DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to the claims filed 10/18/2024. Claims 1-8 are pending. Independent claims 1, 6 and 8, and corresponding dependent claims are directed towards a method, device and non-transitory computer readable medium for managing access to manifests associated with content distributed in real time.
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 .
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.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities: the first recitation of the following acronyms is not expanded: pg. 1 HTTP and IP; pg. 3 ADSL; pg. 4 CPU; pg. 5 ROM; pg. 6 CD-ROM; pg. 7 MPEG; pg. 8 FTP and XML; and pg. 9 HDMI; and pg. 9 l. 14 “CMO11” should be “COM11”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Objections
Claims 6-8 are objected to because of the following informalities, shown with suggested amendments: Claim 6 l. 10 “performing an initial [[a]] playback” for grammar; Claim 7 l. 1 “the entity device” for proper antecedent basis; and Claim 8 l. 7 “performing an initial [[a]] playback” for grammar. Appropriate correction is required.
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 of this title, 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.
Claims 1 and 3-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pantos, R. “RFC8216: HTTP Live Streaming”, published August 2017, in view of Chen et al. (US 2012/0042090 A1), published Feb. 16, 2012.
As to claim 1, Pantos substantially discloses a management method (Pantos §1¶1-3 delivering continuous live-form video over the internet) comprising: managing access to manifests associated with content distributed in real time (Pantos §1¶1-3 delivering continuous live-form video over the internet), playback of the content requiring receipt, from a communication network (Pantos §6.1 client downloading of generated playlist and generated media segments from server), of manifests of a first type or of a second type (Pantos §2 Media Playlist example showing Media Playlist containing URI(s) for multiple media segments that are played in order (i.e. a manifest) after Media playlist is downloaded to a client, a Master Playlist has a set of Variant Streams each of which includes a Media Playlist that specifies media encoded at a particular bit rate, format and resolution - the multiple Media Playlists for each Variant Stream are the different types of manifests, and the Master Playlist is also a different type of manifest), a control interface being accessible during playback, wherein the managing comprises: performing an initial playback of the content, which is carried out by using at least one manifest of the first type (Pantos §6.3.1¶1-2 Client obtains URI of Master Playlist file and selects variant stream from Master Playlist; §6.3.3¶1 Client playback start), and during playback, transmitting a request for access to at least one manifest of the second type (Pantos §6.3.3¶2 client presents available media in any way it wishes including random access (i.e. ability to play any specific point) and trick modes (i.e. fast-forward, rewind, pause and seeking); §6.3.4¶6 client decides to switch playback to variant stream), wherein the playback continues by using the at least one manifest of the second type received from the network (Pantos §6.3.1¶9 client switching between Variant Streams - which is a switch between Media Playlists as each Variant Stream has its own media playlist). Pantos fails to explicitly disclose a command being selected during playback. Chen describes manifest file updates for network streaming of coded multimedia data. With this in mind, Chen discloses a command being selected during playback (Chen Fig. 9 436 showing trick mode request with acquisition of data for display; [0207]-[0210] request indications of locations of data for temporal sub-sequence can be a portion of an MPD). It 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 to combine the with the trick-play user request and data retrieval of Chen with the live streaming of Pantos, such that upon a user selecting a command during playback a new Variant Stream is selected to facilitate the selected playback mode, as it would advantageously improve streaming of media data over a network (Chen [0007]).
As to claim 3, Pantos and Chen disclose the invention as claimed as described in claim 1, including wherein selection of the command is followed by the transmission of the request for access to at least one manifest of the second type and the selected command is executed after receipt of the at least one manifest of the second type (Chen Fig. 9 436 showing trick mode request with acquisition of data for display; [0207]-[0210] request indications of locations of data for temporal sub-sequence can be a portion of an MPD; Pantos §6.3.3¶2 client presents available media in any way it wishes including random access (i.e. ability to play any specific point) and trick modes (i.e. fast-forward, rewind, pause and seeking); §6.3.4¶6 client decides to switch playback to variant stream).
As to claim 4, Pantos and Chen disclose the invention as claimed as described in claim 3, including wherein the selected command is executed after receipt of a first manifest of the second type received (Pantos §6.3.4¶6 client decides to switch playback to variant stream; Chen Fig. 9 436 showing trick mode request with acquisition of data for display; [0207]-[0210] request indications of locations of data for temporal sub-sequence can be a portion of an MPD – trick play cannot function without the data for playback).
As to claim 5, Pantos and Chen disclose the invention as claimed as described in claim 1, including wherein the control interface comprises commands, certain of which cause time-shifted playback of the content, and wherein the request for access to at least one manifest of the second type is transmitted only for commands causing time-shifted playback (Chen Fig. 9 436 showing trick mode request with acquisition of data for display; [0207]-[0210] request indications of locations of data for temporal sub-sequence can be a portion of an MPD – trick mode playback requires data indicator acquisition from server).
As to claim 6, Pantos substantially discloses an entity device (Pantos §6 detailing client playback & receipt over network from server) comprising: at least one processor (Pantos §6 client w/network reception of data stream and playback – requires processor/memory and instructions for performing functionality); and at least one non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions stored thereon which when executed by the at least one processor (Pantos §6 client w/network reception of data stream and playback – requires processor/memory and instructions for performing functionality) configure the entity device to manage access to manifests associated with content distributed in real time (Pantos §1¶1-3 delivering continuous live-form video over the internet), playback of the content requiring receipt, from a communication network (Pantos §6.1 client downloading of generated playlist and generated media segments from server), of manifests of a first type or of a second type (Pantos §2 Media Playlist example showing Media Playlist containing URI(s) for multiple media segments that are played in order (i.e. a manifest) after Media playlist is downloaded to a client, a Master Playlist has a set of Variant Streams each of which includes a Media Playlist that specifies media encoded at a particular bit rate, format and resolution - the multiple Media Playlists for each Variant Stream are the different types of manifests, and the Master Playlist is also a different type of manifest), a control interface being accessible during playback, wherein the managing comprises: performing an initial playback of the content, which is carried out by using at least one manifest of the first type (Pantos §6.3.1¶1-2 Client obtains URI of Master Playlist file and selects variant stream from Master Playlist; §6.3.3¶1 Client playback start), and during playback, transmitting a request for access to at least one manifest of the second type (Pantos §6.3.3¶2 client presents available media in any way it wishes including random access (i.e. ability to play any specific point) and trick modes (i.e. fast-forward, rewind, pause and seeking); §6.3.4¶6 client decides to switch playback to variant stream), wherein the playback continues by using the at least one manifest of the second type received from the network (Pantos §6.3.1¶9 client switching between Variant Streams - which is a switch between Media Playlists as each Variant Stream has its own media playlist). Pantos fails to explicitly disclose a command being selected during playback. Chen discloses a command being selected during playback (Chen Fig. 9 436 showing trick mode request with acquisition of data for display; [0207]-[0210] request indications of locations of data for temporal sub-sequence can be a portion of an MPD). It 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 to combine the with the trick-play user request and data retrieval of Chen with the live streaming of Pantos, such that upon a user selecting a command during playback a new Variant Stream is selected to facilitate the selected playback mode, as it would advantageously improve streaming of media data over a network (Chen [0007]).
As to claim 7, Pantos and Chen disclose the invention as claimed as described in claim 6, including a playback device comprising the entity (Pantos §6.3.1¶1-2 Client obtains URI of Master Playlist file and selects variant stream from Master Playlist; §6.3.3¶1 Client playback start; Chen [0004] device for displaying digital video).
As to claim 8, Pantos substantially discloses a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions stored thereon which when executed by at least one processor of a managing entity (Pantos §6 client w/network reception of data stream and playback – requires processor/memory and instructions for performing functionality) configure the managing entity to manage access to manifests associated with content distributed in real time (Pantos §1¶1-3 delivering continuous live-form video over the internet), playback of the content requiring receipt, from a communication network (Pantos §6.1 client downloading of generated playlist and generated media segments from server), of manifests of a first type or of a second type (Pantos §2 Media Playlist example showing Media Playlist containing URI(s) for multiple media segments that are played in order (i.e. a manifest) after Media playlist is downloaded to a client, a Master Playlist has a set of Variant Streams each of which includes a Media Playlist that specifies media encoded at a particular bit rate, format and resolution - the multiple Media Playlists for each Variant Stream are the different types of manifests, and the Master Playlist is also a different type of manifest), a control interface being accessible during playback, wherein the managing comprises: performing an initial playback of the content, which is carried out by using at least one manifest of the first type (Pantos §6.3.1¶1-2 Client obtains URI of Master Playlist file and selects variant stream from Master Playlist; §6.3.3¶1 Client playback start), and during playback, transmitting a request for access to at least one manifest of the second type (Pantos §6.3.3¶2 client presents available media in any way it wishes including random access (i.e. ability to play any specific point) and trick modes (i.e. fast-forward, rewind, pause and seeking); §6.3.4¶6 client decides to switch playback to variant stream), wherein the playback continues by using the at least one manifest of the second type received from the network (Pantos §6.3.1¶9 client switching between Variant Streams - which is a switch between Media Playlists as each Variant Stream has its own media playlist). Pantos fails to explicitly disclose a command being selected during playback. Chen discloses a command being selected during playback (Chen Fig. 9 436 showing trick mode request with acquisition of data for display; [0207]-[0210] request indications of locations of data for temporal sub-sequence can be a portion of an MPD). It 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 to combine the with the trick-play user request and data retrieval of Chen with the live streaming of Pantos, such that upon a user selecting a command during playback a new Variant Stream is selected to facilitate the selected playback mode, as it would advantageously improve streaming of media data over a network (Chen [0007]).
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pantos, R. “RFC8216: HTTP Live Streaming”, published August 2017, in view of Chen et al. (US 2012/0042090 A1), published Feb. 16, 2012, in view of Silverman et al. (US 2015/0063781 A1), published Mar. 5, 2015.
As to claim 2, Pantos and Chen substantially disclose the invention as claimed as described in claim 1, including wherein receipt of at least one manifest of the second type and receipt of the manifest of the first type (See above claim 1). Pantos and Chen fail to explicitly disclose wherein playback of the second type ceases after a given length of time and is replaced by playback of the first type. Silverman describes a system for non-linear navigation of video content. With this in mind, Silverman discloses wherein playback of the second type ceases after a given length of time and is replaced by playback of the first type (Silverman [0028] user is presented with playback of selected alternate video clips and upon completion the original video may resume play). It 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 to combine the alternative playback of Silverman with the streaming of Pantos and Chen, such that a user is provided relevant metadata that includes optional video clips that upon completion resume play of the original content, as it would advantageously improve a viewer’s ability to actively engage or participate in video content (Silverman [0018]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
“MPEG-DASH Profile for Transport of ISO BMFF Based DVB Services over IP Based Networks” is related to HTTP adaptive streaming.
Ma et al. (US 2020/006824 A1) is related to a system for secure over-the-top live video delivery.
Asbun et al. (US 2019/0191203 A1) is related to secondary content insertion in 360-degree video.
Braness et al. (US 2019/0045220 A1) is related to adaptive streaming systems and methods for performing trick play.
Levy et al. (US 2018/0220202 A1) is related to trick mode restrictions.
Oh et al. (US 2017/0164069 A1) is related to managing a time machine function of video content.
Gordon (US 2021/0160299 A1) is related to configuring manifest files including redirect URLs.
Toal et al. (US 10,298,643 B1) is related to live edge detection in video playback.
Ziskind et al. (US 2021/0160548 A1) is related to live stream control.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ERIC W SHEPPERD whose telephone number is (571)270-5654. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Thursday, Alt. Friday, 7:30AM - 5:00PM, EST.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Rupal Dharia can be reached on (571)272-3880. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Eric W Shepperd/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2492