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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks pg. 10, filed 1/30/2026, with respect to the status of the claims are hereby acknowledged.
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks pg. 10, filed 1/30/2026, with respect to Double Patenting Rejections have been fully considered and are persuasive in view of the applicant’s filing of a terminal disclaimer citing U.S. Patent No. 12,177,516B1.
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks pg. 10-14, filed 1/30/2026, with respect to the obviousness rejection of claims under 35 U.S.C. 103 is hereby acknowledged. The examiner notes that the applicant’s arguments are directed, in part, to the newly amended limitations. Therefore, the examiner will set forth a new grounds of rejection with newly found prior art in order to take into consideration the newly amended limitations.
The examiner herein acknowledges the applicant’s arguments (See Remarks pg. 10-11) regarding the obviousness rejection comprising the prior art to Harkness, Price, Smith, and Soundararajan, however, the examiner respectfully disagrees with the applicant’s arguments. In particular, applicant initially argues the following before discussing the amendments to the claims:
Claim 1 recites "determining audience engagement information for the media session based on detecting a request for the supplementary content from the at least one media presentation device to the supplementary media provider." The Examiner relied on a combination of Harkness, Price, Smith, and Soundararajan to reject this claim limitation. In particular, the Examiner primarily cited Harkness at paragraph 68 for allegedly teaching an audience measurement device that stores a log of audience measurement data and sends collected data to the ratings server, where the collected data comprises content exposure data, codes, URLs, person identification, etc. for primary content and secondary content. The Examiner also cited Soundararajan at paragraphs 28, 40, 45, 68, and 91-92 for an alleged teaching of engagement information collected via a portable device. Portions of Smith and Price were cited as well in combination with Harkness and Soundararajan in addressing this limitation grouped with various others. However, Applicant submits that the cited combination of references does not teach this limitation…For at least these reasons, none of the references, individually or in combination, teach or suggest using the detection of a request for supplementary content, as transmitted from the media presentation device(s) to the supplementary media provider, as the basis for determining audience engagement information. Nevertheless, and without acquiescing in the Examiner's position regarding this claim limitation, Applicant has amended claim 1 to provide additional clarity that the request used to determine the audience engagement information is representative of a user's affirmative decision to retrieve supplementary content in response to an opportunity presented during a media session. In particular, claim 1 is amended to recite that "the request representing a decision made by a user of the at least one media presentation device to retrieve the supplementary content in response to encountering a supplementary content opportunity during the media session." Furthermore, Applicant respectfully submits that the cited references do not teach or suggest "determining viewing information associated with the media session based on a consumption data message in the network traffic, the consumption data message transmitted by the at least one media presentation device," as recited by claim 1.
First, in response to the applicant’s argument that the Office Action fails to meet the obviousness standards cited by the applicant, the test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981). More importantly, on the issue of obviousness, the Supreme Court stated that when a patent simply arranges old elements with each performing the same function it had been known to perform and yields no more than one would expect from such an arrangement, the combination is obvious. KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007) (citing Sakraida v. AG Pro, Inc., 425 U.S. 273, 96 S. Ct. 1532, 47 L. Ed. 2d 784 (1976)). The Court further reiterated that in circumstances where the combination of two pre-existing elements did no more than they would in separate, sequential operation, the patent failed under 35 U.S.C. 103. See id. at 416-417 (citing Anderson's-Black Rock, Inc. v. Pavement Salvage Co., 396 U.S. 57, 90 S. Ct. 305, 24 L. Ed. 2d 258 (1969)). The analysis of a rejection on obviousness grounds need not seek out precise teachings directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged claim, for a court can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ. See id. at 418. The obvious analysis cannot be confined by a formalistic conception of the words teaching, suggestion, and motivation. Id. at 419. Further, the Court stated that common sense teaches, however, that familiar items may have obvious uses beyond their primary purposes, and in many cases a person of ordinary skill will be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle. See id. at 420.
The examiner will rely on the teachings of Soundararajan further disclose the limitations with respect to using the detection of a request for supplementary content, as transmitted from the media presentation device(s) to the supplementary media provider, as the basis for determining audience engagement information and more importantly, the limitations cited in the independent claim (i.e., the request representing a decision made by a user of the at least one media presentation device to retrieve the supplementary content in response to encountering a supplementary content opportunity during the media session and using the detection of a request for supplementary content, as transmitted from the media presentation device(s) to the supplementary media provider, as the basis for determining audience engagement information). For example, Soundararajan para 28, 40, 45, 68, 91-92 discloses teachings relevant to the claimed invention wherein Soundararajan’s disclosure teaches “…information regarding the usage of the portable device (e.g., applications on the device) is collected by the portable device to be analyzed to determine a level of engagement of the person to media being presented on the primary media presentation device. The additional data collected via the portable device (e.g., engagement information and/or activity information) is referred to herein as “augmented audience data” because it provides additional information that can augment or enhance audience measurement data with additional (e.g., behavioral and/or engagement) information about the detected audience members and/or their viewing habits and behaviors.”
Furthermore, in paragraph 45 of Soundararajan teaches the following:
[0045] In some examples, the first portable device 114 functions as a second screen device playing media (e.g., content and/or advertisements) supplemental to media separately playing on, for example, the media presentation device 104. For example, while a media presentation is being played on the media presentation device 104, the first person 120 may be viewing and/or interacting with supplemental media on the first portable device 114. In some such examples, the first portable device 114 monitors the media presentation of the media presentation device 104 and the supplemental media being presented on the first portable device 114. In some examples, the detected supplemental media and/or detected interactions with the supplemental media is analyzed to determine a level of engagement of the first person 120 (e.g., with the primary media presentation device 104). In some examples, the supplemental media may be used to determine whether the first person 120 is properly characterized as an audience member of the media presentation playing on the primary media presentation device 104 (e.g., according to the primary people meter 112). For example, where the presence of the first person 120 in the media exposure environment 102 is uncertain based on inconclusive location information and/or proximity information, detected interaction with supplemental media on the first portable device 114 corresponding to the media presentation playing on the media presentation device 104 is indicative of the first person 120 being an audience member of the media presentation. In contrast, if media detected on the first portable device 114 is unrelated to the media presentation of the media presentation device 104, the first person 120 is tracked as present but not engaged with the media presentation of the media presentation device 104.
Additionally, Soundararajan para [0061] teaches “The second portable device 118 of FIG. 1 may additionally or alternatively be implemented by the example of FIG. 4. In the illustrated example of FIG. 4, the portable device 114 includes a media detector 434 to collect information identifying media in a similar manner as the media detector 202 of FIG. 2 described above. In some examples, the media detector 434 collects information regarding media being viewed on the portable device 114 regardless of the source of the media (e.g., irrespective of whether the media is being played on, for example, the primary media presentation device 104 or on the portable device 114 itself (e.g., when the portable device 114 functions as a primary media presentation device)). In some examples, the media detector 434 of FIG. 4 additionally or alternatively collects information regarding supplemental media being viewed on the first portable device 114 (e.g., when the first portable device 114 functions as a second screen device). Data collected by the example media detector 434 of FIG. 4 is stored in memory 414 of the first portable device 114.” A person of ordinary skill in the art would have reasonably inferred, based on the teachings of Soundararajan that the media presentation devices are used in conjunction with one another to present primary content and secondary supplemental content that is related to the primary content.
In order to clarify the inferences that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have made based on the teachings of the prior art, the examiner will set for the additional teachings of newly cited prior art to McIntire and Gellman.
In an analogous art, McIntire discloses utilizing two separate devices as claimed and further teaches a motivation of modifying the teachings of Soundararajan wherein McIntire para 372 and 474 teaches items of supplemental content may provide the capability to click thereon and receive further information related to the item, perhaps by opening a web browser to a relevant web page. Such additional information could also encompass a commercial opportunity (e.g., to enable purchase of a product that was advertised in the clicked-upon item of supplemental content). Additional information may either be pre-existing information, such as an e-commerce website or web encyclopedia, or may be information created specifically for this purpose (e.g., a custom e-commerce store, perhaps created to showcase a particular set of articles. See McIntire teaching the following:
[0372] As described in further detail below, supplemental content mapped to the segment identifiers will be displayed either simultaneously (e.g., in a separate frame of the same display) with the media stream or "saved" and displayed later, in some embodiments on a different platform in addition to or instead of the platform used to view the media stream. If the supplemental content is to be displayed simultaneously with the media stream, the items of supplemental content will need to appear on the screen for a sufficient period of time so that a viewer of the media stream has a chance to view the items. Items of supplemental content may provide the capability to click thereon and receive further information related to the item, perhaps by opening a web browser to a relevant web page. Such additional information could also encompass a commercial opportunity (e.g., to enable purchase of a product that was advertised in the clicked-upon item of supplemental content). Additional information may either be pre-existing information, such as an e-commerce website or web encyclopedia, or may be information created specifically for this purpose (e.g., a custom e-commerce store, perhaps created to showcase a particular set of articles, for example articles created by the user him or herself). FIG. 35 illustrates the exemplary media stream 3200 of FIG. 32, wherein an item 3500 of supplemental content is mapped such that the item 3500 of supplemental content is displayed simultaneously with at least a segment of the media stream 3200.
[0474]…Specifically, as illustrated in FIG. 47, a viewer viewing a media stream on a home theater viewing device 4700 may choose to pause the media stream and send the segment identifier identifying the current segment of the media stream to his/her account with an access provider 4702. As illustrated in FIG. 48, the viewer may later request to receive the media stream (potentially via a new display device 4800, such as a portable media player), resuming at the segment at which he/she paused the media stream. The access provider 4702 would then read the segment identifier stored in the viewer's account to retrieve the requested segment(s) of the media stream and distribute the requested segment(s) to the viewer.
More importantly, McIntire also discloses that the actionable indications associated with supplementation content are associated with an e-commerce site in order to not interrupt the media content and keep a viewer from, say, a television show to an e-commerce website might cause a loss of viewership (McIntire para 292, 166, 318). For example, paragraph 382 teaches “Alternatively, if the method 900 concludes in step 918 that the subsequent signal does indicate that the viewer wishes to purchase one or more articles depicted in the supplemental content, the method 900 proceeds to step 920 and consummates the desired transaction (e.g., via an Internet e-commerce site). Once the transaction is completed, the method 900 returns to step 914 and awaits a signal from the viewer indicating how to proceed (e.g., return to media stream or consummate another transaction).”
Equally important, as discussed above, McIntire contemplates that a viewer will utilize two platforms (e.g., portable media player and television as discussed inter alia para 372, 474, 397) to view the media content and the supplemental content (e.g., television and portable device) as discussed, inter alia, in paragraph 372 and 474 which teaches embodiments for viewing the content simultaneously on two different device platforms or use separate devices for later viewing (e.g., placeshifting).
In addition to McIntire, Gellman further clarifies the inferences that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have made based on the teachings of the prior art, wherein Gellman para 24-30 and 32-34 and Fig. 8a and 8b teaches an interactive multimedia system allows a digital media being displayed simultaneously among multiple devices of the users system wherein a user may interact with the digital media on one device while the digital media is continuously being displayed on the rest of the devices and further records and/or track items viewed. Gellman’s disclosure cited above also discloses tracking network traffic comprising web addresses, URL’s and/or links to content requested by user devices.
All things considered, the examiner will set forth a new grounds of rejection in order to address the newly amended limitations.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim(s) 1-5, 8-13, 15-16, 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Harkness; David Henry et al. US20190281349A1 (hereafter Harkness) and in further view of Price; Lois et al. US20140172434A1 (hereafter Price) and in further view of Smith; Kale et al. US20200195535A1 (hereafter Smith) and in further view of Soundararajan; Padmanabhan et al. US 20150189378 A1 (hereafter Soundararajan) and in further view of McIntire; John P. et al. US 20070250901 A1 (hereafter McIntire) and in further view of Gellman; Thatcher Thornburg US 20230188797 A1 (hereafter Gellman).
Regarding claim 1, “a metering device of an audience measurement entity, the metering device comprising: a processor; and memory storing computer readable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the metering device to perform operations comprising: during a media session in which at least one media presentation device renders (i) primary content requested and received by the at least one media presentation device from a primary media provider and (ii) supplementary content associated with the primary content, requested and received by the at least one media presentation device from a supplementary media provider, monitoring network traffic between the at least one media presentation device and the primary media provider and between the at least one media presentation device and the supplementary media provider, wherein the metering device is connected to the at least one media presentation device and located locally with the at least one media presentation device in a media presentation environment” Harkness para 63 teaches a media presentation environment and para 68 teaches an audience measurement device local to at least one presentation device in a media presentation environment corresponding to a metering device that performs functions in para 60-65 related to identifying codes in primary content provided to at least one media presentation device which results in secondary content being requested by at least one media presentation device (para 62-67) and para 68 further teaches providing secondary content comprising embedded codes, signatures detected/decoded/extracted and or computed by an audience measuring device associated with the primary presentation device or the secondary presentation device. Regarding “determining a program identifier of the primary content the program identifier indicative of a program presented as the primary content by the at least one media presentation device; determining characteristics of the supplementary content based on one or more of a signature or a watermark associated with presentation of the supplementary content” Harkness para 60-65 regarding identifying codes/identifiers in primary content provided to at least one media presentation device which results in secondary content being requested by at least one media presentation device (para 62-67) and para 68 further teaches providing secondary content comprising embedded codes, signatures detected/decoded/extracted and or computed by an audience measuring device associated with the primary presentation device or the secondary presentation device in order to generate a log of audience measurement comprising each code, signature, non-payload information detected, extracted, computed and/or decoded; see also para 72 teaches detecting a code embedded in media content and/or an identifier contained in a non-payload portion of the media content (e.g., a PID, a SID), which may be currently being presented, the secondary content triggerer 180 notifies the secondary content presentation device 150 wherein some examples exclude the secondary content rely on the secondary content presentation device 150 to detect inaudible codes and utilize the same to retrieve secondary content. See also para 197-205 identifying information for primary media content and respective secondary content offer comprising identifying type data corresponding to characteristics.
Regarding “determining viewing information associated with the media session based on a consumption data message in the network traffic, the consumption data message transmitted by the at least one media presentation device; determining a content identifier of the primary content, the content identifier indicative of media content presented as the primary content by the at least one media presentation device; determining audience engagement information for the media session based on detecting a request for the supplementary content from the at least one media presentation device to the supplementary media provider; determining a panelist identifier of a user of the at least one media presentation device; associating the panelist identifier with the viewing information, the content identifier of the primary content, and the audience engagement information for the media session; generating a media session report based on the panelist identifier, the viewing information, the content identifier, and the audience engagement information for the media session, the media session report indicating exposure of the user to the primary content and the supplementary content during the media session; and transmitting the media session report over a network to a remote server associated with the audience measurement entity” Harkness para 68 teaches an audience measurement device associated with the primary content presentation device 110 (not shown), and/or similar devices at other locations stores a log of audience measurement data and periodically or aperiodically sends the collected data to the ratings server for processing wherein the collected data comprises content exposure data (i.e., corresponds to viewing information), codes, URLs, person identification (i.e., corresponds to panelist identifier), etc. for primary content and secondary content or both the primary and secondary content. See also para 197-205 disclosing that identifying information (i.e., identifiers) for primary media content and respective secondary content offer comprising identifying type data corresponding to characteristics and para 72 teaches detecting a code embedded in media content and/or an identifier contained in a non-payload portion of the media content (e.g., a PID, a SID). A person of ordinary skill in the art would have reasonably inferred that the log disclosed in Harkness is interpreted as a “report” as understood in the prior art.
In an analogous art, Price para 38-39 teaches a metering device coupled to a media presentation device to decode or extract the information encoded in a media transport stream wherein the information extracted by the metering device can included identifiers, timestamps, or any other information embedded or otherwise inserted in the transport stream and the metering device further associates locally generated information such as identifying information (names, demographics information) associated with one or more persons consuming media presented via the media presentation device and wherein metering device 156 may also include locally generated time information (e.g., time stamps) to be associated with SID's or other information associated with programs, channels, etc. consumed at the consumption site 104 and transmits the logged information (interpreted as a “report” because the data describes in detail an event and based on the dictionary definition of “report”).
Whereas Price does not use the term “report” and further does not refer to the data as “exposure”, in an analogous art, Smith para 20 teaches that a “media exposure event is the data collected when media is presented on a media presentation device. Media exposure events include, but are not limited to, metering data (e.g., media-identifying metadata, codes, signatures, watermarks, and/or other information that may be used to identify presented media), and/or application usage information (e.g., an identifier of an application, a time and/or duration of use of the application, a rating of the application, etc.), and/or user-identifying information (e.g., demographic information, a user identifier, a panelist identifier, a username, etc.), and/or presentation information (e.g., the time/date the content was presented, the location the content was presented, the device type the content was presented on, etc.)” and Smith further teaches that media exposure events are provided by a meter that monitors network traffic to and from the media presentation device.
In addition to disclosing a motivation to modify Harkness and Price, the teachings of Soundararajan further disclose the limitations with respect to using the detection of a request for supplementary content, as transmitted from the media presentation device(s) to the supplementary media provider, as the basis for determining audience engagement information and more importantly, the limitations cited in the independent claim (i.e., the request representing a decision made by a user of the at least one media presentation device to retrieve the supplementary content in response to encountering a supplementary content opportunity during the media session and using the detection of a request for supplementary content, as transmitted from the media presentation device(s) to the supplementary media provider, as the basis for determining audience engagement information). First, for example, Soundararajan para 28, 40, 45, 68, 91-92 discloses teachings relevant to the claimed invention wherein Soundararajan’s disclosure teaches “…information regarding the usage of the portable device (e.g., applications on the device) is collected by the portable device to be analyzed to determine a level of engagement of the person to media being presented on the primary media presentation device. The additional data collected via the portable device (e.g., engagement information and/or activity information) is referred to herein as “augmented audience data” because it provides additional information that can augment or enhance audience measurement data with additional (e.g., behavioral and/or engagement) information about the detected audience members and/or their viewing habits and behaviors.”
For example, in paragraph 45 of Soundararajan teaches the following:
[0045] In some examples, the first portable device 114 functions as a second screen device playing media (e.g., content and/or advertisements) supplemental to media separately playing on, for example, the media presentation device 104. For example, while a media presentation is being played on the media presentation device 104, the first person 120 may be viewing and/or interacting with supplemental media on the first portable device 114. In some such examples, the first portable device 114 monitors the media presentation of the media presentation device 104 and the supplemental media being presented on the first portable device 114. In some examples, the detected supplemental media and/or detected interactions with the supplemental media is analyzed to determine a level of engagement of the first person 120 (e.g., with the primary media presentation device 104). In some examples, the supplemental media may be used to determine whether the first person 120 is properly characterized as an audience member of the media presentation playing on the primary media presentation device 104 (e.g., according to the primary people meter 112). For example, where the presence of the first person 120 in the media exposure environment 102 is uncertain based on inconclusive location information and/or proximity information, detected interaction with supplemental media on the first portable device 114 corresponding to the media presentation playing on the media presentation device 104 is indicative of the first person 120 being an audience member of the media presentation. In contrast, if media detected on the first portable device 114 is unrelated to the media presentation of the media presentation device 104, the first person 120 is tracked as present but not engaged with the media presentation of the media presentation device 104.
Additionally, Soundararajan para [0061] teaches:
The second portable device 118 of FIG. 1 may additionally or alternatively be implemented by the example of FIG. 4. In the illustrated example of FIG. 4, the portable device 114 includes a media detector 434 to collect information identifying media in a similar manner as the media detector 202 of FIG. 2 described above. In some examples, the media detector 434 collects information regarding media being viewed on the portable device 114 regardless of the source of the media (e.g., irrespective of whether the media is being played on, for example, the primary media presentation device 104 or on the portable device 114 itself (e.g., when the portable device 114 functions as a primary media presentation device)). In some examples, the media detector 434 of FIG. 4 additionally or alternatively collects information regarding supplemental media being viewed on the first portable device 114 (e.g., when the first portable device 114 functions as a second screen device). Data collected by the example media detector 434 of FIG. 4 is stored in memory 414 of the first portable device 114.
In essence, the prior art to Soundararajan teaches the majority of elements in independent claims of the current application wherein Soundararajan does state “[a]lthough periodically inputting information in response to a prompt may not be burdensome when required for an hour, a day or even a week or two, some participants find the prompting and data input tasks to be intrusive and annoying over longer periods of time. As a result, in some instances, panelists may choose to ignore prompts from the people meter and, thus, fail to provide accurate presence information. As such, there is a need to reduce a frequency at which the panelists are prompted while gathering accurate presence information, especially when the presence information is to be used in connection with detected media being played on a media presentation device.” As such, Soundararajan appears to suggest addressing a known problem of identifying when a viewer is engaging with primary and secondary content and is not ignoring the presented content.
A person of ordinary skill in the art would have reasonably inferred, based on the teachings of Soundararajan that the media presentation devices are used in conjunction with one another to present primary content and secondary supplemental content that is related to the primary content. In order to clarify the inferences that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have made based on the teachings of the prior art, the examiner will set for the additional teachings of McIntire and Gellman.
In an analogous art, McIntire discloses utilizing two separate devices as claimed and further teaches a motivation of modifying the teachings of Soundararajan wherein McIntire para 372 and 474 teaches items of supplemental content may provide the capability to click thereon and receive further information related to the item, perhaps by opening a web browser to a relevant web page. Such additional information could also encompass a commercial opportunity (e.g., to enable purchase of a product that was advertised in the clicked-upon item of supplemental content). Additional information may either be pre-existing information, such as an e-commerce website or web encyclopedia, or may be information created specifically for this purpose (e.g., a custom e-commerce store, perhaps created to showcase a particular set of articles. See McIntire teaching the following:
[0372] As described in further detail below, supplemental content mapped to the segment identifiers will be displayed either simultaneously (e.g., in a separate frame of the same display) with the media stream or "saved" and displayed later, in some embodiments on a different platform in addition to or instead of the platform used to view the media stream. If the supplemental content is to be displayed simultaneously with the media stream, the items of supplemental content will need to appear on the screen for a sufficient period of time so that a viewer of the media stream has a chance to view the items. Items of supplemental content may provide the capability to click thereon and receive further information related to the item, perhaps by opening a web browser to a relevant web page. Such additional information could also encompass a commercial opportunity (e.g., to enable purchase of a product that was advertised in the clicked-upon item of supplemental content). Additional information may either be pre-existing information, such as an e-commerce website or web encyclopedia, or may be information created specifically for this purpose (e.g., a custom e-commerce store, perhaps created to showcase a particular set of articles, for example articles created by the user him or herself). FIG. 35 illustrates the exemplary media stream 3200 of FIG. 32, wherein an item 3500 of supplemental content is mapped such that the item 3500 of supplemental content is displayed simultaneously with at least a segment of the media stream 3200.
[0474]…Specifically, as illustrated in FIG. 47, a viewer viewing a media stream on a home theater viewing device 4700 may choose to pause the media stream and send the segment identifier identifying the current segment of the media stream to his/her account with an access provider 4702. As illustrated in FIG. 48, the viewer may later request to receive the media stream (potentially via a new display device 4800, such as a portable media player), resuming at the segment at which he/she paused the media stream. The access provider 4702 would then read the segment identifier stored in the viewer's account to retrieve the requested segment(s) of the media stream and distribute the requested segment(s) to the viewer.
More importantly, McIntire also discloses that the actionable indications associated with supplementation content are associated with an e-commerce site in order to not interrupt the media content and keep a viewer from, say, a television show to an e-commerce website might cause a loss of viewership (McIntire para 292, 166, 318). For example, paragraph 382 teaches “Alternatively, if the method 900 concludes in step 918 that the subsequent signal does indicate that the viewer wishes to purchase one or more articles depicted in the supplemental content, the method 900 proceeds to step 920 and consummates the desired transaction (e.g., via an Internet e-commerce site). Once the transaction is completed, the method 900 returns to step 914 and awaits a signal from the viewer indicating how to proceed (e.g., return to media stream or consummate another transaction).”
Equally important, as discussed above, McIntire contemplates that a viewer will utilize two platforms (e.g., portable media player and television as discussed inter alia para 372, 474, 397) to view the media content and the supplemental content (e.g., television and portable device) as discussed, inter alia, in paragraph 372 and 474 which teaches embodiments for viewing the content simultaneously on two different device platforms or use separate devices for later viewing (e.g., placeshifting).
In addition to McIntire, Gellman further clarifies the inferences that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have made based on the teachings of the prior art, wherein Gellman para 24-30 and 32-34 and Fig. 8a and 8b teaches an interactive multimedia system allows a digital media being displayed simultaneously among multiple devices of the users system wherein a user may interact with the digital media on one device while the digital media is continuously being displayed on the rest of the devices and further records and/or track items viewed. Gellman’s disclosure cited above also discloses tracking network traffic comprising web addresses, URL’s and/or links to content requested by user devices.
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Harkness’ invention comprising a metering device of an audience measuring entity for transmitting the media session log over a network to a remote server associated with the audience measurement entity wherein the report is generated by monitoring network traffic between the at least one media presentation device and the primary media provider and between the at least one media presentation device and the supplementary media provider and further determine a program identifier of the primary content the program identifier indicative of a program presented as the primary content by the at least one media presentation device and determining characteristics of the supplementary content based on one or more of a signature or a watermark associated with presentation of the supplementary content by further incorporating known elements of Price for a metering device coupled to a media presentation device to decode or extract the information encoded in a media transport stream wherein the information extracted by the metering device can included identifiers, timestamps, or any other information embedded or otherwise inserted in the transport stream and the metering device further associates locally generated information such as identifying information associated with one or more persons consuming media presented via the media presentation device because the combination of known elements for a metering device that captures consumption data from monitoring media network traffic related to a presentation device, as disclosed by Smith, would facilitate the tracking of usage information for each viewer in a household and more accurately capture exposure statistics and because Soundararajan recognizes the benefit of additional data collected via the portable device (e.g., engagement information and/or activity information) is referred to herein as “augmented audience data” because it provides additional information that can augment or enhance audience measurement data with additional (e.g., behavioral and/or engagement) information about the detected audience members and/or their viewing habits and behaviors and McIntire and Gellman teach an interactive multimedia system allows a digital media being displayed simultaneously among multiple devices of the users system wherein a user may interact with the digital media on one device while the digital media is continuously being displayed on the rest of the devices and further records and/or track items viewed.
Regarding claim 2, “wherein determining the audience engagement information is further based on determining a duration for which the supplementary content was played out” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claim 1 wherein Harkness para 56, 197-205 teaches identifying information for primary media content and respective secondary content offer comprising identifying type data corresponding to characteristics. See also Smith para 20 teaches that a “media exposure event is the data collected when media is presented on a media presentation device. Media exposure events include, but are not limited to, metering data (e.g., media-identifying metadata, codes, signatures, watermarks, and/or other information that may be used to identify presented media), and/or application usage information (e.g., an identifier of an application, a time and/or duration of use of the application, a rating of the application, etc.), and/or user-identifying information (e.g., demographic information, a user identifier, a panelist identifier, a username, etc.), and/or presentation information (e.g., the time/date the content was presented, the location the content was presented, the device type the content was presented on, etc.).”
Regarding claim 3, “wherein determining the audience engagement information is further based on detecting one or more of a signature or a watermark associated with presentation of the supplementary content” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-2 wherein Harkness para 196-198 teaches that each secondary content is associated with the primary content wherein the secondary content offerings are associated with a schedule which identifies what type of content is available for presentation and the associated primary content to which the secondary content will be displayed with. A person of ordinary skill in the art would reasonably infer that identifying the secondary content would provide the identification of which primary content is being presented based on the schedule. See also Soundararajan para 56.
Regarding claim 4, “wherein determining the audience engagement information is further based on detecting one or more changes to the viewing information over time” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-3 wherein Soundararajan para 15, 26, 35, 47 teaching inter alia the example people analyzer 200 of FIG. 2 generates people counts or tallies corresponding to periods of time and/or in response to a detected change in the primary presence data collected via the primary people meter 112.
Regarding claim 5, “wherein determining the viewing information comprises determining a start time at which an application associated with presentation of the primary content is accessed and determining an end time at which access of the application ends” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-4 wherein Harkness para 56, 197-205 teaches identifying information for primary media content and respective secondary content offer comprising identifying type data corresponding to characteristics. See also Smith para 20 teaches that a “media exposure event is the data collected when media is presented on a media presentation device. Media exposure events include, but are not limited to, metering data (e.g., media-identifying metadata, codes, signatures, watermarks, and/or other information that may be used to identify presented media), and/or application usage information (e.g., an identifier of an application, a time and/or duration of use of the application, a rating of the application, etc.), and/or user-identifying information (e.g., demographic information, a user identifier, a panelist identifier, a username, etc.), and/or presentation information (e.g., the time/date the content was presented, the location the content was presented, the device type the content was presented on, etc.)”. See also Soundararajan para 15, 26, 35, 47 teaching inter alia the example people analyzer 200 of FIG. 2 generates people counts or tallies corresponding to periods of time and/or in response to a detected change in the primary presence data collected via the primary people meter 112.
Regarding claim 8, “wherein the remote server is configured to determine demographics of an audience of the supplementary content provided by a server associated with the supplementary content based on the panelist identifier” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-3, 6, 9-11 wherein Harkness para 68 for determining demographics. See also Smith para 51. See also Price para 38-40.
Regarding the non-transitory computer readable medium claims 9-13 and method claims 15-16, 18-19 the claims are grouped and rejected with the method claims 1-5, 8 because the steps of the method claims are met by the disclosure of the apparatus and methods of the reference(s) as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-5, 8 and because the steps of the method are easily converted into elements of computer implemented methods by one of ordinary skill in the art.
Regarding claim 21, “wherein the consumption data message includes a consumption data unit indicative of one or more of: a service identifier associated with a service of the primary content or the supplementary content being accessed by the at least one media presentation device, a start time of the service access, and an end time of the service access, or an application identifier associated with an application being accessed by the at least one media presentation device, a start time of the application access, and an end time of the application access” is further rejected as discussed in the rejection of claim 1 wherein Soundararajan para 54-56 teaches source identification data and codes identifying the channel provider. See also McIntire cited in the rejection of claim 1 referencing web address of where content is obtained. See also Gellman para 24-30 and 32-34 discloses tracking network traffic comprising web addresses, URL’s and/or links to content requested by user devices
Claim(s) 6-7, 14, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Harkness; David Henry et al. US20190281349A1 (hereafter Harkness) and in further view of Price; Lois et al. US20140172434A1 (hereafter Price) and in further view of Smith; Kale et al. US20200195535A1 (hereafter Smith) and in further view of Soundararajan; Padmanabhan et al. US 20150189378 A1 (hereafter Soundararajan) and in further view of McIntire; John P. et al. US 20070250901 A1 (hereafter McIntire) and in further view of Gellman; Thatcher Thornburg US 20230188797 A1 (hereafter Gellman) and in further view of McMillan; Francis Gavin et al. US 20120265735 A1 (hereafter McMillan).
Regarding claim 6 “wherein determining the viewing information comprises determining a playback speed at which the media presentation device is presenting one or more of the primary content or the supplementary content” Harkness, Price, Smith, Soundararajan, McIntire, and Gellman render obvious determining viewing information but do not disclose playback speed as discussed in claims 1-5. In an analogous art, McMillan para 38 teaches media content that is presented at the presentation location 114, media content that is presented at the presentation location 114 but is not viewed or heard and while the example monitoring instructions 115 of the illustrated example transmit the tag and information identifying the presentation location 114 to the central facility 120, the monitoring instructions 115 may transmit any additional or alternative information such as, for example, information about trick play of the media content, information about user input, etc. A person of ordinary skill in the art would understand trick play information to comprise viewing speed functions such as fast-forward.
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Harkness, Price, Smith, Soundararajan, McIntire, and Gellman comprising a metering device of an audience measuring entity for transmitting the media session log over a network to a remote server associated with the audience measurement entity wherein the report is generated by monitoring network traffic between the at least one media presentation device and the primary media provider and between the at least one media presentation device and the supplementary media provider for monitoring viewing information by further incorporating known elements of McMillan for monitoring media content that is presented at the presentation location, media content that is presented at the presentation location but is not viewed or heard comprising any additional or alternative information such as, for example, information about trick play of the media content, information about user input, etc. in order to improve the accuracy of captured information of the extend as to how content was viewed.
Regarding claim 7, “wherein determining the content identifier comprises determining the content identifier based on the monitored network traffic between the at least one media presentation device and the supplementary media provider” is further rejected on obviousness grounds as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-6 wherein Harkness para 196-198 teaches that each secondary content is associated with the primary content wherein the secondary content offerings are associated with a schedule which identifies what type of content is available for presentation and the associated primary content to which the secondary content will be displayed with. A person of ordinary skill in the art would reasonably infer that identifying the secondary content would provide the identification of which primary content is being presented based on the schedule. See also McMillan para 57-60 teaches an identification tag for content that has been presented on the media presentation device matches, or does not match, identifying information and/or attribute data extracted from the media.
Regarding the non-transitory computer readable medium claims 14 and method claims 20 the claims are grouped and rejected with the method claims 1-13 and 15-19 because the steps of the method claims are met by the disclosure of the apparatus and methods of the reference(s) as discussed in the rejection of claims 1-13 and 15-19 and because the steps of the method are easily converted into elements of computer implemented methods by one of ordinary skill in the art.
CONCLUSION
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/ALFONSO CASTRO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2421
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