function of the determined class for providing the additional content information . . .”, the device comprising: at least one processor; memory, operatively connected to the at least one processor and containing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor (see ¶ [0058] “ . . .The data and/or components described above may be stored on a computer-readable medium and loaded into memory of the computing device using a drive mechanism associated with a computer readable storing the computer executable components such as a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, or network interface further, the component and/or data can be included in a single device or distributed in any manner. Accordingly, general purpose computing devices may be configured to implement the processes, algorithms and methodology of the present disclosure with the processing and/or execution of the various data and/or components . . .”), cause the device to perform a method, the method comprising (see ¶ [0021] “ . . . the content delivery environment 100 can further include a CDN service provider 106 in communication with the one or more client computing devices 102 and the content providers 104 via the communication network 108. The CDN service provider 106 illustrated in FIG. 1 corresponds to a logical association of one or more computing devices associated with a CDN service provider. Specifically, the CDN service provider 106 can include a number of Point of Presence ("POP") locations 116, 122, 128 that correspond to nodes on the communication network 108. Each POP 116, 122, 128 includes a DNS component 118, 124, 130 made up of a number of DNS server computing devices for resolving DNS queries from the client computers 102. Each POP 116, 122, 128 also includes a resource cache component 120, 126, 132 made up of a number of cache server computing devices for storing resources from content providers and transmitting various requested resources to various client computers. The DNS components 118, 124 and 130 and the resource cache components 120, 126, 132 may further include additional software and/or hardware components that facilitate communications including, but not limited, load balancing or load sharing software/hardware components . . .”) :
(A) determining that certain content is trending in a first geographic region during a first time period(see fig. 5, and ¶ [0040] as described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein) , the certain content provided to the CDN by a first content provider of the at least one content provider (see para [0044] content is preloaded by the content provider, ¶ [0021] and ¶ [0047] refer as plurality of CDN providers.(see also fig. 7)),
(B) based on said determining in (A), determining a given time by which to prefetch the certain content (see ¶ [0053] as described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein) (see para ¶ [0054] second time zone is different.) ;
(see para ¶ [0054] Baseball content¶ [0044] cashing/prefetching into second time zone San Francisco, CA (i.e. called second geographical region.);.
(D) causing said certain content to be prefetched by at least one cache of said CDN in the second geographic region by the given time(see para ¶ [0054] Baseball content¶ [0044] cashing/prefetching into second time zone San Francisco, CA (i.e. called second geographical region.)
Sivasubramanian fails to explicitly teach
in anticipation of future requests in a second geographic region west of the first geographic region based on the certain content popularity in the first geographic region,
wherein said determining is based on requests made at the CDN for said certain content
(C) based on the determining in (A), increasing a number of CD servers bound to said first content provider in said second geographic region;
However Phillips teaches wherein said determining is based on requests made at the CDN for said certain content(see Fig. 2A ¶ [0032] as described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein);
The motivation to combine Phillips with Sivasubramanian is described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein.
The combination of Sivasubramanian and Phillips fails to explicitly teach
in anticipation of future requests in a second geographic region west of the first geographic region based on the certain content popularity in the first geographic region,
(C) based on the determining in (A), increasing a number of CD servers bound to said first content provider in said second geographic region;
However Choi teaches
(C) based on the determining in (A), increasing a number of CD servers bound to said first content provider in said second geographic region (see fig. 4 (410 and 420), and ¶ [0032] A content is uploaded to the EAST (i.e. New York), and the content is being published/cached in the WEST (i.e. California);
And ¶ [0033] and ¶ [0036] Due to on demand (or popularity) for the content from the larger user’s side in west (or, multiple areas), increasing the number of streaming servers edge servers, and storage of the remote storage cluster.
Note: deploying/increasing edge server in second geographic regions (see para ¶ [0033] The set of edge servers 440 includes one or more edge servers that are placed at specific locations within various geographic regions. The specific locations include high traffic locations of the Internet (e.g., primary Internet exchange points) or other data networks. Each region may cover one or more municipalities, cities, states, countries, or areas.) (See Choi: ¶ [0007] and ¶ [0038]);
The motivation to combine the teachings of Choi with the combination of Sivasubramanian and Phillips is described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein.
The combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, and Choi fails to explicitly teach,
However Philpott teaches in anticipation of future requests (see Philpott Col 9: Lines 8-17 as described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein) in a second geographic region west of the first geographic region based on the certain content popularity in the first geographic region, (see Philpott Col 10: Lines 34 – 60 as described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein).
The motivation to combine Philpott with the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, and Choi is described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein.
In regard to claim 14, the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi and Philpott teaches wherein said determining in (A) is based on references to said certain content outside of said CDN (see Sivasubramanian ¶ [0044] as described for the rejection of claim 2 and is incorporated herein)
In regard to claim 16, the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi and Philpott teaches wherein the second geographic region is to the east (e.g. earlier time zone) of the first geographic region (see Sivasubramanian ¶ [0040] as described for the rejection of claim 6 and is incorporated herein).
Claims 3, 9, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sivasubramanian (US 2014/0143320A1; herein referred to as Sivasubramanian) in view of Phillips et al. (U.S. 2015/0012593 A1; herein referred to as Phillips) in further view of Choi (US 2012/0131146 A1; herein referred to as Choi) in further view of Philpott et al. (U.S. 8,495,675 B1; herein referred to as Philpott) as applied to claims 1 – 2, 4 – 8, 10 – 14, and 16 in further view of Fliam (US 2013/0204961 A1; herein referred to as Fliam)
In regard to claim 3, the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi and Leddy fails to explicitly teach wherein said references to said certain content were made on one or more social networking web sites However Fliam wherein said references to said certain content were made on one or more social networking web sites (see ¶ [0063] “ . . . the CDN may implement an initial popularity-based distribution hierarchy where all of the content items in the content library are stored in cool caching device 400 and assumed to be equally unpopular. For example, central analysis system 406 may assign, in popularity data 408, a popularity value of 0.00, a popularity ranking of 99999, or both to every content item in the content library. As a result, content router 404 may initially route all requests for content items from devices 403a-d to cool caching device 400 in tier 410. As time progresses and request history 405 grows larger, central analysis system 406 may determine that some of the initially unpopular content items may have become modestly popular or popular based on their respective popularity increasing relative to other content items. Central analysis system 406 may move the modestly popular content items to medium caching devices 401a-b in tier 420 and the popular content items to hot caching devices 402a-c in tier 430. Content router 404 may then redirect subsequent requests for the content items to the hot, medium, or cool caching device where the content item is stored. In some embodiments, popularity values may also be initialized by other sources, such as box office popularity, viewership data for television shows, social media trending data, or any other suitable information from other asset distribution services . . .”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to incorporate a system and method for enabling a content delivery network to provide content items to requesting devices using a popularity-based distribution hierarchy, wherein a central analysis system may determine popularity data for a content item stored in a first caching device, and at a later time, the central analysis system may determine that a change in the popularity data is beyond a threshold value so that the central analysis system may then transmit an instruction to move the content item from the first caching device to a second caching device in a different tier of caching devices than the first caching device, as taught by Fliam, into a system and method for management and processing of resource requests in a content delivery network where a service provider determines a class associated with a set of client computing devices and monitors resources requests for the determined class, while pre-provisioning of content in a content delivery network (CDN) where a network element may obtain trend data relative to a particular content to be distributed by the CDN, and after obtaining demographic data of subscribers serviced by the CDN, an expected popularity distribution of the particular content is forecasted based on a metric derived from at least one of the trend data and the demographic data, so that a push policy for pushing and/or pre-provisioning of the content to one or more nodes of the CDN is effectuated at the network element based on the expected popularity distribution of the content relative to the geographical region serviced by the CDN, and within the region a streaming server cluster to include at least one streaming server and a local storage server for distributing a content stream that is uploaded to the streaming server while also recording the content stream to the local storage server of that particular cluster, and also protecting users from fake or scam content using a filtering system and a follow the sun global server network to anticipate trends, as taught by the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi, and Philpott. Such incorporation further improves on caching the most popular content.
In regard to claim 9, the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi, Philpott, and Fliam teaches wherein said references to said certain content were made on one or more social networking web site (see Fliam ¶ [0063] as described for the rejection of claim 4 and is incorporated herein).
The motivation to combine Fliam with the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi and Philpott is described for the rejection of claim 3 and is incorporated herein.
In regard to claim 15, the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi, Leddy, and Philpott teaches wherein said references to said certain content were made on one or more social networking web sites (see Fliam ¶ [0063] as described for the rejection of claim 4 and is incorporated herein).
The motivation to combine Fliam with the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi, and Philpott is described for the rejection of claim 3 and is incorporated herein.
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sivasubramanian (US 2014/0143320A1; herein referred to as Sivasubramanian) in view of Phillips et al. (U.S. 2015/0012593 A1; herein referred to as Phillips) in further view of Choi (US 2012/0131146 A1; herein referred to as Choi) in further view of Philpott et al. (U.S. 8,495,675 B1; herein referred to as Philpott) as applied to claims 1 – 2, 4 – 8, 10 – 14, and 16 in further view of LeFlohic et al. (U.S. 11023924 B1; herein referred to as LeFlohic)
In regard to claim 17, the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi, and Philpott fails to explicitly teach,
However LeFlohic teaches wherein the given time by which to prefetch the certain content in the second geographic region is determined by its sunrise time (see Fig. 4 Col 9: Lines 53-67; Col 10: Lines 1 – 10 “ . . . , the events processing (416) may offer two API endpoints for the events data source: an Event Rules API to fetch all available event rules and possible values; and a Current Values API to fetch current values for all locations and/or markets given event rules. For the example of weather, possible assumptions include: The number of weather rules may change over time, increasing and decreasing; The number and specific values for a given weather rule may not change once it is finalized prior to ad campaign start; The DSP (404) and/or exchange (410) may poll a weather data source on a daily basis for the Rules API; The weather rules that come in response via the Rules API may be populated in a drop down menu or other UI technique during campaign creation to allow traffickers to select from the available copy rotation rules; The weather value that is presented for a given market and time may change as frequently as every 15 minutes, for example precipitation as opposed to sunrise/sunset times as every 1 day, in which case the exchange (410) and/or DSP (404) polls for the latest value to make better ad creative selection; and The finest granularity for a weather rule value may be DMA/MSA. . . .”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to incorporate a system and method for processing event trigger rules for fetching content when an event may be a sunrise time, as taught by LeFlohic, into a system and method for management and processing of resource requests in a content delivery network where a service provider determines a class associated with a set of client computing devices and monitors resources requests for the determined class, while pre-provisioning of content in a content delivery network (CDN) where a network element may obtain trend data relative to a particular content to be distributed by the CDN, and after obtaining demographic data of subscribers serviced by the CDN, an expected popularity distribution of the particular content is forecasted based on a metric derived from at least one of the trend data and the demographic data, so that a push policy for pushing and/or pre-provisioning of the content to one or more nodes of the CDN is effectuated at the network element based on the expected popularity distribution of the content relative to the geographical region serviced by the CDN, and within the region a streaming server cluster to include at least one streaming server and a local storage server for distributing a content stream that is uploaded to the streaming server while also recording the content stream to the local storage server of that particular cluster, and also protecting users from fake or scam content using a filtering system and a follow the sun global server network to anticipate trends, as taught by the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi, and Philpott. Such incorporation enables the distribution of content east to west as a business day starts.
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sivasubramanian (US 2014/0143320A1; herein referred to as Sivasubramanian) in view of Phillips et al. (U.S. 2015/0012593 A1; herein referred to as Phillips) in further view of Choi (US 2012/0131146 A1; herein referred to as Choi) in further view of Philpott et al. (U.S. 8,495,675 B1; herein referred to as Philpott) as applied to claims 1 – 2, 4 – 8, 10 – 14, and 16 in further view of Xie (U.S, 2016/0301800 A1; herein referred to as Xie).
In regard to claim 18, the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi, and Philpott teaches wherein said determining in (A) (see Sivasubramanian fig. 5, and ¶ [0040] as described for the rejection of claim 1 and is incorporated herein).
The combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi, and Philpott fails to explicitly teach
However Xie teaches is used to re-allocate server bindings (see Xie ¶ [0010] “ . . . an order data interaction method, which includes: receiving an order request from a first communication terminal, and acquiring a first communication number according to the order request; sending a temporary number allocation request to a basic communication server, the temporary number allocation request carrying the first communication number; receiving a second communication number, correspondingly allocated to the first communication number, returned by the basic communication server; binding the second communication number with the order request; and forwarding the order request and the second communication number having a binding relation therebetween to a second communication terminal . . .”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to incorporate a system and method for order interaction processing and allocating server bindings based on the order traffic, as taught by Xie, into a system and method for management and processing of resource requests in a content delivery network where a service provider determines a class associated with a set of client computing devices and monitors resources requests for the determined class, while pre-provisioning of content in a content delivery network (CDN) where a network element may obtain trend data relative to a particular content to be distributed by the CDN, and after obtaining demographic data of subscribers serviced by the CDN, an expected popularity distribution of the particular content is forecasted based on a metric derived from at least one of the trend data and the demographic data, so that a push policy for pushing and/or pre-provisioning of the content to one or more nodes of the CDN is effectuated at the network element based on the expected popularity distribution of the content relative to the geographical region serviced by the CDN, and within the region a streaming server cluster to include at least one streaming server and a local storage server for distributing a content stream that is uploaded to the streaming server while also recording the content stream to the local storage server of that particular cluster, and also protecting users from fake or scam content using a filtering system and a follow the sun global server network to anticipate trends, as taught by the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi, and Philpott. Such incorporation enables that the servers will be properly allocated for traffic demands.
Claims 19 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sivasubramanian (US 2014/0143320A1; herein referred to as Sivasubramanian) in view of Phillips et al. (U.S. 2015/0012593 A1; herein referred to as Phillips) in further view of Choi (US 2012/0131146 A1; herein referred to as Choi) in further view of Philpott et al. (U.S. 8,495,675 B1; herein referred to as Philpott) as applied to claims 1 – 2, 4 – 8, 10 – 14, and 16 in further view of Lepeska et al. (U.S. 2018/0337972 A1; herein referred to as Lepeska).
In regard to claim 19, combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi, and Philpott fails to explicitly teach,
However Lepeska teaches further (E) scoring a prefetch strategy (e.g. URL model) by determining if the prefetched content is requested in the second geographic region (see Lepeska Fig. 5 ¶ [0149] “ . . . FIG. 5 shows how a URL models may be updated in one potential embodiment that may work in conjunction with the embodiment described in FIG. 5 when a download is completed and a tracker module updates root template with a report for child objects of the root including details of the hits (indicating an object was prefetched and used), misses (indicating an object was requested in response to the root but not prefetched), and fails (where an object was prefetched, not requested in response to the root). A report as part of step 501 may also include HTTP header data and cookie information. To save CPU cycles, the templates for the root and child that are calculated when the Root Request was processed by the proxy server can be included in the report data. This hit, miss, and fail data may then be used to identify future parameters and correlations when selecting objects to prefetch in a web page transaction. For example, the system may have a percentage threshold above which a correlation is established. Alternatively, a prefetching score may be impacting by hit, miss, and fail percentages, such that a correlation based on the hit, miss, and fail data impacts the priority an object is given in a prefetch accumulator that utilized system resources for prefetching when the resources are available . . .”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to incorporate a system and method of using usage data to improve prefetching operations, as taught by Lepeska, into a system and method for management and processing of resource requests in a content delivery network where a service provider determines a class associated with a set of client computing devices and monitors resources requests for the determined class, while pre-provisioning of content in a content delivery network (CDN) where a network element may obtain trend data relative to a particular content to be distributed by the CDN, and after obtaining demographic data of subscribers serviced by the CDN, an expected popularity distribution of the particular content is forecasted based on a metric derived from at least one of the trend data and the demographic data, so that a push policy for pushing and/or pre-provisioning of the content to one or more nodes of the CDN is effectuated at the network element based on the expected popularity distribution of the content relative to the geographical region serviced by the CDN, and within the region a streaming server cluster to include at least one streaming server and a local storage server for distributing a content stream that is uploaded to the streaming server while also recording the content stream to the local storage server of that particular cluster, and also protecting users from fake or scam content using a filtering system and a follow the sun global server network to anticipate trends, as taught by the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi, and Philpott. Such incorporation provides a prefetch score based on a previous usage history.
In regard to claim 20, the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi, Philpott, and Lepeska teaches (F) auto-tuning the prefetch strategy in response to the scoring (see Lepeska ¶ [0192] “ . . . If the multimap acquires a large number of entries for child X without finding a useful correlation for D or E, then the system may reach a decision threshold that this is randomly varying content. The system may then look at the hit ratio and see if the probability of X is high enough to justify a prefetch request. In other alternative embodiments, the object may simply be given a low prefetch score and placed in an accumulator to be prefetched if low cost resources are available for the purpose. If the object is identified as acceptable for prefetching, the system may add X to the bin, with a note or tag that indicates that X is only expected for a lower probability, so that it should not be removed from the bin unless the hit rate drops below an expected level. . . .”).
The motivation to combine Lepeska with the combination of Sivasubramanian, Phillips, Choi, and Philpott is described for the rejection of claim 19 and is incorporated herein. Additionally, Lepeska provides an algorithm for adjusting prefetching based on actual content requests.
Conclusion
There are prior art made of record which are not relied upon but are considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure. They are listed on the PTO-892 accompanying this action
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
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/JAMES N FIORILLO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2444
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