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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 12/23/2024, 6/13/2025 and 3/4/2026 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements have been considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 4-10 and 13-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Nam et al. (U.S. Patent No. 11,798,457).
Referring to claim 1, Nam discloses an electronic apparatus comprising memory storing at least one instruction, at least one processor configured to execute the at least one instruction, when executed by the at least one processor, causes the electronic apparatus to (see Figures 1-2):
identify a representative genre of a content, based on information about the content (see step 105 in Figure 7 and Column 11, Lines 64-67);
perform video image quality control (see Column 14, Lines 19-26);
identify a partial genre of the content, based on analysis of a scene including a video frame (see Figure 8 and Column 12, Line 38 through Column 13, Line 65 for identifying a probability that a genre is a movie genre, therefore the determined genre is interpreted as a partial genre ); and
perform the video image quality control (see Column 14, Line 22 through Column 16, Line 38).
The Examiner notes that the “or” claim recitations significantly limit the scope of the claim and broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim has been applied based on the “or” recitations.
Referring to claim 4, Nam discloses identifying, as the representative genre of the content, a genre selected from among a plurality of preset genres, based on the information about the content (see Column 13, Line 5 through Column 14, Line 30).
Referring to claim 5, Nam also discloses identifying, as the partial genre of the content, a genre selected from among a plurality of preset genres, based on the analysis of the scene (see Column 13, Line 5 through Column 14, Line 30).
Referring to claim 6, Nam also discloses obtaining one of a setting value of at least one parameter for controlling the video image quality and controlling the video image quality using the setting value (see Column 14, Lines 22 to Column 17, Line 30 for determining a video image quality control after the genre has been determined at Column 13, Lines 5-65).
Referring to claim 7, Nam also discloses performing video image quality control, by adjusting a setting value of a parameters for setting the video image quality (see Column 14, Lines 22 to Column 17, Line 30 for determining a video image quality control after the genre has been determined at Column 13, Lines 5-65).
Referring to claim 8, Nam discloses identifying whether the identified partial genre a is identical to the representative genre (see Column 13, Lines 60-65).
Nam also discloses performing, based on the identified partial genre being identical to the representative genre, video image quality control (see Column 14, Lines 22 to Column 17, Line 30 for determining a video image quality control after the genre has been determined at Column 13, Lines 60-65).
Nam also discloses adjusting, based on the identified partial genre being different from the representative genre (see Column 13, Lines 17-59), the setting value of the parameter for controlling the video image quality (see Column 14, Lines 22 to Column 17, Line 30 for determining a video image quality control after the genre has been determined at Column 13, Lines 17-59).
Referring to claim 9, Nam discloses obtaining a table storing a weight that is added to a setting value of a parameter for controlling the video image quality (see Column 14, Lines 27-48), corresponding to the representative genre, in corresponding with each of the plurality of preset genres (see Column 14, Lines 22 to Column 17, Line 30 for determining a video image quality control after the genre has been determined at Column 13, Lines 60-65), wherein a weight varies in a range of preset values (see Column 14, Lines 27-48).
Referring to claim 10, see the rejection of claim 1.
Referring to claims 13-18, see the rejection of claims 4-9, respectively.
Referring to claim 19, see the rejection of claim 1.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries 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.
Claims 2, 11 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nam et al. (U.S. Patent No. 11,798,457) in view of White et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication 2015/0181287) in further view of Babu (U.S. Patent Application Publication 2014/0355963).
Referring to claim 2, Nam discloses all of the limitations of claim 1, but fails to teach recognizing that play of the content has begun, obtain title information of the played content by analyzing an image of the content and identifying the representative genre of the content, based on the title information of the content.
White discloses recognizing that play of the content has begun (see Paragraphs 0025 and 0030), obtain title information of the played content by analyzing an image of the content and identifying the representative genre and title of the content, (see Claim 3 and Paragraph 0038-0040).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the genre identification system, as taught by Nam, using the title information obtaining and representative genre identification functionality, as taught by White, for the purpose of obtaining identifying information to search for content related to a commercial (see the bottom of Paragraph 0037 of White).
Nam and White fail to teach that the representative genre of the content is identified based on the title information of the content.
Babu discloses identifying the representative genre of the content, based on the title information of the content (see Paragraph 0038).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the genre identification system, as taught by Nam and White, using the genre identification based on title information functionality, as taught by Babu, for the purpose of resolving DVR conflicts (see Paragraph 0062 of Babu).
Referring to claims 11 and 20, see the rejection of claim 2.
Claims 3 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nam et al. (U.S. Patent No. 11,798,457) in view of Narayana et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication 2023/0262289).
Referring to claim 3, Nam discloses all of the limitations of claim 1, but fails to teach recognizing that play of the content has begun, based on Auto Low Latency mode (ALLM).
Narayana discloses recognizing that play of the content has begun, based on Auto Low Latency Mode (see Paragraph 0071).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the genre identification system, as taught by Nam, using the ALLM functionality, as taught by Narayana, for the purpose of providing a process and system to indicate whether or not a gaming application running on a media device is a low latency application (see Paragraph 0071).
Referring to claim 12, see the rejection of claim 3.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JASON P SALCE whose telephone number is (571)272-7301. The examiner can normally be reached 5:30am-10:00pm M-F (Flex Schedule).
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/Jason Salce/Senior Examiner, Art Unit 2421
Jason P Salce
Senior Examiner
Art Unit 2421
March 17, 2026