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 - 2 are pending. Claim 1 is independent. File date on 9-25-2024.
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)) 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 the processing of data at multiple bit rates such as higher or lower bit rates 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)
Conclusion
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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/KYUNG H SHIN/ 1-17-2026Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2447