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
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
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Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-27 of U.S. Patent No. 12,177,607. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims limitations of the present invention are broader and similar in scope to that of the claims of U.S. Patent No. 12,177,607 with different in wording variations. For example:
Claim 1 of the present invention
Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 12,177,607
A method comprising:
admitting a presenter and a plurality of participants to a video webinar meeting, the video webinar meeting configured to provide audio streams from the presenter to each participant of the plurality of participants and to prevent audio streams from each participant of the plurality of participants from being distributed to the presenter or to other participants of the plurality of participants;
receiving, from a first participant, a first submission to be posed during the video webinar meeting;
distributing an audio stream associated with the first participant to the presenter and the remaining plurality of participants to enable the first participant to pose the first submission;
and after the first participant poses the first submission, not distributing audio streams from the first participant.
A method comprising:
establishing a video webinar meeting;
admitting a presenter and a plurality of participants to the video webinar meeting, the video webinar meeting configured to provide one-way communications from the presenter to the plurality of participants and to provide audio streams from the presenter to each participant of the plurality of participants and to prevent audio streams from each participant of the plurality of participants from being distributed to the presenter or to other participants of the plurality of participants;
not distributing audio streams from the plurality of participants to other participants in the video webinar meeting;
receiving, from a first participant, a first submission to be posed during the video webinar meeting;
determining a priority for the first submission based on one or more parameters; responsive to selecting the first submission based on the priority: providing a notification to the presenter and to the first participant that the submission has been approved;
distributing an audio stream associated with the first participant to the presenter and the remaining plurality of participants based on the priority to enable the first participant to pose the first submission;
and responsive to an indication from the presenter that the first submission has been completed, not distributing audio streams from the first participant.
From the above claim comparison, the limitations of claim 1 of the present invention are anticipated/covered by that of claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 12,177,607. Independent claims 9 and 16 are counterpart claims of method claim 1 and therefore rejected for the same reason addressed above. The remaining dependent claims are directly or indirectly taught by at least the dependent claims of U.S. Patent No. 12,177,607.
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 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 of this title, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-7, 9, 12-15, 16 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shaffer et al (2007/0263821) in view of Kaminsky et al (2012/0140681).
Consider claims 1, 9 and 16, Shaffer et al teach a method, system and non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising processor-executable instructions configured to cause one or more processors to/comprising: admitting a presenter and a plurality of participants to a video webinar meeting (par. 0013; “the system 100 may allow a participant in a conference call automatically without human intervention to break into the conversation”; par. 0014; “The telephony endpoints 108.1-108.n allow multiple speakers at the conference locations 106.1-106.n to participate in a multi-party conference call. Although example embodiments are described with reference to telephony endpoints, it should be understood that the term "telephony endpoint" is intended to include any multi-media enabled endpoint capable to participate in multi-media multi-party conference. In addition to the telephony endpoints 108.1-108.n, the conference locations 106.1-106.n may also include conference call participants with computers 110 (e.g. desktop computers, laptop computers, or any other networked device such as smart phones, or the like); par. 0020; 0027; “the method 300 provides a conference call moderator (i.e., host/presenter) with an option to eject a current active speaker and immediately insert a new speaker from the speaker queue 206 into the active speaker group”); receiving, from a first participant, a first submission to be posed during the video webinar meeting (par. 0014; “any one or more of the participants may communicate a request to the conference call manager 104 via the conference call voice channel, or via another network using, for example, the computers 110”; par. 0017; “As shown at block 302, a request may be received by a conference bridge (e.g. the conference bridge 102) for a new speaker request…The request may identify that the speaker wishes to say something in the conference call…a new speaker may also speak into a telephony endpoint 108.1-108.n and the active speaker processing module 202 may then queue the speaker in the speaker queue 206”); distributing an audio stream associated with the first participant to the presenter and the remaining plurality of participants to enable the first participant to pose the first submission (par. 0002; “active speakers and creates an output stream by mixing the audio for the active speakers or active participants. The active stream is then communicated to the participants on the conference call”; par. 0018; “the method 300 then adds a new speaker from the speaker queue 206 to the active speakers”).
Shaffer et al exclude all participants except active speakers from distributing speech but did not explicitly suggest the video webinar meeting configured to provide audio streams from the presenter to each participant of the plurality of participants and to prevent audio streams from each participant of the plurality of participants from being distributed to the presenter or to other participants of the plurality of participants; and after the first participant poses the first submission, not distributing audio streams from the first participant.
In the same field of endeavor, Kaminsky et al teach a system and method for managing conferences where the video webinar meeting configured to provide audio streams from the presenter to each participant of the plurality of participants and to prevent audio streams from each participant of the plurality of participants from being distributed to the presenter or to other participants of the plurality of participants (par. 0002; “Conferences often include a moderator, who manages various aspects of the conference, such as adding and dropping participants, selecting participants to be seen or heard during the conference, and creating sub-conferences from the conference. Such actions are performed on a per-participant basis. For example, the moderator can select a speaker to "take the floor" without interruption by other participants by muting the other participants individually”; par. 0016; “During a conference, actions can be directed against conference participants according to their group membership. For example, a conference administrator can select a group for muting, whereby all participants in the group are muted”); and after the first participant poses the first submission, not distributing audio streams from the first participant (par. 0049; (i.e., unmuted and muted a participant); “An action can be performed (step 340) either on the participant or the group to which the participant belongs based on group membership. Such actions can be readily performed manually by the conference administrator 11 or automatically by the conference management system 10, and are well-known to known to those of ordinary skill in the art, such as muting participants, responding to participant requests, creating sub-conferences, dropping participants when resources are low, etc.”; par. 0058; “During a conference call, the conference administrator can select Participant 1 to speak by executing an audio activation command 704. In doing so, the conference administrator can also execute a mute command 702 against the Remote Employees group, whereby each participant in the Remote Employees group, i.e., Participants 3 and 4, are muted while Participant 1 speaks”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date to incorporate the teaching of Kaminsky et al into view of Shaffer et al and the result would have been predictable and resulted in manually or automatically managing the conferences thereby prevent and reduce interruption during the conference session.
Consider claims 2 and 12, Shaffer et al teach determining a priority for the first submission, and wherein distributing the audio stream is based on the priority (par. 0014; “In response to such a request, the conference call manager 104 may queue one or more new speakers as described in more detail below”; par. 0024; “new speakers in the speaker queue may have a particular priority (e.g., based on a class of service) and a speaker with a higher priority may be added as an active speaker before a speaker with a lower priority is added”).
Consider claims 3 and 13, Shaffer et al teach wherein determining the priority is based on semantic information determined from the first submission (par. 0028; “the method 600 may receive a speech input from a new speaker via a telephony endpoint 108.1-108.n. Thereafter, as shown at block 604, the method 600 performs speech recognition on the speech input to obtain a text input. The text input may be a text equivalent of the speech or audio received from the particular conference location 106.1-106.n associated with the new speaker…obtain an associated priority, class of service, or action. The method 600, as shown at block 608, may then add the new speaker to the speaker queue 206 based on the associated action, priority, or the like identified in the reference database”).
Consider claims 4-5, 14 and 19, Shaffer et al teach further comprising accepting the first submission and distributing the audio stream in response to accepting the first submission (par. 0014; “In response to such a request, the conference call manager 104 may queue one or more new speakers as described in more detail below”; par. 0018; “the method 300 then adds a new speaker from the speaker queue 206 to the active speakers”; par. 0029; “In an example embodiment, input may be received from a new speaker and processed in the audio domain instead of processing the input to provide text. In response to the processing in the audio domain, the new speaker may be selectively added to the speaker queue”).
Consider claims 6, 15 and 20, Shaffer et al teach providing a first indication to the presenter of the first submission; and providing a second indication the first participant that the first submission has been accepted (par. 0019; “when a new speaker is added to the speaker queue 206, the method 300 optionally advises the new speaker that he or she has been added to the speaker queue 206 (see block 310). Further, the new speaker may be advised at what position within the speaker queue 206 the person has been inserted. It will be appreciated that different modalities may be used to advise the new speaker that he or she has been added to the speaker queue 206. For example, the conference call manager 200 may send an indication to a telephony endpoint 108-108.n associated with the new speaker which may provide a blinking light or the like to indicate to the participants at the associated conference call location 106.1-106.n that a speaker at the location has been added to the speaker queue 206”).
Consider claim 7, Shaffer et al teach further comprising: receiving a plurality of submissions from a subset of the plurality of participants (par. 0017; “The request may identify that the speaker wishes to say something in the conference call…Should another new speaker then request an opportunity to speak, the subsequent new speaker would then be queued in new speaker slot 208.2. In this manner, multiple speakers may be queued in the speaker queue 206”; determining commonalities between the received plurality of submissions and the first submission; and discarding the plurality of submissions based on the commonalities (par. 0027-0028; “For example, when a high priority is associated with a particular speaker (e.g. a high class of service as described with reference to FIG. 4), an existing active speaker with a lowest class of service or priority may be removed from the active speaker group”; “the text input may be used to interrogate a reference database (e.g., including a plurality of words) to identify an associated action, priority, or the like to be performed by the conference call manager (e.g., the conference call manager 200)” (i.e., identify associated action)).
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shaffer et al (2007/0263821) in view of in view of Kaminsky et al (2012/0140681) and further in view of Stoner et al (11,063,778).
Consider claim 8, Shaffer et al did not explicitly suggest presenting the first submission to a subset of the plurality of participants; receiving votes from the subset of the plurality of participants; and wherein the one or more parameters comprise the votes. In the same field of endeavor, Stoner et al teach a system and method for managing of video conference for support exchange between participants (col. 1 lines 18-22). The system and method suggest of presenting the first submission to a subset of the plurality of participants; receiving votes from the subset of the plurality of participants; and wherein the one or more parameters comprise the votes (col. 15 lines 20-40) in order to prioritize the order of speaking. Therefore, it would have obvious to one of the ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date to incorporate the teaching of Stoner et al into view of Shaffer and Kaminsky et al for the purpose addressed above.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 10-11 and 17-18 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims as well as overcoming the above double patenting rejections.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
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/Quoc D Tran/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2691
August 5, 2026
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