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 office action is in response to amendment/reconsideration filed 9/17/2026, the amendment/reconsideration has been considered. Claims 1-20 are pending for examination.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments been fully considered but they are not all persuasive. The applicant argues the following issues.
(A) Rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112
Issue: The applicant argues with respect to dependent claim 4 that the amended limitations overcome the current 112 rejection.
The arguments are moot in light of the new ground of 112 rejection set forth below.
(B) Rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103(a)
Issue: The applicant argues with respect to independent claims such as claim 1 that the amended limitations, e.g., “determining that an entirety of the series of content items has been viewed by the subscription profile; and based at least in part on determining that the entirety of the series of content items was viewed, modifying the subscription profile to remove access to the series of content items”, overcome the current rejection.
This arguments are moot in light of the new ground of 103 rejection set forth below.
(C) Rejection under Double Patenting Rejection
Issue: The applicant argues that the Terminal Disclaimer filed on 9/17/2026 overcome the current Double Patenting rejections.
The subject Double Patenting rejections have been withdrawn in light of the approved Terminal Disclaimer.
Terminal Disclaimer
3. The terminal disclaimer filed on 9/17/2026 disclaiming the terminal portion of any patent granted on this application which would extend beyond the expiration date of US Patent 12184934 has been reviewed and is accepted. The terminal disclaimer has been recorded.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. Claims 4-6 and 14-16 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. Claim 4 recites “the selectable option” which lacks sufficient antecedent basis. It is unclear whether the recited “the selectable option” refers to one of the at least one selectable options recited in claim 1 or some other selectable option, and in either case, which one. Applicant is required to clarify. For the sake of the examination, Examiner assumes any selectable option. Claims 5-6 and 14-16 are similarly rejected.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
10. Claims 1-6 and 11-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Phadnis (US 2025/0265632, hereafter “Phadnis’632”) in view of PHADNIS (US 2016/0301979, hereafter “PHADNIS’979”) and Greenfield (US 9774926 B1).
As to claim 1, Phadnis’632 discloses a method comprising:
determining an interest in a series of content items based at least in part on a subscription profile ([0019], “Based on the user subscription info received and user activities and preference data, if any, the viewer preference data has been generated. The user activity and transaction data and accordingly the preference columns of the viewer dataset at the viewer preference manager (1014) are updated and a Recommended List of channels and programs based on User preference is generated”, wherein the content items in any one channel/program of the “Recommended List of channels and programs” are a determined series of content items of interest because they are generated based on the “User preference”, such as a series of content items in a video/movie program, see [0056], “personalized recommendations (A-la-carte channels, Video on Demand, Movies, top-ups, pack upgrades, etc) based on the at least one subscriber/user activities and preferences, as well as current subscriptions”);
based at least in part on the determined interest satisfying a condition, determining whether the subscription profile has access to the series of content items ([0075], “the personalized subscription recommendation service may filter the set of available subscription packages to eliminate any subscription packages that the subscriber is already subscribed to. In other words, the personalized subscription recommendation service may filter the subscription packages to generate a subset of subscription packages that includes only those subscription packages that are not included in the subscriber's current subscription. The personalized subscription recommendation service can then select one of the subset of subscription packages as the subscription recommendation”. Here, “available” is a condition that the determined interest needs to satisfy, and generating “a subset of subscription packages that includes only those subscription packages that are not included in the subscriber's current subscription” indicates determining whether the subscription profile has access to each recommended package including the finally selected subscription package); and
based at least in part on determining that the subscription profile lacks access to the series of content items (see citation above, “a subset of subscription packages that includes only those subscription packages that are not included in the subscriber's current subscription… select one of the subset of subscription packages as the subscription recommendation”):
causing display of at least one Recommendation to the user (Fig. 4, “Recommendations delivered to…Users”; Fig. 7, “RE sends Recommendation” “To Users via Web Portals and social media” indicating display of the Recommendation).
Phadnis’632, however, does not expressly disclose causing display of at least one selectable option to modify the subscription profile, wherein modifying the subscription profile comprises granting the subscription profile access to the series of content items; and based at least in part on receiving a selection of the at least one selectable option, granting the subscription profile access to the series of content items, or determining that an entirety of the series of content items has been viewed by the subscription profile; and based at least in part on determining that the entirety of the series of content items was viewed, modifying the subscription profile to remove access to the series of content items.
PHADNIS’979 discloses causing display of at least one selectable option to modify a subscription profile, wherein modifying the subscription profile comprises granting the subscription profile access to a series of content items; and based at least in part on receiving a selection of the at least one selectable option, granting the subscription profile access to the series of content item [0082], “The process on execution extracts the channel pack details 401 including the currently subscribed pack details from the user account and the available channel packs from the EPG database and PLM database, display the currently subscribe pack details 405 and available channel pack details 406. The user is prompted to check if he wants to select new pack 407. If the user decides to select new pack, the new pack is selected from the available channel packs 408”; [0092], “At step 1402 it requires the user to select the channel, programs from the available recommended programs, channels and packs. The account is updated 1403 with the changed plan according to the selected recommended program, channels/pack”).
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious for an ordinary skilled in the art to combine Phadnis’632 with PHADNIS’979. The suggestion/motivation of the combination would have been to enable a user to view recommended content by subscribing to the recommended content (PHADNIS’979, [0082]).
Greenfield discloses determining that an entirety of a series of content items has been viewed by a subscription profile; and based at least in part on determining that the entirety of the series of content items was viewed, modifying the subscription profile to remove access to the series of content items (claim 16, “The method of claim 15, further comprising: monitoring the playback of the video; and removing access to the video upon expiration of an earlier of the monitoring indicating the customer of the subscription service completed the playback of the video or the maximum rental period”).
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious for an ordinary skilled in the art to combine Phadnis’632 with Greenfield. The suggestion/motivation of the combination would have been to enable a user to no longer allow the subscriber to access the video upon completion or expiration whichever happens earlier (Greenfield, Claim 16).
As to claim 11, see similar rejection to claim 1.
As to claim 2, Phadnis’632 in view of PHADNIS’979 and Greenfield discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
based at least in part on the determining that the subscription profile lacks access to the
content item, generating for display an alert that the subscription profile lacks access to the series of content items (see citation in rejection to claim 1, e.g., Phadnis’632, Fig. 4, “Recommendations delivered to…Users”; Fig. 7, “RE sends Recommendation” “To Users via Web Portals and social media”, wherein the displayed recommendation is equivalent to an alert that the current subscription profile lacks access to the recommended content item. It is to be noted that the claimed limitation is “an alert that…” without requiring an actual content of the alert).
As to claim 12, see similar rejection to claim 2.
As to claim 3, Phadnis’632 in view of PHADNIS’979 and Greenfield discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising: based at least in part on the determining that the subscription profile lacks access to the series of content items, generating for display a selectable option to review a current subscription of the subscription profile (see citation in rejection to claim 1, wherein Phadnis’632 discloses based at least in part on the determining that the subscription profile lacks access to the content item, generating for display the recommended content. PHADNIS’979 further discloses generating for display a selectable option to review a current subscription of the subscription profile along with displaying a selectable option for a recommended content, see PHADNIS’979, Figure 4, “Display Currently Subscribe Pack Details”; see also [0081], “In case the user authentication is successful, the account access rights are authorized at the step 305. At step 306 the user is provided with the "My Account" process interface. The interface at step 307 provides process for obtaining the user details, at step 309 provides process to obtain current subscription details”; see Fig. 3, “Provide access to authorized User”, then “My Account”, then “Get User Details” and “Get Current Subscription details, then “Display User details and subscription details”, indicating that optionally selecting “My Account” leads to display and review of current subscription of the subscription profile. See also [0082], both current and recommended packs are listed).
As to claim 13, see similar rejection to claim 3.
AS to claim 4, Phadnis’632 in view of PHADNIS’979 and Greenfield discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the causing display of the at least one selectable option comprises generating for display, on a user interface of a user device signed in to the subscription profile, the selectable option (see 112 rejection and Examiner’s interpretation stated therein) to modify the subscription profile (see Phadnis’979, [0081], “In case the user authentication is successful, the account access rights are authorized at the step 305…The execution of step 317 provides the user the "program page" wherein the user is allowed to view, customize and subscribe the program”).
As to claim 14, see similar rejection to claim 4.
As to claim 5, Phadnis’632 in view of PHADNIS’979 and Greenfield discloses the method of claim 4, further comprising generating for display, on the user interface of the user device signed in to the subscription profile, an electronic program guide (EPG) comprising the selectable option (PHADNIS’979, [0081], “The execution of step 313 provides the user "My TV Guide" wherein the channel numbers and schedule grid based on his Pack is made available to the user. At the step 314 the user is provided with the process for managing his favourites. The step 315 provides a process for discovering unknown packs, channels, recommendations, etc. The step 316 provide a process for discovering unknown packs/channels, recommendations, top channels/Packs etc. The execution of step 317 provides the user the "program page" wherein the user is allowed to view, customize and subscribe the program”; [0082], “The process on execution extracts the channel pack details 401 including the currently subscribed pack details from the user account and the available channel packs from the EPG database and PLM database, display the currently subscribe pack details 405 and available channel pack details 406. The user is prompted to check if he wants to select new pack 407. If the user decides to select new pack, the new pack is selected from the available channel packs 408”), wherein:
the EPG comprises at least one channel identifier, at least one time identifier, and at least one
title of a content item of the series of content items (see citation above, PHADNIS’979, [0081], “The execution of step 313 provides the user "My TV Guide" wherein the channel numbers and schedule grid based on his Pack is made available to the user. The execution of step 317 provides the user the "program page" wherein the user is allowed to view, customize and subscribe the program”. Also see claim 17, “a name of a pack…”), and
the at least one channel identifier of the EPG is associated with a new channel comprising access to the series of content items (PHADNIS’979, [0092], “At step 1402 it requires the user to select the channel, programs from the available recommended programs, channels and packs. The account is updated 1403 with the changed plan according to the selected recommended program, channels/pack”).
As to claim 15, see similar rejection to claim 5.
As to claim 6, Phadnis’632 in view of PHADNIS’979 and Greenfield discloses the method of claim 5, wherein the granting the subscription profile access to the series of content items comprises adding the new channel comprising access to the series of content items to the subscription profile (see PHADNIS’979, [0092], “At step 1402 it requires the user to select the channel, programs from the available recommended programs, channels and packs. The account is updated 1403 with the changed plan according to the selected recommended program, channels/pack”).
As to claim 16, see similar rejection to claim 6.
11. Claims 7-10 and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Phadnis’632 in view of PHADNIS’979 and Greenfield, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Su (US 2016/0098640).
As to claim 7, Phadnis’632 in view of PHADNIS’979 and Greenfield discloses the claimed invention substantially as discussed in claim 1, but does not expressly disclose wherein the interest in the series of content items is determined by one or more machine learning techniques. Su discloses an interest in a series of content items is determined by one or more machine learning techniques ([0053], “the recommendation engine 225 recommends content for a user across and within three categories of TV, movie and sport. The recommendation engine 225 recommends content by generating user specific preference scores for content available to the user through the user device 105 at a specified time interval. The bookkeeping module 505, machine learning module 510, and rules module 525 cooperate to provide preference scores for available content. These three components interact to generate TV, Movie and Sport content recommendations by processing discrete and aggregated viewing activity data and applying a mix of human intelligence and machine learning based analysis to the data”; [0078], “As indicated above, a machine learning module 510 of the recommendation engine 225 (described in greater detail below) assumes responsibility under an embodiment for monitoring user content item viewing activity and for recommending content items”).
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious for an ordinary skilled in the art to combine Phadnis’632 in view of PHADNIS’979 and Greenfield with Su. The suggestion/motivation of the combination would have been to provide a collaborative filtering technique to recommend contents (Su, [0078]).
As to claim 17, see similar rejection to claim 7.
As to claim 8, Phadnis’632 in view of PHADNIS’979, Greenfield, and Su discloses the method of claim 7, wherein the one or more machine learning techniques comprises:
a predictive model (Su, [0099]; Figure 10) trained using at least one of:
a content catalog for one or more content items, wherein the content catalog comprises a content index based on one or more content attributes of one or more content items of the series of content items (Su, [0043], “The content database of an embodiment uses content metadata to define event attributes, i.e., metadata "tags" associated with content that describe or identify the various characteristics of such content. The recommendation engine may then track a user's viewing activity using information collected by the action logger 215 and match learned user preferences to content metadata using event attributes as further described below”, wherein the identifier of the identified attributes is a content index, wherein such content index further serves as an index into a supplemental content catalog/table such as the “NFL Season Calendar” rule table as shown in Figure 8, i.e., an “NFL” indexed attribute of one or more sports content items; see [0069], “The NFL table organizes the NFL season into months and further tracks interest by week. Each Month-Week combination featuring an NFL event (preseason, regular season or post-season game”); or a user map comprising a user index based on past user interest data of the one or more content attributes of the one or more content items (Su, Figure 6, showing a user map comprising four user Bookkeeping Tables such as the League Table tracking user’s usage, e.g., on “NFL” attribute of contents. See also [0054]-[0055, “bookkeeping modules 505 mains a league table, a term table, a player table and a sport type table…The league table includes columns for user id, league, count and time”).
As to claim 18, see similar rejection to claim 8.
As to claim 9, Phadnis’632 in view of PHADNIS’979, Greenfield and Su discloses the method of claim 8, wherein the one or more content attributes comprises at least one of a title, a genre, a microgenre, an actor, an age, an expiration date, an n-th language, an (n+ 1)-th language, a running time, a time slot, a date of production, a rating, a user-defined content attribute, or a customized content attribute (See citation and Examiner’s explanation in rejection to claim 8, e.g., Su, Figure 8, wherein the attribute is reflected by the League title, “NFL”. See also [0043], “The content database of an embodiment uses content metadata to define event attributes, i.e., metadata "tags" associated with content that describe or identify the various characteristics of such content. The recommendation engine may then track a user's viewing activity using information collected by the action logger 215 and match learned user preferences to content metadata using event attributes as further described below”; [0041], “tag information for online content, event attributes such as whether there is associated online content provided with a live event or broadcast show, user ratings for content collected via the media system 140 or a third party, and social media information”), and wherein the content index comprises a weight for each of the one or more content attributes (Figure 8; [0069], “Each Month-Week combination featuring an NFL event (preseason, regular season or post-season game) is associated with a weighting score”).
As to claim 19, see similar rejection to claim 9.
As to claim 10, Phadnis’632 in view of PHADNIS’979, and Greenfield and Su discloses the method of claim 9, wherein the content catalog is mapped to the user map using the content index of each content item of the one or more content items and the user index of each user (Su, [0073], “The recommendation engine 225 receives 1005 a recommendation request in a sport category from the user device. The recommendation engine 225 identifies/retrieves 1010 sporting related content items available to the recommendation engine 225 (e.g., those on or starting within the hour). Using information of a content item (selected from the available content items), the recommendation engine 225 identifies/resolves 1015 attributes of the sporting related content item using information and metadata retrieved from the content store 210”; [0074], “The recommendation engine 225 identifies 1020 bookkeeping tables corresponding to such attributes and identified 1035 all expert rules tables (i.e., weights) corresponding to such attributes. The recommendation engine 225 retrieves 1025 user attribute counts (viewing occurrences) relating to the content item attributes from tables maintained by bookkeeping module 505 in the user profile. The bookkeeping module 505 generates a preference score for the content item based on the attribute counts. For example, the bookkeeping module 505 may aggregate count data across bookkeeping tables to determine the user's preference for the content item based on viewing history”).
As to claim 20, see similar rejection to claim 10.
Prior Art Cited but not Applied in the Rejection
12. Below is a list of prior art reference(s) cited but not applied in the rejection:
a) Gutta et al (US 20030145326), subscription plans based on viewer’s viewing habit stored in the use profile is offered to the user, so that the user can selectively pay for the programs of his or her interest, instead of paying for the entire programs (see abstract).
Conclusion
13. 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HUA FAN whose telephone number is (571)270-5311. The examiner can normally be reached on 9-6.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nasser Goodarzi, can be reached at (571) 272-4195. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/HUA FAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2426
