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 communication is in response to application filed on 9/30/2024 in which claims 1-20 are pending.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 9/30/2024, 10/04/2024, 5/19/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claims 1-20 are 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 1: The term "another" in line 13 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term "another" is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Claim 2: The term "over" in line 2 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term "over" is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
The corresponding and dependent claims included in the statement of rejection but not specifically addressed in the body of the rejection have similar or inherited the deficiencies of their corresponding or parent claim and have not resolved the deficiencies. Therefore, they are rejected based on the same rationale as applied to their parent claims above.
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) 1-3, 5-10, 12-15, and 17-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pichaimurthy et al. US 20230353807 hereinafter “Pichaimurthy”, in view of Vermes et al. US 20200221049 hereinafter “Vermes”.
As to claim 15, Pichaimurthy, discloses a system (Abstract), comprising: a memory [45]; and at least one processor coupled to the memory [45, 50] and configured to: transmit a provisioning request to a broadcast provisioning platform (Pichaimurthy [6, 38-41], discloses wherein the transmitting a message to the user equipment with a unique identifier for the multicast version);
receive an identifier corresponding to an over the air (OTA) communications channel from the broadcast provisioning platform (Pichaimurthy [42-43, 47-48], discloses wherein the user equipment 201 may activate a tuner and configure the tuner to receive a broadcast channel);
encode the identifier corresponding to the OTA communications channel in an OTA media presentation description (MPD) (Pichaimurthy [84-88, 99], discloses wherein the the content access application activates a tuner and tunes to a channel of an OTA broadcast that includes the selected content.);
Pichaimurthy is silent, however Vermes discloses transmit, to a media client device, the OTA MPD over an over the tope (OTT) communications channel, wherein the OTA MPD corresponds to a plurality of OTT media segments and a plurality of OTA media segments, and wherein the plurality of OTA media segments and the plurality of OTT media segments correspond to a same time period of a media program (Vermes [44, 46-49], discloses wherein integrated media presentation device(s) receive information associated with each OTA media content received in the one or more OTA service signals, and generate an integrated electronic program guide (“EPG”) that integrates the compiled information associated with each OTT media content received in the one or more OTT service signals and information associated with each OTA media content received in the one or more OTA service signals);
transmit the plurality of OTA media segments to a broadcast node (Vermes [56-58, 62], discloses sending/transmitting/communicating media streaming sources, to one or more media broadcast sources); and
transmit, to the media client device, one or more OTT media segments of the plurality of OTT media segments over the OTT communications channel, wherein the media client switches from playing the media program from one or more OTT media segments of the plurality of OTT media segments to playing the media program from the one or more OTA media segments of the plurality of OTA media segments (Vermes [62-64, 67-68], discloses wherein selection by the user of a streaming channel, an OTA channel, or a third party channel might cause the integrated media presentation device(s) to automatically select the input source regardless of streaming source, OTA signal source, or third party media source on the integrated media presentation device(s) for display of the selected channel on the display device).
Pichaimurthy and Vermes are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor, namely, systems and methods of over the air communication. 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 Pichaimurthy and Vermes before him or her, to modify the delivery of content system of Pichaimurthy to include the over the air communication system of Vermes with reasonable expectation that this would result in a system that is capable of performing over the air media streaming and manage media segments for providing a more efficient and with high throughput. This method of improving the other the air communicaiton system of Pichaimurthy was well within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Vermes. 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 Pichaimurthy with Vermes to obtain the invention as specified in claim 15.
As to claim 17, Pichaimurthy-Vermes discloses the system of claim 15, wherein the plurality of OTA media segments and the plurality of OTT media segments encapsulate dynamic adaptive streaming over hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) (DASH) protocol segments corresponding to the media program (Pichaimurthy [37-38, 42-43], discloses wherein user equipment devices may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT content delivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any user equipment device described above, to receive content that is transferred over the Internet). The Examiner supplies the same rationale for the combination of references as in claim 15 above.
As to claim 18, Pichaimurthy-Vermes discloses the system of claim 15, wherein the identifier is a global service identifier (GSID) of the OTA communications channel (Vermes [48-50], discloses wherein response to receiving a user selection of a particular channel number, a particular named channel, or a particular media content, or the like as displayed on the generated integrated EPG, the media device(s) or integrated media presentation device(s) might automatically tune a signal receiver of the media device). The Examiner supplies the same rationale for the combination of references as in claim 15 above.
As to claim 19, Pichaimurthy-Vermes discloses the system of claim 15, wherein the plurality of OTA media segments are encapsulated within one or more ATSC 3.0 broadcast frames for transmission over the OTA communications channel (Vermes [56, 58-62], discloses wherein carrier waves on which instructions can be encoded, and wherein media by which the communications subsystem provides communication with other devices, including media streaming via media broadcast sources). The Examiner supplies the same rationale for the combination of references as in claim 15 above.
As to claim 20, Pichaimurthy-Vermes discloses the system of claim 15, wherein the OTA MPD comprises information corresponding to one or more OTT representations and information corresponding to one or more OTA representations, and wherein the broadcast node is an Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 3.0 broadcast node (Vermes [56, 58-62], discloses wherein the plurality of media content sources 235 might include, but is not limited to, at least two of one or more media streaming sources, one or more media broadcast sources, one or more video streaming sources, one or more video broadcast sources, one or more satellite television TV sources, one or more cable TV sources, or one or more third party media content sources). The Examiner supplies the same rationale for the combination of references as in claim 15 above.
Claims 1-3, 5-7 and 8-10, 12-14 are corresponding apparatus and method claims that recite similar limitations as of claims 15, 17-20 and do not contain any additional features with respect to novelty and/or inventive steps; therefore, they are rejected under the same rationale.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 11 and 16 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See Form 892.
Correspondence Information
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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