DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
1. This action is in response to the communication filed on September 19, 2024. Claims 1-20 were originally received for consideration. No preliminary amendments for the claims have been received.
2. Claims 1-20 are currently pending consideration.
Information Disclosure Statement
3. An initialed and dated copy of Applicant’s IDS (form 1449), received on September 19, 2024, is attached to this Office Action.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory 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 nonstatutory 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 nonstatutory 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 § 2146 et seq. 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 filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual 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 eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
4. Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 10,362,004. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims of the ‘004 Patent render disclose the claims of the present application. The claims of the ‘004 Patent disclose determining data associated with the presentation of one or more content items (claim 8: demographic data collection service provides content programming to the devices), wherein the plurality of user devices are associated with a plurality of identifiers (claim 1: each of the plurality of mobile devices is associated with one or more of the unique consumers of content on the plurality of mobile devices, and wherein corresponding identifiers of the plurality of identifiers is associated with the content consumption data), determining demographic data associated with a unique user profile (claim 1: receiving by the demographic data collection service, content consumption data, wherein the content consumption data comprises data indicative of content consumed by one or more of the unique consumers of content on the mobile devices), wherein the plurality of identifiers are anonymous to the content consumption data collection service and transparent to the demographic data collection service (claim 1: each identifier is anonymous to a content consumption data collection service and transparent to the demographic data collection service) and generating ratings data associated with the one or more content items (claim 9: generating ratings data by performing a ratings analysis on the content consumption data and the demographic data). The dependent claims are likewise rejected as they do not present any additional limitations which are not disclosed by the ‘004 Patent.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
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.
5. Claims 1, 4-6, 8, 11-13, 15, 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. Claim 1 discloses a method which falls into one of the four statutory categories of invention.
The claim(s) (claim 1) recite(s) determining data associated with the presentation of one or more content items at a plurality of user devices, determining based on identifiers demographic data associated with a user profile, and generating based on the demographic data and the user profile, ratings data associated with the content items. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, the terms of the claims are presumed to have their plain meaning consistent with the specification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art (MPEP 2111). The claim limitations of determining data associated with content items, determining based on identifiers, demographic data associated with user profiles, and generating based on the demographic data associated with the user profile, ratings data, under the broadest reasonable interpretation, fall under certain methods of organizing human activity grouping of abstract ideas. The claim under its broadest reasonable interpretation collects data associated with content, associates that data with identifiers and users, determiners demographic data based on that collected data, and generates ratings data based on the collect data. The data being anonymous and transparent are merely generic terms that can be used for processing the data.
There is no recitation of additional elements in claim 1 which integrates the judicial exception into a practical application. Dictating that the plurality of identifiers are anonymous and transparent are merely generic terms which can be used to process the data. Presenting the data is merely extra-solution activity and does not render the claim statutory.
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claims do not provide any additional elements which provide an inventive concept. The additional elements include a plurality of identifiers, a demographical collection service, a content consumption data collection service, and that the identifiers are anonymous and transparent. These are merely generic placeholder terms which are used to implement the abstract idea of organizing human activity. The services are merely collection tools and the identifiers are merely tags for the users. The anonymous and transparent identifiers are merely generic terms to illustrate that the data is not seen by the collection services. However, no mechanism or technological details are provided about how the data is rendered anonymous or transparent. Therefore, the claim does not recite any additional elements which individually or in combination amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the claims are directed towards non-statutory subject matter and are not patent eligible.
The dependent claims 4, 5, and 6 do not recite any additional elements which individually or in combination with the limitation of claim 1 amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
Claim 4 merely discloses the type of data that is received (license request, grant, etc.). There are no additional elements recited in claim 3 that individually or in combination with other elements of claim 3 that recite a practical application.
Claim 5 merely discloses what comprises the user data. There are no additional elements recited in claim 5 that individually or in combination with other elements of claim 5 that recite a practical application.
Claim 6 merely disclose what data is provided by the content, environmental and presentation settings. There are no additional elements recited in claim 6 that individually or in combination with other elements of claim 6 that recite a practical application.
6. Claims 8, 11-13, 15, 17-19 are analogous to the method claims above and are rejected under the same rationale.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of pre-AIA 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) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for a patent.
7. Claim(s) 1, 7, 8, 14, 15, and 20 is/are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102(a) as being anticipated by Hannan et al. (U.S. Patent Pub. No. US 2012/0005213).
Regarding claim 1, Hannan discloses:
A method comprising:
determining, by a content consumption data collection service (paragraphs 0012-0013: sample unit included in a service provider’s network obtains a demographic profile and a network usage profile from the audience measurement entity wherein the network server is interpreted as the consumption data collection service), data associated with presentation of one or more content items at a plurality of user devices (paragraphs 0013-0015: given the demographic profile and the network usage profile specified by the audience measurement entity, the representative sampling unit then samples customer data stored in a customer database not accessible by the audience measurement entity to generate, without customer intervention, a customer sample representative of the demographic profile and the network usage profile), wherein the plurality of user devices are associated with a plurality of identifiers, each identifier being associated with one user device of the plurality of user devices (paragraphs 0013-0014: using the customer identification information included in the generated customer sample, the representative sampling unit is able to retrieve and process log data from a network server, such as a gateway or other network server, not accessible by the audience measurement entity to determine audience measurement data associated with customers in the customer sample);
determining, based on the plurality of identifiers and a demographic data collection service (paragraphs 0012-0013: sample unit included in a service provider’s network obtains a demographic profile and a network usage profile from the audience measurement entity wherein the customer database is interpreted as the demographic data collection service), demographic data associated with a unique user profile, wherein the plurality of identifiers are anonymous to the content consumption data collection service and transparent to the demographic data collection service (paragraph 0013: To render the audience measurement data anonymous, the representative sampling unit scrubs the audience measurement data to remove any customer identification information (e.g., and to replace such removed information with anonymous identifiers incapable of identifying particular customers) before providing the data to the audience measurement entity. However, the anonymous measurement data retains other demographic information to enable classification of the data according to the specified demographic and network usage profiles); and
generating, based on the demographic data associated with the unique user profile, and based on the data associated with the presentation of content at the plurality of user devices, ratings data associated with the one or more content items (paragraph 0013: using customer identification information the sampling unit is able to retrieve and process log data from a network serve, such as a gateway or other network server, to determine audience measurement data associated with the customers; paragraph 0022: anonymous measurement is used to generate a report which can include audience ratings).
Claim 7 is rejected as applied above in rejecting claim 1. Furthermore, Hannan discloses:
The method of claim 1, wherein determining the demographic data further comprises:
sending, to the demographic data collection service, the plurality of identifiers (paragraph 0013: a customer sample representative of the demographic profile and the network usage profile are used to generate a sample which includes information such as usernames, PINs, and other demographic information); and
receiving, via the demographic data collection service, the demographic data (paragraph 0013: a customer sample representative of the demographic profile and the network usage profile are used to generate a sample which includes information such as usernames, PINs, and other demographic information), wherein the demographic data comprises at least one of:
an age, a gender, or an address associated with the unique user profile (paragraph 0013, 0016: a customer sample representative of the demographic profile and the network usage profile are used to generate a sample which includes information such as usernames, PINs, and other demographic information which can include addresses, customer’s age, income, etc.).
Regarding claim 8, Hannan discloses:
One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media comprising processor-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:
determine, by a content consumption data collection service (paragraphs 0012-0013: sample unit included in a service provider’s network obtains a demographic profile and a network usage profile from the audience measurement entity wherein the network server is interpreted as the content consumption data collection service), data associated with presentation of one or more content items at a plurality of user devices (paragraphs 0013-0015: given the demographic profile and the network usage profile specified by the audience measurement entity, the representative sampling unit then samples customer data stored in a customer database not accessible by the audience measurement entity to generate, without customer intervention, a customer sample representative of the demographic profile and the network usage profile), wherein the plurality of user devices are associated with a plurality of identifiers, each identifier being associated with one user device of the plurality of user devices (paragraphs 0013-0014: using the customer identification information included in the generated customer sample, the representative sampling unit is able to retrieve and process log data from a network server, such as a gateway or other network server, not accessible by the audience measurement entity to determine audience measurement data associated with customers in the customer sample);
determine, based on the plurality of identifiers and a demographic data collection service (paragraphs 0012-0013: sample unit included in a service provider’s network obtains a demographic profile and a network usage profile from the audience measurement entity wherein the customer database is interpreted as the demographic data collection service), demographic data associated with a unique user profile, wherein the plurality of identifiers are anonymous to the content consumption data collection service and transparent to the demographic data collection service (paragraph 0013: To render the audience measurement data anonymous, the representative sampling unit scrubs the audience measurement data to remove any customer identification information (e.g., and to replace such removed information with anonymous identifiers incapable of identifying particular customers) before providing the data to the audience measurement entity. However, the anonymous measurement data retains other demographic information to enable classification of the data according to the specified demographic and network usage profiles); and
generate, based on the demographic data associated with the unique user profile, and based on the data associated with the presentation of content at the plurality of user devices, ratings data associated with the one or more content items (paragraph 0013: using customer identification information the sampling unit is able to retrieve and process log data from a network serve, such as a gateway or other network server, to determine audience measurement data associated with the customers; paragraph 0022: anonymous measurement is used to generate a report which can include audience ratings).
Claim 14 is rejected as applied above in rejecting claim 8. Furthermore, Hannan discloses:
The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 8, wherein the processor-executable instructions that cause the one or more processors to determine the demographic data further cause the one or more processors to:
send, to the demographic data collection service, the plurality of identifiers (paragraph 0013: a customer sample representative of the demographic profile and the network usage profile are used to generate a sample which includes information such as usernames, PINs, and other demographic information); and
receive, via the demographic data collection service, the demographic data (paragraph 0013: a customer sample representative of the demographic profile and the network usage profile are used to generate a sample which includes information such as usernames, PINs, and other demographic information), wherein the demographic data comprises at least one of:
an age, a gender, or an address associated with the unique user profile (paragraph 0013, 0016: a customer sample representative of the demographic profile and the network usage profile are used to generate a sample which includes information such as usernames, PINs, and other demographic information which can include addresses, customer’s age, income, etc.).
Regarding claim 15, Hannan discloses:
A system comprising:
a demographic data collection service (paragraphs 0012-0013: sample unit included in a service provider’s network obtains a demographic profile and a network usage profile from the audience measurement entity wherein the customer database is interpreted as the demographic data collection service);
a plurality of user devices (paragraph 0016: customer devices); and
a content consumption data collection service (paragraphs 0012-0013: sample unit included in a service provider’s network obtains a demographic profile and a network usage profile from the audience measurement entity wherein the network server is interpreted as the consumption data collection service) configured to:
determine data associated with presentation of one or more content items at the plurality of user devices, wherein the plurality of user devices are associated with a plurality of identifiers, each identifier being associated with one user device of the plurality of user devices (paragraphs 0013-0014: using the customer identification information included in the generated customer sample, the representative sampling unit is able to retrieve and process log data from a network server, such as a gateway or other network server, not accessible by the audience measurement entity to determine audience measurement data associated with customers in the customer sample);
determine, based on the plurality of identifiers and the demographic data collection service (paragraphs 0012-0013: sample unit included in a service provider’s network obtains a demographic profile and a network usage profile from the audience measurement entity wherein the customer database is interpreted as the demographic data collection service), demographic data associated with a unique user profile, wherein the plurality of identifiers are anonymous to the content consumption data collection service and transparent to the demographic data collection service (paragraph 0013: To render the audience measurement data anonymous, the representative sampling unit scrubs the audience measurement data to remove any customer identification information (e.g., and to replace such removed information with anonymous identifiers incapable of identifying particular customers) before providing the data to the audience measurement entity. However, the anonymous measurement data retains other demographic information to enable classification of the data according to the specified demographic and network usage profiles);
and
generate, based on the demographic data associated with the unique user profile, and based on the data associated with the presentation of content at the plurality of user devices, ratings data associated with the one or more content items (paragraph 0013: using customer identification information the sampling unit is able to retrieve and process log data from a network serve, such as a gateway or other network server, to determine audience measurement data associated with the customers; paragraph 0022: anonymous measurement is used to generate a report which can include audience ratings).
Claim 20 is rejected as applied above in rejecting claim 15. Furthermore, Hannan discloses:
The system of claim 15, wherein the content consumption data collection service is further configured to:
send, to the demographic data collection service, the plurality of identifiers (paragraph 0013: a customer sample representative of the demographic profile and the network usage profile are used to generate a sample which includes information such as usernames, PINs, and other demographic information); and
receive, via the demographic data collection service, the demographic data (paragraph 0013: a customer sample representative of the demographic profile and the network usage profile are used to generate a sample which includes information such as usernames, PINs, and other demographic information), wherein the demographic data comprises at least one of:
an age, a gender, or an address associated with the unique user profile (paragraph 0013, 0016: a customer sample representative of the demographic profile and the network usage profile are used to generate a sample which includes information such as usernames, PINs, and other demographic information which can include addresses, customer’s age, income, etc.).
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 pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
8. Claims 2-5, 9-12, and 16-19 is/are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Hannan et al. (U.S. Patent Pub. No. US 2012/0005213) in view of Engstrom et al. (U.S. Patent Pub. No. US 2007/0005503).
Claim 2 is rejected as applied above in rejecting claim 1. Furthermore, Hannan does not explicitly disclose receiving, by the demographic data collection service, a request associated with the unique user profile and sending, based on the request, the plurality of identifiers to the plurality of user devices. In an analogous art, Engstrom discloses that a user requests a transaction, wherein the user is on a list based on the user’s demographic attributes, wherein the transaction request is a request to license or purchase media content (paragraphs 0037-0039). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to allow a user device to request media content and receive the license to allow a persistent purchase of content initiated by the customer device (Engstrom: paragraph 0006).
Claim 3 is rejected as applied above in rejecting claim 2. Furthermore, Engstrom discloses:
The method of claim 2, wherein the request is received via a first user device of the plurality of user devices (paragraphs 0037-0039: provides content to a first user’s mobile device).
Claim 4 is rejected as applied above in rejecting claim 1. Furthermore, Hannan does not explicitly disclose wherein the data associated with the presentation of content comprises at least one of a license request, a license grant, a subscription life-cycle, a license denial, a channel tune, a remote tune, a remote control event, a playpoint audit, a playback event, a program start time, a program end time, a commercial time, or a playlist timing event. In an analogous art, Engstrom discloses that a user requests a transaction, wherein the user is on a list based on the user’s demographic attributes, wherein the transaction request is a request to license or purchase media content (paragraphs 0037-0039). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to allow a user device to request media content and receive the license to allow a persistent purchase of content initiated by the customer device (Engstrom: paragraph 0006).
Claim 5 is rejected as applied above in rejecting claim 1. Furthermore, Hannan does not explicitly disclose wherein the data associated with the presentation of content comprises user data, wherein the user data comprises at least one of a content setting, an environmental setting, a presentation setting, a viewing pattern, a duration of content presentation, or a time associated with presentation of the content. In an analogous art, Hannan discloses that the amount of time elapsed is tracked and if an elapsed time exceeds a pre-determined threshold the rendering of the purchased media content would be disabled (paragraph 0029). It would have been obvious to employ techniques such as setting time thresholds to prevent fraud (Hannan: paragraph 0029).
Claim 9 is rejected as applied above in rejecting claim 8. Furthermore, Hannan does not explicitly disclose receiving, by the demographic data collection service, a request associated with the unique user profile; and send, based on the request, the plurality of identifiers to the plurality of user devices. In an analogous art, Engstrom discloses that a user requests a transaction, wherein the user is on a list based on the user’s demographic attributes, wherein the transaction request is a request to license or purchase media content (paragraphs 0037-0039). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to allow a user device to request media content and receive the license to allow a persistent purchase of content initiated by the customer device (Engstrom: paragraph 0006).
Claim 10 is rejected as applied above in rejecting claim 9. Furthermore, Engstrom discloses:
The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 9, wherein the request is received via a first user device of the plurality of user devices (paragraphs 0037-0039: provides content to a first user’s mobile device).
Claim 11 is rejected as applied above in rejecting claim 8. Furthermore, Hannan does not explicitly disclose wherein the data associated with the presentation of content comprises at least one of a license request, a license grant, a subscription life-cycle, a license denial, a channel tune, a remote tune, a remote control event, a playpoint audit, a playback event, a program start time, a program end time, a commercial time, or a playlist timing event. In an analogous art, Engstrom discloses that a user requests a transaction, wherein the user is on a list based on the user’s demographic attributes, wherein the transaction request is a request to license or purchase media content (paragraphs 0037-0039). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to allow a user device to request media content and receive the license to allow a persistent purchase of content initiated by the customer device (Engstrom: paragraph 0006).
Claim 12 is rejected as applied above in rejecting claim 8. Furthermore, Hannan does not explicitly disclose wherein the data associated with the presentation of content comprises user data, wherein the user data comprises at least one of a content setting, an environmental setting, a presentation setting, a viewing pattern, a duration of content presentation, or a time associated with presentation of the content. In an analogous art, Hannan discloses that the amount of time elapsed is tracked and if an elapsed time exceeds a pre-determined threshold the rendering of the purchased media content would be disabled (paragraph 0029). It would have been obvious to employ techniques such as setting time thresholds to prevent fraud (Hannan: paragraph 0029).
Claim 16 is rejected as applied above in rejecting claim 15. Furthermore, Hannan does not explicitly disclose receiving a request associated with the unique user profile and sending, based on the request, the plurality of identifiers to the plurality of user devices. In an analogous art, Engstrom discloses that a user requests a transaction, wherein the user is on a list based on the user’s demographic attributes, wherein the transaction request is a request to license or purchase media content (paragraphs 0037-0039). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to allow a user device to request media content and receive the license to allow a persistent purchase of content initiated by the customer device (Engstrom: paragraph 0006).
Claim 17 is rejected as applied above in rejecting claim 16. Furthermore, Engstrom discloses:
The system of claim 16, wherein the request is received by the demographic data collection service via a first user device of the plurality of user devices (paragraphs 0037-0039: provides content to a first user’s mobile device).
Claim 18 is rejected as applied above in rejecting claim 15. Furthermore, Hannan does not explicitly disclose wherein the data associated with the presentation of content comprises at least one of a license request, a license grant, a subscription life-cycle, a license denial, a channel tune, a remote tune, a remote control event, a playpoint audit, a playback event, a program start time, a program end time, a commercial time, or a playlist timing event. In an analogous art, Engstrom discloses that a user requests a transaction, wherein the user is on a list based on the user’s demographic attributes, wherein the transaction request is a request to license or purchase media content (paragraphs 0037-0039). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to allow a user device to request media content and receive the license to allow a persistent purchase of content initiated by the customer device (Engstrom: paragraph 0006).
Claim 19 is rejected as applied above in rejecting claim 15. Furthermore, Hannan does not explicitly disclose wherein the data associated with the presentation of content comprises user data, wherein the user data comprises at least one of a content setting, an environmental setting, a presentation setting, a viewing pattern, a duration of content presentation, or a time associated with presentation of the content. In an analogous art, Hannan discloses that the amount of time elapsed is tracked and if an elapsed time exceeds a pre-determined threshold the rendering of the purchased media content would be disabled (paragraph 0029). It would have been obvious to employ techniques such as setting time thresholds to prevent fraud (Hannan: paragraph 0029).
9. Claims 6 and 13 is/are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Hannan et al. (U.S. Patent Pub. No. US 2012/0005213) in view of Engstrom et al. (U.S. Patent Pub. No. US 2007/0005503) further in view of Tirasirikul et al. (U.S. Patent Pub. No. US 2012/0017250).
Claim 6 is rejected as applied above in rejecting claim 5. Furthermore, the combination of Hannan and Engstrom do not explicitly disclose wherein at least one of the content setting comprises at least one of a genre, a rating, a parental block, a subtitle, a version of content, a time schedule, or a permission, the environmental setting comprises at least one of a temperature, lighting, or tactile feedback or the presentation setting comprises at least one of: a volume, a brightness, a color, a playback language, a closed caption, a playback speed, picture-in-picture, or split display. In an analogous art, Tirasirikul discloses control settings for content comprising a parental control feature (paragraph 0029), and settings regarding color schemes and sound effects (paragraph 0044). These settings can be associated with a user profile which can include user demographics (paragraph 0044). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the control settings, as in Tirasirikul, to enable users a customized or personalized setting experience which can use user demographics and preferences to provide a customized experience (Tirasirikul: paragraph 0044).
Claim 13 is rejected as applied above in rejecting claim 12. Furthermore, the combination of Hannan and Engstrom do not explicitly disclose wherein at least one of the content setting comprises at least one of a genre, a rating, a parental block, a subtitle, a version of content, a time schedule, or a permission, the environmental setting comprises at least one of a temperature, lighting, or tactile feedback or the presentation setting comprises at least one of: a volume, a brightness, a color, a playback language, a closed caption, a playback speed, picture-in-picture, or split display. In an analogous art, Tirasirikul discloses control settings for content comprising a parental control feature (paragraph 0029), and settings regarding color schemes and sound effects (paragraph 0044). These settings can be associated with a user profile which can include user demographics (paragraph 0044). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the control settings, as in Tirasirikul, to enable users a customized or personalized setting experience which can use user demographics and preferences to provide a customized experience (Tirasirikul: paragraph 0044).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KAVEH ABRISHAMKAR whose telephone number is (571)272-3786. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5:30.
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/KAVEH ABRISHAMKAR/
03/31/2026Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2494