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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is responsive to the applicants’ Amendment filed on March 31, 2026, in which claims 1, 4-9, 11-15, and 17-20 are pending.
Response to Amendment
Applicant has amended claims 1, 5, 9, and 11-12; claim 2-3, 10, 16 is/are cancelled; and claims 1, 4-9, 11-15, and 17-20 are pending.
Claim Objections
Claims 1 is/are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1 line 7 recites “ICE connectionand”, should recite “ICE connection; and”.
Claim 9 line 7 recites “ICE connection ; and”, should recite “ICE connection; and”.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1, 4-9, 11-15, and 17-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Khawam et al. (US 20160301720 A1) hereinafter “Khawam) in view of Van Wie et al. (US 20190132373 A1) hereinafter “Van Wei”.
As to claim 1, Khawam discloses an interaction method (Khawam, [15-17], discloses method for interactions between devices), which is performed by a server (Khawam, [15-17], server-controlled session), the method comprising:
establishing a signaling channel with a client through a quick user packet protocol Internet connection (QUIC) protocol (Khawam [25-29, 43-45], discloses real-time Transport Protocol for streaming the audio and/or video media data in data packets over one or more packet-switched data networks between the two communications systems, wherein the transport method can be any suitable method for establishing media data streams between the two communications systems);
delivering a media data packet based on the signaling channel, before the client establishes an interactive connectivity establishment (ICE) connection or while the client establishes the ICE connectionand (Khawam [26-29, 73], discloses utilization of the Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE) protocol for establishing interactive connection/session);
delivering the media data packet to a socket of a transport module, after an establishment of the ICE connection is completed (Khawam [38-42, 68-70], discloses the IP address and the transport port for the SIP response to come back and the IP address and the transport port to receive the media from the endpoint),
Khawam is silent on wherein the delivering the media data packet comprises: delivering the media data packet to a socket of signaling.
However, Van Wie [156-160, 174-176] discloses real-time communications between communicants operating on respective network nodes, wherein the RTP defines a standardized packet protocol for delivering audio and video over network connections including peer to peer frameworks for transporting/delivering data/packets to TCP sockets).
Khawam and Van Wie are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor, namely, systems and methods of establishing communication session/channel. before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Khawam and Van Wie before him or her, to configure the centralized architecture of the hybrid peer-to-peer communication system of Khawam to include the real time communications functionalities of Van Wie with reasonable expectation that this would result in a system that is capable of delivering media content/data packets to its destination/port/socket of the requesting node. This method of enhancing the hybrid communication system of Khawam was well within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Khawam. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Khawam with Van Wie to obtain the invention as specified in claim 1.
Claim 2 canceled.
Claim 3 canceled.
As to claim 4, Khawam-Van Wie discloses the interaction method according to claim 1, wherein the media data packet comprises a real-time streaming protocol packet (RTP packet) of audio or a video (Khawam [24-28] discloses the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) for streaming the audio and/or video media data in data packets over one or more packet-switched data). The Examiner supplies the same rationale for the combination of references Khawam and Van Wie as in claim 1 above.
As to claim 5, Khawam-Van Wie discloses the interaction method according to claim 1, further comprising: transferring a remote answer message to the client, after the establishment of the signaling channel (Khawam [24-28, 38-41] discloses wherein transporting the media data between the two communications systems of the media session to which the session channel belongs). The Examiner supplies the same rationale for the combination of references Khawam and Van Wie as in claim 1 above.
As to claim 6, Khawam-Van Wie discloses the interaction method according to claim 1, wherein the signaling channel comprises a user datagram protocol (UDP) signaling channel (Khawam [24-28, 38-41] discloses wherein the transport method include, and not limited to, the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and the Transmission Control Protocol for performing interactive communication). The Examiner supplies the same rationale for the combination of references Khawam and Van Wie as in claim 1 above.
As to claim 7, Khawam-Van Wie discloses the interaction method according to claim 1, further comprising: performing a media capability negotiation with the client using the signaling channel (Khawam [24-25, 47-48] discloses wherein the session policy server can negotiate/instruct the other participating devices to operate at a reduced capability during a hybrid media session such that the same services are available to all devices that participate in the hybrid media session). The Examiner supplies the same rationale for the combination of references Khawam and Van Wie as in claim 1 above.
As to claim 8, Khawam-Van Wie discloses the interaction method according to claim 7, further comprising: establishing a peer-to-peer (P2P) media transport channel with the client for transmission of media data with the client through the P2P media transport channel (Khawam [16-17, 26-29] discloses wherein establishing a centralized session channel or a peer-to-peer (P2P) session channel for transporting/sending media data). The Examiner supplies the same rationale for the combination of references Khawam and Van Wie as in claim 1 above.
Claim 10 canceled.
Claim 16 canceled.
Claims 9, 11-15, and 17-20 are corresponding apparatus and non-volatile computer-readable storage medium claims that recite similar limitations as of claims 1, 4-8 and do not contain any additional features with respect to novelty and/or inventive steps; therefore, they are rejected under the same rationale.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See Form 892.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's remarks, see page 6, filed March 31, 2026, with respect to objections to Specification have been fully considered and are persuasive. The objection as set forth in the previous Office Action has been withdrawn.
Applicant's remarks, see page 6, filed March 31, 2026, with respect to Claim Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The Rejection to claims as set forth in the previous Office Action has been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments, see pages 9-11, filed March 31, 2026, with respect to Efrati have been fully considered However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Khawam et al. and Van Wie et al.
Conclusion
The rejections are based upon the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claims. Applicant is advised that the specified citations of the relied upon prior art, in the above rejections, are only representative of the teachings of the prior art, and that any other supportive sections within the entirety of the reference (including any figures, incorporation by references, claims and/or priority documents) is implied as being applied to teach the scope of the claims.
Applicant may not introduce any new matter to the claims or to the specification. For any subsequent response that contains new/amended claims, Applicant is required to cite its corresponding support in the specification. (See MPEP chapter 2163.03 section (I.) and chapter 2163.04 section (I.) and chapter 2163.06)
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Razu Miah whose telephone number is (571)270-5433. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 9-5 EST.
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/RAZU A MIAH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2454
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