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
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
1. This action is responsive to communications: Application filed on October 24, 2024, and Drawings filed on October 24, 2024.
2. Claims 1–10, 12 are pending in this case. Claim 1, 9 are independent claims.
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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
With regard to claim 8, applicant claims the limitation of the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the content is being downloaded from a communication network with a given encoding bit rate, the selection interface comprises at least one selection zone associated with a function, with the content being rendered being a given type of content, and in response to the function associated with the zone relating to access to said type of content being rendered, the encoding bit rate is a maximum possible bit rate as a function of a current bandwidth.
It is unclear what constitutes a function of a current bandwidth; whether it means a selected video quality of current bandwidth or decoding method for a video format or a display function such as brightness contrast or something else. For the purpose of a compact method, the function is interpreted as a video playback quality of the current bandwidth.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-7, 9, 10, 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Casalena, Patent No.: 9754627B2.
With regard to claim 1:
Casalena discloses a management method implemented by a management entity device and comprising: managing rendering of content on a screen, with the content having several qualities available for selection (See fig. 5B and paragraph 25 column 8 line 31 to line 48 wherein the user can select different video quality such as 750 kbps, 500 kbps, 300 kbps), the rendering of the content being associated with a selection interface (See fig. 5B and paragraph 25 column 8 line 31 to line 48 wherein the rendering content is the video that is associated with the selection of streaming bitrate selectable by the user), that the managing comprising selecting, when the content is rendered, the quality for rendering the content as a function of a datum representing an interaction with the selection interface (See fig. 5B and paragraph 25 column 8 line 31 to line 48 wherein the user can select different video quality such as 750 kbps, 500 kbps, 300 kbps).
With regard to claim 2:
Casalena discloses The management method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the interface is capable of being manipulated by using a cursor (see fig. 5A for user using the cursor to select the adjust quality control button) and the datum representing an interaction is a state of the cursor in conjunction with the selection interface (See fig. 5B and column 8 line 31 to line 48 wherein the user can select the streaming quality by selecting the video quality such as 750 kbps, 500 kbps, 300 kbps).
With regard to claim 3:
Casalena discloses The management method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the content is divided into several segments, with the segments (See paragraph 20 column 6 line 45 to line 67 wherein the content is video stream which contain individual frames that are the segments) having several selectable encoding bit rates (see paragraph 10 column 2 line 45 to line 67 wherein a plurality of streams having different quality levels or bitrates of the same media content is published by a server so that a stream quality level that can best be supported by a client can be provided to the client. ), the content is being downloaded from a communication network with a given encoding bit rate, and the state of the cursor determines the encoding bit rate of the segments to be selected for future segments (See fig. 2 column 4 line 15 to line 46 wherein If it is determined at 208 that improved playback performance can be achieved with a different quality level stream, at 210 a different quality level stream of the same media content is requested and began to be received from the server. In some embodiments, 210 includes selecting a different quality level stream, e.g., from a set of available quality levels, that results in improved playback performance given the current availability of client resources such as the current network connection speed.”) of the content (See fig. 5B and paragraph 25 column 8 line 31 to line 48 wherein the user can select different video quality such as 750 kbps, 500 kbps, 300 kbps).
.
With regard to claim 4:
Casalena discloses the management method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the determined encoding bit rate is less than a current encoding bit rate (See fig. 5B and paragraph 25 column 8 line 31 to line 48 wherein the user can select different video quality such as 750 kbps, 500 kbps, 300 kbps, so the user can select 750 kbps and change the selection to 300 kbps).
With regard to claim 5:
Casalena discloses the management method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the determined encoding bit rate is a smallest of the several selectable encoding bit rates (See fig. 5B and paragraph 25 column 8 line 31 to line 48 wherein the user can select different video quality such as 750 kbps, 500 kbps, 300 kbps, so the user can select 300 kbps which is the smallest selectable bit rate).
With regard to claim 6:
Casalena discloses the management method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the state is a movement of the cursor on the selection interface (See fig. 5B and paragraph 25 column 8 line 31 to line 48 wherein the user can select different video quality such as 750 kbps, 500 kbps, 300 kbps, the state selected by moving and then selecting one of the options).
With regard to claim 7:
Casalena discloses the management method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the state is a location of the cursor on the selection interface (See fig. 5B and paragraph 25 wherein the user can select different video quality such as 750 kbps, 500 kbps, 300 kbps, the state selected by moving and then selecting one of the options).
With regard to claim 9:
Casalena discloses A management entity comprising: at least one processor; and at least one non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions stored thereon which when executed by the at least one processor (see paragraph 7 column 1 56 to line 67 wherein the system is a computer program product embodied on a computer readable storage medium; and/or a processor, such as a processor configured to execute instructions stored on and/or provided by a memory coupled to the processor. ) configure the management entity to manage rendering of content on a screen, with the content having several qualities available for selection (See fig. 5B and paragraph 25 column 8 line 31 to line 48 wherein the user can select different video quality such as 750 kbps, 500 kbps, 300 kbps),, the rendering of the content being associated with a selection interface (See fig. 5B and column 8 line 31 to line 48 wherein the rendering content is the video that is associated with the selection of streaming bitrate selectable by the user), wherein the managing comprises selecting, when the content is rendered, the quality for rendering the content as a function of a datum representing an interaction with the selection interface (See fig. 5B and paragraph 25 column 8 line 31 to line 48 wherein the user can select different video quality such as 750 kbps, 500 kbps, 300 kbps).
Claim 10 is rejected for the same reason as claim 9.
Claim 12 is rejected for the same reason as claim 1.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Casalena and in view of Chandrashekar, Pub. No.: 20220417610A1.
With regard to claim 8,
Casalena discloses the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the content is being downloaded from a communication network with a given encoding bit rate (see paragraph 10 Various clients may have differing resources for receiving and playing back requested media content. To cater to such clients, in some embodiments, a plurality of streams having different quality levels or bitrates of the same media content is published by a server so that a stream quality level that can best be supported by a client can be provided to the client. ), the selection interface comprises at least one selection zone associated with a function, with the content being rendered being a given type of content, and in response to the function associated with the zone relating to access to said type of content being rendered (See fig. 5B and column 8 line 31 to line 48 wherein the function is the playback quality of video type of content),
Casalena does not disclose the encoding bit rate is a maximum possible bit rate as a function of a current bandwidth.
However Chandrashekar discloses the aspect wherein the encoding bit rate is a maximum possible bit rate as a function of a current bandwidth (see paragraph 104 wherein the system teaches the aspect of selecting the highest bitrate variant or a maximum resolution available based on the available bandwidth.). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the filing was made to apply Chanrashekar so the best quality is always selected based on the determined bandwidth of the user to provide the user with the best quality experience without lagging.
Pertinent Arts
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Lee, Pub. No.: 20220263729 A1 discloses a systems for managing network resources. A computing device may request network resources for an application and obtain a guarantee that those network resources can be provided.
Chen, Pub. No.: US 20200342572 A1 discloses a method and apparatus, device, and storage medium for generating an image processing model and processing images based on the generated image processing model. In this application for a video with 540P resolution, if the user selects super-resolution processing of 2 times, the user may watch a video at 1080P resolution, and if the user selects super-resolution processing of 4 times, the user may watch a video at 2K resolution.
Conclusion
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/DI XIAO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2178
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