DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 07/27/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim 1 have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply in view of newly found references Patel and Wisnia being used in combination with Woodruff in the current rejection. See the new rejection below.
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.
Claims 1-2, 4-9, 11-16, and 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US PG Pub 2023/0209128 to Woodruff (“Woodruff”) in view of US PG Pub 2020/0014974 to Patel (“Patel”) and US Patent 10,606,367 to Wisnia (“Wisnia”).
Regarding claim 1, “A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, having stored thereon program instructions that, when executed by a processor of a computing device, cause performance of operations” reads on the non-transitory CRM that stored instruction executed by meter device (computing device) to perform operations (claims 1 and 9) disclosed by Woodruff and represented in Fig. 1.
As to “comprising: receiving a wireless signal…” Woodruff discloses (¶0062) that the meter device detects an infrared control signal.
As to “…wherein the media presentation device is configured to provide streaming media to a media output device for presentation in a monitored environment, and wherein the computing device, the remote control device, the media presentation device, and the media output device are separate devices located within the monitored environment” Woodruff discloses (¶0049, ¶0053) that the meter device monitors media presentation environment where the media presentation device receives streaming media from a media source, where (¶0050) the media presentation environment is a room of a household as represented in Fig. 1.
As to “based on the determination that the wireless signal comprises the command…to the media presentation device, controlling the media output device to capture an image of the streaming media presented by the media output device and transmit the image to the computing device” Woodruff discloses (¶0031, ¶0065-¶0066, ¶0081) that the image capture device captures an image of the media presented by the media device in response to a command from the meter device and provides it to the meter device.
As to “based on the image, determining source information identifying a streaming service provider as a source of the streaming media” Woodruff discloses (¶0099, ¶0120) that the system identifies the streaming provider logo presented in the captured image as represented in Fig. 7.
Woodruff meets all the limitations of the claim except “receiving a wireless signal transmitted from a remote control device to a media presentation device; …wherein the computing device, the remote control device, the media presentation device, and the media output device are separate devices…; determining that the wireless signal comprises a command sent from the remote control device to the media presentation device; based on the determination that the wireless signal comprises the command sent from the remote control device to the media presentation device, controlling the media output device...” However, Patel discloses (¶0019) that the remote control communicates with the STB via an infrared signal; (abstract, ¶0020) the room includes a remote control, STB, a display device, along with an HDMI pass-through/streamer device and a computing device as represented in Figs. 1-2; (¶0021, ¶0024-¶0025, ¶0033-¶0034, ¶0039, claim 16) the pass-through device intercepts/receives remote control protocol signal sent from the remote control to the STB where to control the STB and monitor its display output, the remote control command is intercepted by the streamer to control and monitor the output of the STB and/or display. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Woodruff’s system by receiving and determining by the computing device a wireless signal transmitted from the remote control to the media presentation device and further control output based on the determination of the signal as taught by Patel in order to intercept and identify the command issued by the remote control to control output of the media over a network (Patel - ¶0002).
Combination of Woodruff and Patel meets all the limitations of the claim except “based on the determination that the…command sent…to the device, controlling the media output device to capture an image of the streaming media presented by the media output device and transmit the image to the computing device.” However, Wisnia discloses (4:20-25) that the system shares an image of the display of the computer by performing the sending a command using an interface to trigger capturing an image of the display and transmitting the image to the remote computer; (16:10-17:9) the method transmits command to take a screen capture, the command causes a screen capture of the display device, retrieves and transmits the captured image to the remote user/device as represented in Fig. 5. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Woodruff and Patel’s systems by controlling the output device to capture an image and transmit the image to the device as taught by Wisnia in order to enable visual analysis of the media being presented based on the remote command instead of continuously monitoring media output.
Regarding claim 2, “The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, the operations further comprising: transmitting the source information over a network to a server located remotely from the monitored environment” Woodruff discloses (¶0049) that the meter identifies the media presented at the media device and reports media monitoring information to an example central facility of an audience measurement entity via an example gateway and an example network as represented in Fig. 1 (element 114).
Regarding claim 4, “The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, the operations further comprising: pairing the computing device with the media output device” Woodruff discloses (¶0031) that the image capture device is wirelessly connected with the meter device that captures screen shots of the presentation at the media presentation device; (¶0058) the devices in the home environment is connected using LAN.
As to “wherein controlling the media output device to capture the image of the streaming media presented by the media output device and transmit the image to the computing device is further based on the pairing and comprises wirelessly transmitting a command that, upon receipt by the media output device, causes the media output device to capture the image of the streaming media presented by the media output device and transmit the image to the computing device” Wisnia discloses (4:20-25) that the system shares an image of the display of the computer by performing the sending a command using an interface to trigger capturing an image of the display and transmitting the image to the remote computer; (16:10-17:9) the method transmits command to take a screen capture, the command causes a screen capture of the display device, retrieves and transmits the captured image to the remote user/device as represented in Fig. 5.
Regarding claim 5, “The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein determining the source information identifying the streaming service provider as the source of the streaming media based on the image comprises detecting, within the image, a logo of the streaming service provider’ Woodruff discloses (¶0099, ¶0141) that the image recognition model identifies provider logo from the captured image as represented in Fig. 9 (elements 904, 906, 908, 918).
Regarding claim 6, “The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein determining the source information identifying the streaming service provider as the source of the streaming media based on the image comprises detecting, within the image, a user interface layout of the streaming service provider” Woodruff discloses (¶0089, ¶0120) that the meter device determines whether a captured image corresponds to a menu of a streaming provider as represented in Fig. 7.
Regarding claim 7, “The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the computing device and the media output device are connected to a local area network of the monitored environment” Woodruff discloses (¶0058) that the home environment is connected using LAN where the meter device and the media presentation device transceiver data via the Internet.
Regarding claim 8, see rejection similar to claim 1.
Regarding claim 9, see rejection similar to claim 2.
Regarding claim 11, see rejection similar to claim 4.
Regarding claim 12, see rejection similar to claim 5.
Regarding claim 13, see rejection similar to claim 6.
Regarding claim 14, see rejection similar to claim 7.
Regarding claim 15, see rejection similar to claim 1.
Regarding claim 16, see rejection similar to claim 2.
Regarding claim 18, see rejection similar to claim 4.
Regarding claim 19, “The computing device of claim 15, wherein determining the source information identifying the streaming service provider as the source of the streaming media based on the image comprises detecting, within the image, one or more of a logo of the streaming service provider or a user interface layout of the streaming service provider” Woodruff discloses (¶0099, ¶0141) that the image recognition model identifies provider logo from the captured image as represented in Fig. 9 (elements 904, 906, 908, 918).
Claims 3, 10, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Woodruff in view of Patel and Wisnia as applied to claims 1, 8, and 15 above, and further in view of US Patent 11,166,063 to Den (“Den”).
Regarding claim 3, combination of Woodruff, Patel, and Wisnia meets all the limitations of the claim except “The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein determining that the wireless signal comprises the command sent from the remote control device to the media presentation device comprises: detecting a code within the wireless signal; comparing the code to at least one of a plurality of predefined codes, wherein each predefined code corresponds to a respective one of a plurality of media presentation devices, wherein the plurality of media presentation devices includes the media presentation device; determining that the code matches a predefined code corresponding to the media presentation device; and based on the determination that the code matches the predefined code corresponding to the media presentation device, determining that the wireless signal comprises the command sent from the remote control device to the media presentation device.” However, Den discloses (5:28-6:3) that when the system receives a command from a smart speaker/remote device to control the STB, the command requires to control the set-top box such that it starts recording Channel 1 on Friday at 4:00 pm for one hour; the system accesses a database of infrared codes that are associated with the set-top box manufacturer and/or model and accesses the appropriate control commands that enable the smart speaker to instruct the set-top box to start recording Channel 1 on Friday at 4:00 pm for one hour; (6:56-7:17) at the smart speaker, the input is interpreted and one or more commands to control the set-top box are identified as represented in Figs. 1-3. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Woodruff, Patel and Wisnia’s systems by determining command sent from the remote device by determining a code that matches a predefined code corresponding to the presentation device as taught by Den in order to identify a command to control the set-top box based on the program data (Den – 1:7-9).
Regarding claim 10, see rejection similar to claim 3.
Regarding claim 17, see rejection similar to claim 3.
Claim 21 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Woodruff in view of Patel and Wisnia as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US PG Pub 2009/0051824 to Satou (“Satou”).
Regarding claim 21, combination of Woodruff, Patel, and Wisnia meets all the limitations of the claim except “The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein determining that the wireless signal comprises the command sent from the remote control device to the media presentation device comprises distinguishing the command sent from the remote control device to the media presentation device from a command sent from one or more of the remote control device or another control device to the media output device.” However, Satou discloses (¶0041, ¶0212) that the system includes a remote controller, a first apparatus such as a video display, and a second apparatus such as a DVD player; the system receives a command issued from the remote controller and transfers the received command, via the bus, to at least one of the video display apparatus and the at least one second video apparatus; a classification unit classifies the command issued from the remote controller; and a transfer unit which: in the case where the classification unit classifies the command as a dedicated command for the video display apparatus, transfers the dedicated command to the video display apparatus; and in the case where the classification unit classifies the command as a common command which can be run commonly among plural devices connected to the bus, transfers, via the bus, to the video display apparatus and the at least one second video output apparatus. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Woodruff, Patel and Wisnia’s systems by distinguishing command sent from the remote control for different devices as taught by Satou in order to route the command to the appropriate device.
Conclusion
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/PINKAL R CHOKSHI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2425
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