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 CLAIMS entered for patent application 18/967,560 filed on December 3, 2024.
Claims 1-18 are pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 4, 5, 10, 11, 16 and 17 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.
Claims 4, 5, 10, 11, 16 and 17 recite the limitation “the two or more servers” in line 1. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Examiner assumes Applicant is referring to the “two or more edge servers.”
Appropriate correction or explanation is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sullivan et al. (Pub. No.: US 2016/0027057) in view of Huici et al. (Pub. No.: US 2015/0312367) and Fliam et al. (Pub. No.: US 2013/0204961).
Regarding claim 1, Sullivan discloses a method, comprising: creating a plurality of ordered sets of digital assets, each ordered set of digital assets comprised of an anchor asset (para. [0042]; teaches definition of an anchor asset - one that may be presented with certainty during the online engagement; paras. [0077], [0080]-[0084] and [0115]; teaches the pairwise similarity matrix S along with Tables 1-5 represent the schema that can be used to build an ensemble of assets for presentation-given ai (the anchor asset)) and a plurality of assets related to the anchor asset (paras. [0047] and [0050]; teaches an automated system that, given the constraints and preferences set by the asset portfolio manager, selects an ensemble of assets for co-presentation that share a similar theme; paras. [0062] and [0158]; teaches a collection descriptor which is a label or index indicating a theme under which the asset is grouped (e.g., sports, entertainment, justice, etc.)).
It could be argued that Sullivan does not explicitly disclose wherein each anchor asset in the plurality of ordered sets of digital assets is assigned a caching gain value, the caching gain value includes an expected likelihood that the anchor asset will be consumed factor. However, in analogous art, Huici discloses content caching that takes advantage of knowledge regarding expected user demand for content to select which content to place in a cache such that it maximizes the number of cache hits (paras. [0009]-[0011]), as well as teaching that the policy aims to select a subset of objects to cache from the set of N objects that maximizes cache hits according to expected future popularity (para. [0018]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sullivan to allow for each anchor asset in the plurality of ordered sets of digital assets to be assigned a caching gain value, the caching gain value includes an expected likelihood that the anchor asset will be consumed factor. This would have produced predictable and desirable results, in that it would increase the probability that cached content would be popular at a future time, which could improve the efficiency of the system.
It could be argued that the combination of Sullivan and Huici does not explicitly disclose caching each ordered set of digital assets in the plurality of ordered sets of digital assets on two or more edge servers among a plurality of edge servers, the two or more edges servers selected for the ordered set of digital assets based on the caching gain value of the anchor asset in the ordered set of digital assets and a geographic calculation for the anchor asset, the ordered set of digital assets are available for delivery to client devices from the two or more edge servers, the two or more edge servers are geographically diverse. However, in analogous art, Fliam discloses that a “CDN may also include one or more content routers 304 for facilitating communications between the servers of the distribution hierarchy. Content router 304 may be communicatively coupled to all of the cache servers in the CDN, but need not be a part of the distribution hierarchy. For example, content router 304 may receive a request for a content item from one of client devices 303a-d and redirect the client device to request the content item from one of edge cache servers 302a-c. Content router 304 may select the edge cache server based on the ability of the edge cache server to serve the requested content item, the proximity between the client device and the edge cache server, and the relative load of the edge cache server. Proximity may be, for example, network proximity, geographic proximity, or a combination of the two. For example, the proximity between client devices 303a-d and edge cache servers 302a-c in tier 330 may be closer than the proximity between client devices 303a-d and origin server 300 in tier 310 (para. [0035),” wherein “[i]n some embodiments, the CDN does not replicate a content item across caching devices in different popularity tiers, such as tiers 410, 420, and 430, of the popularity-based distribution hierarchy but may replicate the content item across caching devices in the same tier. For example, hot caching devices 402a-c may store copies of a popular content item, medium caching devices 401a-b may cache and serve copies of a modestly popular content item, and cool caching device 400 may cache and serve copies of an unpopular content item (para. [0041]; see Fig. 4A).” Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sullivan and Huici to allow for caching each ordered set of digital assets in the plurality of ordered sets of digital assets on two or more edge servers among a plurality of edge servers, the two or more edges servers selected for the ordered set of digital assets based on the caching gain value of the anchor asset in the ordered set of digital assets and a geographic calculation for the anchor asset, the ordered set of digital assets are available for delivery to client devices from the two or more edge servers, the two or more edge servers are geographically diverse. This would have produced predictable and desirable results, in that it would allow for improving transmission speed by reducing computations.
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Sullivan, Huici and Fliam discloses the method of claim 1, and further discloses wherein the caching gain value includes a calculation of a burden of not caching the anchor asset on a server with an overall caching gain when the anchor asset is cached on a server (Fliam, para. [0009]; discloses the computing device may transmit an instruction to move the content item from a cool caching device, which may be implemented using the origin server, to a hot caching device, which may be implemented using an edge caching device. It is well known in the art that “hot caching” is used because of the advantage of reducing processes compared to not caching content. Therefore, a hot cache method would calculate and compare the burden of not caching to caching. This claim is rejected on the same grounds as claim 1.).
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Sullivan, Huici and Fliam discloses the method of claim 1, and further discloses wherein the two or more servers are further selected from the plurality of servers based on a lower latency to an expected set of client devices (Huici, paras. [0009]-[0011] and [0018]; caching axiomatically is designed to lower latency. This claim is rejected on the same grounds as claim 1.).
Regarding claim 7, Sullivan discloses one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media, storing one or more sequences of instructions, which when executed by one or more processors cause performance of: creating a plurality of ordered sets of digital assets, each ordered set of digital assets comprised of an anchor asset (para. [0042]; teaches definition of an anchor asset - one that may be presented with certainty during the online engagement; paras. [0077], [0080]-[0084] and [0115]; teaches the pairwise similarity matrix S along with Tables 1-5 represent the schema that can be used to build an ensemble of assets for presentation-given ai (the anchor asset)) and a plurality of assets related to the anchor asset (paras. [0047] and [0050]; teaches an automated system that, given the constraints and preferences set by the asset portfolio manager, selects an ensemble of assets for co-presentation that share a similar theme; paras. [0062] and [0158]; teaches a collection descriptor which is a label or index indicating a theme under which the asset is grouped (e.g., sports, entertainment, justice, etc.)).
It could be argued that Sullivan does not explicitly disclose wherein each anchor asset in the plurality of ordered sets of digital assets is assigned a caching gain value, the caching gain value includes an expected likelihood that the anchor asset will be consumed factor. However, in analogous art, Huici discloses content caching that takes advantage of knowledge regarding expected user demand for content to select which content to place in a cache such that it maximizes the number of cache hits (paras. [0009]-[0011]), as well as teaching that the policy aims to select a subset of objects to cache from the set of N objects that maximizes cache hits according to expected future popularity (para. [0018]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sullivan to allow for each anchor asset in the plurality of ordered sets of digital assets to be assigned a caching gain value, the caching gain value includes an expected likelihood that the anchor asset will be consumed factor. This would have produced predictable and desirable results, in that it would increase the probability that cached content would be popular at a future time, which could improve the efficiency of the system.
It could be argued that the combination of Sullivan and Huici does not explicitly disclose caching each ordered set of digital assets in the plurality of ordered sets of digital assets on two or more edge servers among a plurality of edge servers, the two or more edges servers selected for the ordered set of digital assets based on the caching gain value of the anchor asset in the ordered set of digital assets and a geographic calculation for the anchor asset, the ordered set of digital assets are available for delivery to client devices from the two or more edge servers, the two or more edge servers are geographically diverse. However, in analogous art, Fliam discloses that a “CDN may also include one or more content routers 304 for facilitating communications between the servers of the distribution hierarchy. Content router 304 may be communicatively coupled to all of the cache servers in the CDN, but need not be a part of the distribution hierarchy. For example, content router 304 may receive a request for a content item from one of client devices 303a-d and redirect the client device to request the content item from one of edge cache servers 302a-c. Content router 304 may select the edge cache server based on the ability of the edge cache server to serve the requested content item, the proximity between the client device and the edge cache server, and the relative load of the edge cache server. Proximity may be, for example, network proximity, geographic proximity, or a combination of the two. For example, the proximity between client devices 303a-d and edge cache servers 302a-c in tier 330 may be closer than the proximity between client devices 303a-d and origin server 300 in tier 310 (para. [0035),” wherein “[i]n some embodiments, the CDN does not replicate a content item across caching devices in different popularity tiers, such as tiers 410, 420, and 430, of the popularity-based distribution hierarchy but may replicate the content item across caching devices in the same tier. For example, hot caching devices 402a-c may store copies of a popular content item, medium caching devices 401a-b may cache and serve copies of a modestly popular content item, and cool caching device 400 may cache and serve copies of an unpopular content item (para. [0041]; see Fig. 4A).” Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sullivan and Huici to allow for caching each ordered set of digital assets in the plurality of ordered sets of digital assets on two or more edge servers among a plurality of edge servers, the two or more edges servers selected for the ordered set of digital assets based on the caching gain value of the anchor asset in the ordered set of digital assets and a geographic calculation for the anchor asset, the ordered set of digital assets are available for delivery to client devices from the two or more edge servers, the two or more edge servers are geographically diverse. This would have produced predictable and desirable results, in that it would allow for improving transmission speed by reducing computations.
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Sullivan, Huici and Fliam discloses the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of Claim 7, and further discloses wherein the caching gain value includes a calculation of a burden of not caching the anchor asset on a server with an overall caching gain when the anchor asset is cached on a server (Fliam, para. [0009]; discloses the computing device may transmit an instruction to move the content item from a cool caching device, which may be implemented using the origin server, to a hot caching device, which may be implemented using an edge caching device. It is well known in the art that “hot caching” is used because of the advantage of reducing processes compared to not caching content. Therefore, a hot cache method would calculate and compare the burden of not caching to caching. This claim is rejected on the same grounds as claim 1.).
Regarding claim 11, the combination of Sullivan, Huici and Fliam discloses the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of Claim 7, and further discloses wherein the two or more servers are further selected from the plurality of servers based on a lower latency to an expected set of client devices (Huici, paras. [0009]-[0011] and [0018]; caching axiomatically is designed to lower latency. This claim is rejected on the same grounds as claim 1.).
Regarding claim 13, Sullivan discloses an apparatus, comprising: one or more processors; and a memory storing instructions, which when executed by the one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to: creating a plurality of ordered sets of digital assets, each ordered set of digital assets comprised of an anchor asset (para. [0042]; teaches definition of an anchor asset - one that may be presented with certainty during the online engagement; paras. [0077], [0080]-[0084] and [0115]; teaches the pairwise similarity matrix S along with Tables 1-5 represent the schema that can be used to build an ensemble of assets for presentation-given ai (the anchor asset)) and a plurality of assets related to the anchor asset (paras. [0047] and [0050]; teaches an automated system that, given the constraints and preferences set by the asset portfolio manager, selects an ensemble of assets for co-presentation that share a similar theme; paras. [0062] and [0158]; teaches a collection descriptor which is a label or index indicating a theme under which the asset is grouped (e.g., sports, entertainment, justice, etc.)).
It could be argued that Sullivan does not explicitly disclose wherein each anchor asset in the plurality of ordered sets of digital assets is assigned a caching gain value, the caching gain value includes an expected likelihood that the anchor asset will be consumed factor. However, in analogous art, Huici discloses content caching that takes advantage of knowledge regarding expected user demand for content to select which content to place in a cache such that it maximizes the number of cache hits (paras. [0009]-[0011]), as well as teaching that the policy aims to select a subset of objects to cache from the set of N objects that maximizes cache hits according to expected future popularity (para. [0018]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sullivan to allow for each anchor asset in the plurality of ordered sets of digital assets to be assigned a caching gain value, the caching gain value includes an expected likelihood that the anchor asset will be consumed factor. This would have produced predictable and desirable results, in that it would increase the probability that cached content would be popular at a future time, which could improve the efficiency of the system.
It could be argued that the combination of Sullivan and Huici does not explicitly disclose caching each ordered set of digital assets in the plurality of ordered sets of digital assets on two or more edge servers among a plurality of edge servers, the two or more edges servers selected for the ordered set of digital assets based on the caching gain value of the anchor asset in the ordered set of digital assets and a geographic calculation for the anchor asset, the ordered set of digital assets are available for delivery to client devices from the two or more edge servers, the two or more edge servers are geographically diverse. However, in analogous art, Fliam discloses that a “CDN may also include one or more content routers 304 for facilitating communications between the servers of the distribution hierarchy. Content router 304 may be communicatively coupled to all of the cache servers in the CDN, but need not be a part of the distribution hierarchy. For example, content router 304 may receive a request for a content item from one of client devices 303a-d and redirect the client device to request the content item from one of edge cache servers 302a-c. Content router 304 may select the edge cache server based on the ability of the edge cache server to serve the requested content item, the proximity between the client device and the edge cache server, and the relative load of the edge cache server. Proximity may be, for example, network proximity, geographic proximity, or a combination of the two. For example, the proximity between client devices 303a-d and edge cache servers 302a-c in tier 330 may be closer than the proximity between client devices 303a-d and origin server 300 in tier 310 (para. [0035),” wherein “[i]n some embodiments, the CDN does not replicate a content item across caching devices in different popularity tiers, such as tiers 410, 420, and 430, of the popularity-based distribution hierarchy but may replicate the content item across caching devices in the same tier. For example, hot caching devices 402a-c may store copies of a popular content item, medium caching devices 401a-b may cache and serve copies of a modestly popular content item, and cool caching device 400 may cache and serve copies of an unpopular content item (para. [0041]; see Fig. 4A).” Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sullivan and Huici to allow for caching each ordered set of digital assets in the plurality of ordered sets of digital assets on two or more edge servers among a plurality of edge servers, the two or more edges servers selected for the ordered set of digital assets based on the caching gain value of the anchor asset in the ordered set of digital assets and a geographic calculation for the anchor asset, the ordered set of digital assets are available for delivery to client devices from the two or more edge servers, the two or more edge servers are geographically diverse. This would have produced predictable and desirable results, in that it would allow for improving transmission speed by reducing computations.
Regarding claim 15, the combination of Sullivan, Huici and Fliam discloses the apparatus of Claim 13, wherein the caching gain value includes a calculation of a burden of not caching the anchor asset on a server with an overall caching gain when the anchor asset is cached on a server (Fliam, para. [0009]; discloses the computing device may transmit an instruction to move the content item from a cool caching device, which may be implemented using the origin server, to a hot caching device, which may be implemented using an edge caching device. It is well known in the art that “hot caching” is used because of the advantage of reducing processes compared to not caching content. Therefore, a hot cache method would calculate and compare the burden of not caching to caching. This claim is rejected on the same grounds as claim 1.).
Regarding claim 17, the combination of Sullivan, Huici and Fliam discloses the apparatus of Claim 13, wherein the two or more servers are further selected from the plurality of servers based on a lower latency to an expected set of client devices (Huici, paras. [0009]-[0011] and [0018]; caching axiomatically is designed to lower latency. This claim is rejected on the same grounds as claim 1.).
Claims 2, 4, 8, 10, 14 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sullivan et al. (Pub. No.: US 2016/0027057) in view of Huici et al. (Pub. No.: US 2015/0312367), Fliam et al. (Pub. No.: US 2013/0204961) and Panagos et al. (Pub. No.: US 2015/0040173).
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Sullivan, Huici and Fliam discloses the method of claim 1, but it could be argued that the combination does not explicitly disclose wherein the two or more edge servers are further selected from the plurality of servers based on a delivery cost calculation. However, in analogous art, Panagos discloses that “[d]elivery caches may advertise, via e.g., a routing protocol, one or more addresses to clients of the network and/or other network entities. Route selection can be configured based on one or more rules, such as for example those relating to geographical proximity, available bandwidth, server availability, server load, delivery cost, client subscription level, content encoding rate (e.g., MPEG2, MPEG4, and/or other), client device type (e.g., a smartphone, a television), client connection bandwidth (e.g., LTE, Wi-Fi), client subscription level, and/or other rules licensing rules, and/or other metric (para. [0049]).” Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sullivan, Huici and Fliam to allow for the two or more edge servers to be further selected from the plurality of servers based on a delivery cost calculation. This would have produced predictable and desirable results, in that it could potentially lower the cost of content delivery, which is beneficial for all parties involved.
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Sullivan, Huici and Fliam discloses the method of claim 1, but it could be argued that the combination does not explicitly disclose wherein the two or more servers are further selected from the plurality of servers based on a memory cost calculation. However, in analogous art, Panagos discloses that “[d]elivery caches may advertise, via e.g., a routing protocol, one or more addresses to clients of the network and/or other network entities. Route selection can be configured based on one or more rules, such as for example those relating to geographical proximity, available bandwidth, server availability, server load, delivery cost, client subscription level, content encoding rate (e.g., MPEG2, MPEG4, and/or other), client device type (e.g., a smartphone, a television), client connection bandwidth (e.g., LTE, Wi-Fi), client subscription level, and/or other rules licensing rules, and/or other metric (para. [0049]).” Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sullivan, Huici and Fliam to allow for the two or more servers are further selected from the plurality of servers based on a memory cost calculation. This would have produced predictable and desirable results, in that it could potentially lower the memory cost for the system, which is beneficial for all parties involved.
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Sullivan, Huici and Fliam discloses the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of Claim 7, but it could be argued that the combination does not explicitly disclose wherein the two or more edge servers are further selected from the plurality of servers based on a delivery cost calculation. However, in analogous art, Panagos discloses that “[d]elivery caches may advertise, via e.g., a routing protocol, one or more addresses to clients of the network and/or other network entities. Route selection can be configured based on one or more rules, such as for example those relating to geographical proximity, available bandwidth, server availability, server load, delivery cost, client subscription level, content encoding rate (e.g., MPEG2, MPEG4, and/or other), client device type (e.g., a smartphone, a television), client connection bandwidth (e.g., LTE, Wi-Fi), client subscription level, and/or other rules licensing rules, and/or other metric (para. [0049]).” Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sullivan, Huici and Fliam to allow for the two or more edge servers to be further selected from the plurality of servers based on a delivery cost calculation. This would have produced predictable and desirable results, in that it could potentially lower the cost of content delivery, which is beneficial for all parties involved.
Regarding claim 10, the combination of Sullivan, Huici and Fliam discloses the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of Claim 7, but it could be argued that the combination does not explicitly disclose wherein the two or more servers are further selected from the plurality of servers based on a memory cost calculation. However, in analogous art, Panagos discloses that “[d]elivery caches may advertise, via e.g., a routing protocol, one or more addresses to clients of the network and/or other network entities. Route selection can be configured based on one or more rules, such as for example those relating to geographical proximity, available bandwidth, server availability, server load, delivery cost, client subscription level, content encoding rate (e.g., MPEG2, MPEG4, and/or other), client device type (e.g., a smartphone, a television), client connection bandwidth (e.g., LTE, Wi-Fi), client subscription level, and/or other rules licensing rules, and/or other metric (para. [0049]).” Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sullivan, Huici and Fliam to allow for the two or more servers are further selected from the plurality of servers based on a memory cost calculation. This would have produced predictable and desirable results, in that it could potentially lower the memory cost for the system, which is beneficial for all parties involved.
Regarding claim 14, the combination of Sullivan, Huici and Fliam discloses the apparatus of Claim 13, but it could be argued that the combination does not explicitly disclose wherein the two or more edge servers are further selected from the plurality of servers based on a delivery cost calculation. However, in analogous art, Panagos discloses that “[d]elivery caches may advertise, via e.g., a routing protocol, one or more addresses to clients of the network and/or other network entities. Route selection can be configured based on one or more rules, such as for example those relating to geographical proximity, available bandwidth, server availability, server load, delivery cost, client subscription level, content encoding rate (e.g., MPEG2, MPEG4, and/or other), client device type (e.g., a smartphone, a television), client connection bandwidth (e.g., LTE, Wi-Fi), client subscription level, and/or other rules licensing rules, and/or other metric (para. [0049]).” Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sullivan, Huici and Fliam to allow for the two or more edge servers to be further selected from the plurality of servers based on a delivery cost calculation. This would have produced predictable and desirable results, in that it could potentially lower the cost of content delivery, which is beneficial for all parties involved.
Regarding claim 16, the combination of Sullivan, Huici and Fliam discloses the apparatus of Claim 13, but it could be argued that the combination does not explicitly disclose wherein the two or more servers are further selected from the plurality of servers based on a memory cost calculation. However, in analogous art, Panagos discloses that “[d]elivery caches may advertise, via e.g., a routing protocol, one or more addresses to clients of the network and/or other network entities. Route selection can be configured based on one or more rules, such as for example those relating to geographical proximity, available bandwidth, server availability, server load, delivery cost, client subscription level, content encoding rate (e.g., MPEG2, MPEG4, and/or other), client device type (e.g., a smartphone, a television), client connection bandwidth (e.g., LTE, Wi-Fi), client subscription level, and/or other rules licensing rules, and/or other metric (para. [0049]).” Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sullivan, Huici and Fliam to allow for the two or more servers are further selected from the plurality of servers based on a memory cost calculation. This would have produced predictable and desirable results, in that it could potentially lower the memory cost for the system, which is beneficial for all parties involved.
Claims 6, 12, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sullivan et al. (Pub. No.: US 2016/0027057) in view of Huici et al. (Pub. No.: US 2015/0312367), Fliam et al. (Pub. No.: US 2013/0204961) and Zhang et al. (Pub. No.: US 2013/0263194).
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Sullivan, Huici and Fliam discloses the method of claim 1, but it could be argued that the combination does not explicitly disclose wherein a first ordered set of digital assets is removed from one or more servers when a second ordered set of digital assets is calculated to have a better caching gain value than the first ordered set of digital assets. However, in analogous art, Zhang discloses “whether the cached video segment needs to be replaced with the candidate video segment is determined by judging whether the consolidated gain value of the cached video segment and the consolidated gain value of the candidate video segment in the local server that are obtained according to the cache information, the end-to-end delay, and the popularity meet the replacement condition. When the consolidated gain value of the cached video segment and the consolidated gain value of the candidate video segment in the local server meet the replacement condition, the cached video segment is replaced with the candidate video segment, which is capable of improving the local hit ratio of a local user without increasing the local server costs (para. [0033]).” Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sullivan, Huici and Fliam to allow for a first ordered set of digital assets to be removed from one or more servers when a second ordered set of digital assets is calculated to have a better caching gain value than the first ordered set of digital assets. This would have produced predictable and desirable results, in that it would allow for the system to be updated with more appropriate content, as would obviously be required over time.
Regarding claim 12, the combination of Sullivan, Huici and Fliam discloses the one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of Claim 7, but it could be argued that the combination does not explicitly disclose wherein a first ordered set of digital assets is removed from one or more servers when a second ordered set of digital assets is calculated to have a better caching gain value than the first ordered set of digital assets. However, in analogous art, Zhang discloses “whether the cached video segment needs to be replaced with the candidate video segment is determined by judging whether the consolidated gain value of the cached video segment and the consolidated gain value of the candidate video segment in the local server that are obtained according to the cache information, the end-to-end delay, and the popularity meet the replacement condition. When the consolidated gain value of the cached video segment and the consolidated gain value of the candidate video segment in the local server meet the replacement condition, the cached video segment is replaced with the candidate video segment, which is capable of improving the local hit ratio of a local user without increasing the local server costs (para. [0033]).” Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sullivan, Huici and Fliam to allow for a first ordered set of digital assets to be removed from one or more servers when a second ordered set of digital assets is calculated to have a better caching gain value than the first ordered set of digital assets. This would have produced predictable and desirable results, in that it would allow for the system to be updated with more appropriate content, as would obviously be required over time.
Regarding claim 18, the combination of Sullivan, Huici and Fliam discloses the apparatus of Claim 13, but it could be argued that the combination does not explicitly disclose wherein a first ordered set of digital assets is removed from one or more servers when a second ordered set of digital assets is calculated to have a better caching gain value than the first ordered set of digital assets. However, in analogous art, Zhang discloses “whether the cached video segment needs to be replaced with the candidate video segment is determined by judging whether the consolidated gain value of the cached video segment and the consolidated gain value of the candidate video segment in the local server that are obtained according to the cache information, the end-to-end delay, and the popularity meet the replacement condition. When the consolidated gain value of the cached video segment and the consolidated gain value of the candidate video segment in the local server meet the replacement condition, the cached video segment is replaced with the candidate video segment, which is capable of improving the local hit ratio of a local user without increasing the local server costs (para. [0033]).” Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sullivan, Huici and Fliam to allow for a first ordered set of digital assets to be removed from one or more servers when a second ordered set of digital assets is calculated to have a better caching gain value than the first ordered set of digital assets. This would have produced predictable and desirable results, in that it would allow for the system to be updated with more appropriate content, as would obviously be required over time.
Conclusion
Claims 1-18 are rejected.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Joshua D Taylor whose telephone number is (571)270-3755. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8 am - 6 pm.
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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.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/Joshua D Taylor/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2426 June 12, 2026
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