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
1. Claims 1 - 4 are pending. Claims 3, 4 are new. Claim 1 is independent. File date on 9-25-2024.
This action is in response to application amendments filed on 4-28-2026.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
2. 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.
3. Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Major et al. (US PGPUB No. 20120265856) in view of Hurst et al. (US PGPUB No. 20150381686) and further in view of Sturm et al. (US Patent No. 12,526,462).
Regarding Claim 1, Major discloses a method of managing content delivery by a proxy in a network, said network comprising a rate assessment module connected to a plurality of proxies each connected to respective one or more client devices, said content comprising a sequence of segments wherein each of the segments is encoded at a plurality of bit rates, said method comprising:
i) receiving requests for segments from each of the plurality of client devices at a respective proxy, and determining the encoded bit rate corresponding to each requested segment; (Major ¶ 030: Origin servers 16, 18, 26 can also simply be gateways, Web servers, pathways, redirection servers, uniform resource locators (URLs), databases, or other data exchanging elements that can assist in servicing client requests.; ¶ 047: cache server 14 can continue to receive requests from any given endpoint, and respond to these requests by providing appropriate rate hint data to assist the endpoints in making their determination about a selection of an appropriate bit rate.)
ii) identifying by the rate assessment module a subset of the encoded bit rates as the most frequently requested bit rates; (Major ¶ 043: cache server 14 is configured to simultaneously evaluate (i.e., access, monitor, determine, assess, etc.) the streaming video sessions (e.g., in real-time) for all endpoints for which it has responsibility. In certain scenarios, the current requests sent by various endpoints can be included in the criteria, which form the basis of the rate hint data. For example, it may be efficient to group several of the endpoints onto the same stream at a designated bit rate.; (group or generate a subset of requests as a group); ¶ 024: To alleviate some of this traffic overhead, cache server 14 can be deployed in the network. Cache server 14 can store the most frequently requested video chunks (e.g., the popular content) at the preferred bit rates. This provisioning can reduce the load for origin servers 16, 18, 26.)) and
iv) selecting one of the subset of encoded bit rates based on the further encoded bit rates. (Major ¶ 043: cache server 14 is configured to simultaneously evaluate (i.e., access, monitor, determine, assess, etc.) the streaming video sessions (e.g., in real-time) for all endpoints for which it has responsibility. In certain scenarios, the current requests sent by various endpoints can be included in the criteria, which form the basis of the rate hint data. For example, it may be efficient to group several of the endpoints onto the same stream at a designated bit rate; ¶ 047: cache server 14 can continue to receive requests from any given endpoint, and respond to these requests by providing appropriate rate hint data to assist the endpoints in making their determination about a selection of an appropriate bit rate.)
Furthermore, Major discloses for iii) receiving requests for segments from a target client device at a respective proxy. (Major ¶ 039: Further, these criteria can be inclusive of any suitable network characteristic that can affect a bit rate decision such as upstream hits (i.e., requests for particular content), current cache status, upstream bandwidth, load conditions, etc.)
Major does not explicitly disclose for iii) determining the further encoded bit rates associated with the requested segments from the target client device.
However, Hurst discloses wherein for iii) determining the further encoded bit rates associated with the requested segments from the target client device. (Hurst ¶ 007: Many of the systems and processes described herein encode predictive data describing future segments of the media program into some or all of the data segments in a media stream so that the client media player is able to accurately predict the relative bandwidth consumption of upcoming media segments.; (a further encoded bit rate is analogous to a future or a predicted encoded bit rate))
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Major for iii) determining the further encoded bit rates associated with the requested segments from the target client device as taught by Hurst. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to employ the teachings of Hurst for the flexibility of a system that enables a plurality of encoded bit rates to be selected from for the delivery of digital data. (Hurst ¶ 007)
Major does not explicitly disclose encoded bit rate of the most recently requested segment is higher than the selected bit rate, delivering the most recently requested segment to the target client device at a delivery rate lower than the rate at which the requested segment was received.
However, Sturm discloses wherein:
v) when encoded bit rate of the most recently requested segment from the target client device is higher than the selected bit rate, delivering the most recently requested segment from the proxy to the target client device at a delivery rate lower than the rate at which the requested segment was received by the proxy. (Sturm col 2: Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) streaming is a client-managed technique in which a user device monitors network conditions over time, such as available bandwidth, and switches among different bit rate versions of a content asset during playback depending on the determined network conditions. For example, if the network bandwidth available to the user device is high, the user device may request a higher bit rate version of the content for playback. However, if network conditions deteriorate, and the bandwidth available to the user device is reduced, the user device may switch to a lower bit rate version of the content in order to prevent issues during playback that would result in a poor user experience,)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Major for encoded bit rate of the most recently requested segment is higher than the selected bit rate, delivering the most recently requested segment to the target client device at a delivery rate lower than the rate at which the requested segment was received as taught by Sturm. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to employ the teachings of Sturm for the flexibility of a system that enables processing of data at multiple bit rates such as a higher bit rate or a lower bit rate than currently utilized. (Sturm col 2)
4. Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Major in view of Hurst and further in view of Sturm and MacInnis (US PGPUB No. 20160134673).
Regarding Claim 2, Major-Hurst-Sturm discloses a method according to claim 1.
Major does not explicitly disclose selecting one of the subset of encoded bit rates at which the majority of the further requested segments are encoded at (i.e. further requested encoded bit rate, future encoded bit rate).
However, MacInnis discloses wherein the selected one of the subset of encoded bit rates is the further encoded bit rate at which the majority of the further requested segments are encoded at. (MacInnis ¶ 018: implementations of ABR streaming utilizing pre-recorded or encoded content, a server, such as a media server or web server, may make multiple representations of a media stream available, each representation comprising a plurality of segments of the stream encoded at different bit rates. Segmentation may be consistent between representations, such that a client device may dynamically switch between representations, selecting a first segment at a first bit rate, then a subsequent segment at a second bit rate, with bit rates typically chosen based on the measured performance of the network and/or processing delays. When the measured network performance is faster than required for a segment or when a device processor has more than enough processing capability to decode segments, the client may choose a higher bit rate representation for the next or some future segment, and when the measured network performance is slower than required for a segment or when the device processor is overloaded, the client may choose a lower bit rate representation for the next or some future segment.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Major for selecting one of the subset of encoded bit rates at which the majority of the further requested segments are encoded at as taught by Hurst. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to employ the teachings of Hurst for the flexibility of a system that enables a determination of bit rate for further or future data transmissions (futher encoded segments). (MacInnis ¶ 018)
5. Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Major in view of Hurst and further in view of Sturm and Gonder et al. (US PGPUB No. 20140282777).
Regarding Claim 3, Major-Hurst-Sturm discloses a method according to claim 1.
Major does not explicitly disclose subset of encoded bit rates corresponds to bit rate levels that are requested most frequently such that these levels should be made available by multicast.
However, Gonder discloses wherein the subset of the encoded bit rates corresponds to bit rate levels that are requested most frequently such that these levels should be made available by multicast. (Gonder ¶ 145: The playlist file(s) are generated dynamically according to the network conditions. As noted above, the streams that are requested most are put to multicast mode (for communication) to maximize the bandwidth saving effect. There can be multiple multicast streams on the playlist. Network conditions on different segments of network can be different; hence viewers on different segments of network may get different playlist files that are customized for their network conditions.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Major for subset of encoded bit rates corresponds to bit rate levels that are requested most frequently such that these levels should be made available by multicast as taught by Gonder. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to employ the teachings of Gonder for the benefits achieved from the flexibility of a system that enables multiple communication protocols such as the multicast communication protocol to be utilized for network communication. (Gonder ¶ 145)
Major does not explicitly disclose adaptive bit rate (ABR) levels and ABR levels.
However, Strum discloses wherein adaptive bit rate (ABR) levels and ABR levels. (Sturm col 2: Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) streaming is a client-managed technique in which a user device monitors network conditions over time, such as available bandwidth, and switches among different bit rate versions of a content asset during playback depending on the determined network conditions. For example, if the network bandwidth available to the user device is high, the user device may request a higher bit rate version of the content for playback. However, if network conditions deteriorate, and the bandwidth available to the user device is reduced, the user device may switch to a lower bit rate version of the content in order to prevent issues during playback that would result in a poor user experience,)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Major for adaptive bit rate (ABR) levels and ABR levels as taught by Sturm. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to employ the teachings of Sturm for the flexibility of a system that enables processing of data at multiple bit rates such as a higher bit rate or a lower bit rate than currently utilized. (Sturm col 2)
6. Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Major in view of Hurst and further in view of Sturm and Sundstrom et al. (US PGPUB No. 20110003609).
Regarding Claim 4, Major-Hurst-Sturm discloses a method according to claim 1,
Major does not explicitly disclose when encoded bit rate of most recently requested segment from the target client device is lower than the selected bit rate, increasing a delivery rate of content segments.
However, Sundstrom discloses wherein the method further comprises: when the encoded bit rate of the most recently requested segment from the target client device is lower than the selected bit rate, increasing a delivery rate of content segments from the proxy to the target client device. (Sundstrom ¶ 025: The allocation request generator 34 compares the selected bandwidth with the current bandwidth and generates an allocation request based on that comparison. If the current bandwidth is less than the selected bandwidth, the allocation request requests the network node 40 for an increase in bandwidth allocation.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Major for when encoded bit rate of most recently requested segment from the target client device is lower than the selected bit rate, increasing a delivery rate of content segments as taught by Sundstrom. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to employ the teachings of Sundstrom for the benefits achieved from the flexibility of a system that enables the modification of bit rates dynamically. (Sundstrom ¶ 025)
Response to Amendments
7. Applicant’s arguments, see Arguments/Remarks Made in an amendment, filed 4-28-2026, with respect to the rejection(s) under Major in view of Hurst and further in view of Sturm have been fully considered and are persuasive, Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Major in view of Hurst and further in view of Sturm and Sundstrom.
A. Applicant argues on page 4 of Remarks: ... ii) identifying by the rate assessment module a subset of the encoded bit rates as the most frequently requested bit rates ... “.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Major discloses a determination of a subset of the most frequently requested bit rates. The most frequently requested bits rates are stored within a cache server. (Major ¶ 024: To alleviate some of this traffic overhead, cache server 14 can be deployed in the network. Cache server 14 can store the most frequently requested video chunks (e.g., the popular content) at the preferred bit rates. This provisioning can reduce the load for origin servers 16, 18, 26.)
B. Applicant argues on page 4 of Remarks: ... iv) selecting one of the subset of encoded bit rates based on the further encoded bit rates ... “.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Major discloses the utilization of rate information (rate hint information) to assist an endpoint (client) in the selection of a particular bit rate. (Major ¶ 043: cache server 14 is configured to simultaneously evaluate (i.e., access, monitor, determine, assess, etc.) the streaming video sessions (e.g., in real-time) for all endpoints for which it has responsibility. In certain scenarios, the current requests sent by various endpoints can be included in the criteria, which form the basis of the rate hint data. For example, it may be efficient to group several of the endpoints onto the same stream at a designated bit rate; ¶ 047: cache server 14 can continue to receive requests from any given endpoint, and respond to these requests by providing appropriate rate hint data to assist the endpoints in making their determination about a selection of an appropriate bit rate.)
C. Applicant argues on page 4 of Remarks: ... v) when encoded bit rate of the most recently requested segment from the target client device is higher than the selected bit rate, delivering the most recently requested segment from the proxy to the target client device at a delivery rate lower than the rate at which the requested segment was received by the proxy."
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Strum discloses the recently requested segment is at a higher bit rate than the selected bit rate previously selected by the client. The segment delivered to the client is at the selected bit rate or lower bit rate (the segment is communicated at the bit rate selected by the client, which was at a lower bit rate). (Sturm col 2: Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) streaming is a client-managed technique in which a user device monitors network conditions over time, such as available bandwidth, and switches among different bit rate versions of a content asset during playback depending on the determined network conditions. For example, if the network bandwidth available to the user device is high, the user device may request a higher bit rate version of the content for playback. However, if network conditions deteriorate, and the bandwidth available to the user device is reduced, the user device may switch to a lower bit rate version of the content in order to prevent issues during playback that would result in a poor user experience,)
D. Applicant argues on page 6 of Remarks: ... These portions of Major do not disclose or suggest step iv) of claim 1.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Major discloses the utilization of rate information (rate hint information) to assist an endpoint (client) in the selection of a particular bit rate. (Major ¶ 043: cache server 14 is configured to simultaneously evaluate (i.e., access, monitor, determine, assess, etc.) the streaming video sessions (e.g., in real-time) for all endpoints for which it has responsibility. In certain scenarios, the current requests sent by various endpoints can be included in the criteria, which form the basis of the rate hint data. For example, it may be efficient to group several of the endpoints onto the same stream at a designated bit rate; ¶ 047: cache server 14 can continue to receive requests from any given endpoint, and respond to these requests by providing appropriate rate hint data to assist the endpoints in making their determination about a selection of an appropriate bit rate.)
E. Applicant argues on page 6 of Remarks: ... in claim 1, one of the most frequently requested bit rates is selected based on what the specific client is requesting.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Major discloses the utilization of rate information (rate hint information) to assist an endpoint (client) in the selection of a particular bit rate. (Major ¶ 043: cache server 14 is configured to simultaneously evaluate (i.e., access, monitor, determine, assess, etc.) the streaming video sessions (e.g., in real-time) for all endpoints for which it has responsibility. In certain scenarios, the current requests sent by various endpoints can be included in the criteria, which form the basis of the rate hint data. For example, it may be efficient to group several of the endpoints onto the same stream at a designated bit rate; ¶ 024: To alleviate some of this traffic overhead, cache server 14 can be deployed in the network. Cache server 14 can store the most frequently requested video chunks (e.g., the popular content) at the preferred bit rates. This provisioning can reduce the load for origin servers 16, 18, 26.); ¶ 047: cache server 14 can continue to receive requests from any given endpoint, and respond to these requests by providing appropriate rate hint data to assist the endpoints in making their determination about a selection of an appropriate bit rate.)
F. Applicant argues on page 7 of Remarks: ... Sturm does not disclose or suggest "when encoded bit rate of the most recently requested segment from the target client device is higher than the selected bit rate, delivering the most recently requested segment from the proxy to the target client device at a delivery rate lower than the rate at which the requested segment was received by the proxy.".
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Strum discloses the recently requested segment is at a higher bit rate than the selected bit rate previously selected by the client. The segment delivered to the client is at the selected bit rate or lower bit rate (the segment at the bit rate selected by the client). (Sturm col 2: Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) streaming is a client-managed technique in which a user device monitors network conditions over time, such as available bandwidth, and switches among different bit rate versions of a content asset during playback depending on the determined network conditions. For example, if the network bandwidth available to the user device is high, the user device may request a higher bit rate version of the content for playback. However, if network conditions deteriorate, and the bandwidth available to the user device is reduced, the user device may switch to a lower bit rate version of the content in order to prevent issues during playback that would result in a poor user experience,)
G. Applicant argues on page 7 of Remarks: ... Sturm does not disclose or suggest delivering the most recently requested segment from the proxy to the target client device at a delivery rate lower than the rate at which the requested segment was received by the proxy when the encoded bit rate of the most recently requested segment from the target client device is higher than the selected bit rate.".
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Strum discloses the recently requested segment is at a higher bit rate than the selected bit rate previously selected by the client. The segment delivered to the client is at the selected bit rate or lower bit rate (the segment at the bit rate selected by the client). (Sturm col 2: Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) streaming is a client-managed technique in which a user device monitors network conditions over time, such as available bandwidth, and switches among different bit rate versions of a content asset during playback depending on the determined network conditions. For example, if the network bandwidth available to the user device is high, the user device may request a higher bit rate version of the content for playback. However, if network conditions deteriorate, and the bandwidth available to the user device is reduced, the user device may switch to a lower bit rate version of the content in order to prevent issues during playback that would result in a poor user experience,)
H. Applicant argues on page 7 of Remarks: ... Claim 2 depends from base independent claim 1. The above-described deficiencies of Major, Hurst, and Sturm and with respect to base independent claim 1 therefore apply to these dependent claims.
Responses to arguments against independent claims also answer current arguments against dependent claims.
I. Applicant argues on page 8 of Remarks: ... New Claims.
The new claims are addressed in the current Office Action.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Kyung H Shin whose telephone number is (571)272-3920. The examiner can normally be reached M - F: 12pm - 8pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Joon H Hwang can be reached at 571-272-4036. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KYUNG H SHIN/ 7-2-2026Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2447
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