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 .
Double Patenting
The non-statutory 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 non-statutory 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 non-statutory 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 §§ 706.02(l)(1) -706.02(l)(3) 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).
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Claims 1- 20 are rejected on the ground of non-statutory double patenting as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent No. 12,192,018 B1, filed as Application No. 18/143,774 on May 5, 2023. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other, as seen in the following table. The same general process is recited in both applications Some steps are identical, while other steps include slight variations in wording or in the breadth of process, with the instant application sometimes being somewhat broader or narrower in scope, as discussed in the chart below. Please note that for dependent claims, the preambles are not included in the following table.
Instant
Application Number
19/011,146
US Patent 12,192,018 B1
Previous
Application Number
18/143,774
Comments
Claim 1:
A method comprising:
joining, by a client application executed by a first client device, a first virtual meeting hosted by a virtual conference provider and having a first plurality of participants;
joining, by the client application, a second virtual meeting hosted by the virtual conference provider and having a second plurality of participants, the second virtual meeting concurrent with the first virtual meeting;
receiving from the virtual conference provider:
a first set of multimedia streams corresponding to the first virtual meeting; and
a second set of multimedia streams corresponding to the second virtual meeting,
wherein each of the first and second sets of multimedia streams comprise one or more of an audio stream or a video stream; and
Claim 2:
determining, by the client application, a primary virtual meeting based on an input, wherein the primary virtual meeting is one of the first virtual meeting or the second virtual meeting.
presenting, by the client application within a graphical user interface ("GUI"), a first display of the first meeting and a second display of the second meeting, the first display comprising at least one multimedia stream from the first set of multimedia streams and the second display comprising at least one multimedia stream from the second set of multimedia streams.
Claim 3:
modifying, by the first client device, one or more multimedia streams of the first set of multimedia streams or the second set of multimedia streams based on the determined primary virtual meeting.
Claim 11:
A method comprising:
joining, by a first client device, a first virtual meeting hosted by a virtual conference provider and having a first plurality of participants;
joining, by the first client device, a second virtual meeting hosted by the virtual conference provider and having a second plurality of participants, the second virtual meeting concurrent with the first virtual meeting;
receiving, from a first client device, a first request to join the first virtual meeting and a second request to join the second virtual meeting;
receive from the virtual conference provider:
a first set of multimedia streams corresponding to the first virtual meeting; and
a second set of multimedia streams corresponding to the second virtual meeting,
wherein the first and second sets of multimedia streams comprise one or more of an audio stream or a video stream;
determining, by the first client device, a primary virtual meeting based on an input, wherein the primary virtual meeting is one of the first virtual meeting or the second virtual meeting;
outputting a replay cue associated with the primary virtual meeting; and
modifying, by the first client device, one or more of the first set of multimedia streams or the second set of multimedia streams based on the primary virual meeting.
By including two dependent claims with Claim 1 in the instant application, the resulting claims are virtually identical to the patent claim, except for two limitations:
In the patent claim, “receiving requests from client devices to join the virtual meetings,” but since the meetings are already joined to client devices, this limitation may be extraneous
In the instant claim, the “presenting multimedia streams from the two meetings” limitation introduces a GUI, while the patent claim merely recites “outputting a replay cue associated with the primary virtual meeting,” thereby making the instant Claim 1 somewhat narrower, but generally similar in scrope.
Claim 7:
The method of claim 2, further comprising:
monitoring a non-primary virtual meeting;
identifying an attention cue in the non-primary virtual meeting; and
outputting a notification based on the attention cue.
Claim 12:
The method of claim 11, wherein the method further comprises:
determining an attention cue in at least one of the first set of multimedia streams or the second set of multimedia streams; and
outputting an alert based on the attention cue.
The same concept is recited with the exception that the instant claim recites a monitoring limitation, which would be implied in patent Claim 12, since a determination cannot be made without the collection of information from the meetings.
Claim 8:
The method of claim 7,
wherein monitoring the non-primary virtual meeting comprises performing speech recognition on one or more audio streams from the non-primary virtual meeting.
Claim 14:
The method of claim 12,
wherein determining the attention cue in at least one of the first set of multimedia streams or the second set of multimedia streams comprises:
performing speech recognition on at least one of the first set of multimedia streams or the second set of multimedia streams; and
determining one or more keywords based on the speech recognition, wherein the one or more keywords correspond to the attention cue.
The instant claim is broader, but both claims recite: “performing speech recognition.”
Claim 9:
A system comprising:
a non-transitory computer-readable medium; and
one or more processors communicatively coupled to the non-transitory computer-readable medium, the one or more processors configured to execute processor-executable instructions stored in the non-transitory computer-readable medium to:
join, by a client application executed by a first client device, a first virtual meeting hosted by a virtual conference provider
and having a first plurality of participants;
join, by the client application, a second virtual meeting hosted by the virtual conference provider and having a second plurality of participants, the second virtual meeting concurrent with the first virtual meeting;
receive from the virtual conference provider:
a first set of multimedia streams corresponding to the first virtual meeting; and
a second set of multimedia streams corresponding to the second virtual meeting,
wherein each of the first and second sets of multimedia streams comprise one or more of an audio stream or a video stream; and
Claim 10:
determine, by the client application, a primary virtual meeting based on an input,
wherein the primary virtual meeting is one of the first virtual meeting or the second virtual meeting.
present, by the client application within a graphical user interface ("GUI"), a first display of the first meeting and a second display of the second meeting, the first display comprising at least one multimedia stream from the first set of multimedia streams and the second display comprising at least one multimedia stream from the second set of multimedia streams.
Claim 11:
modify, by the first client device, one or more multimedia streams of the first set of multimedia streams or the second set of multimedia streams based on the determined primary virtual meeting.
Claim 1:
A system comprising:
a non-transitory computer-readable medium;
a communications interface; and a processor communicatively coupled to the non-transitory computer-readable medium and the communications interface, the processor configured to execute processor-executable instructions stored in the non-transitory computer-readable medium to:
join, by a first client device, a first virtual meeting hosted by a virtual conference provider and having a first plurality of participants;
join, by the first client device, a second virtual meeting hosted by the virtual conference provider and having a second plurality of participants, the second virtual meeting concurrent with the first virtual meeting;
receive from the virtual conference provider:
a first set of multimedia streams corresponding to the first virtual meeting; and
a second set of multimedia streams corresponding to the second virtual meeting,
wherein the first and second sets of multimedia streams comprise one or more of an audio stream or a video stream;
determine, based on an input, a primary virtual meeting,
wherein the primary virtual meeting is one of the first virtual meeting or the second virtual meeting;
output a replay cue associated with the primary virtual meeting; and
modify one or more of the first set of multimedia streams or the second set of multimedia streams based on the primary virtual meeting.
See the comments above for Claim 1, which is analogous to Claim 9.
Claim 11:
modify, by the first client device, one or more multimedia streams of the first set of multimedia streams or the second set of multimedia streams based on the determined primary virtual meeting.
Claim 3:
modify the second set of multimedia streams based on the primary virtual meeting being the first virtual meeting, wherein modifying the second set of multimedia streams comprises decreasing a volume associated with one or more audio streams within the second set of multimedia streams.
The instant claim is more broadly recited, but both claims are directed to modifying multimedia streams.
Claim 16:
perform speech recognition on one or more audio streams from the non-primary virtual meeting.
Claim 9:
perform speech recognition on an audio stream from the first set of multimedia streams to identify one or more recognized words; and
identify, based on the one or more recognized words, one or more keywords corresponding to an attention cue.
See the comment above for Claim 8.
Claim 17:
A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising processor-executable instructions configured to cause one or more processors to:
join, by a client application executed by a first client device, a first virtual meeting hosted by a virtual conference provider and having a first plurality of participants;
join, by the client application, a second virtual meeting hosted by the virtual conference provider and having a second plurality of participants, the second virtual meeting concurrent with the first virtual meeting;
receive from the virtual conference provider:
a first set of multimedia streams corresponding to the first virtual meeting; and
a second set of multimedia streams corresponding to the second virtual meeting,
wherein each of the first and second sets of multimedia streams comprise one or more of an audio stream or a video stream; and
Claim 18:
determine, by the client application, a primary virtual meeting based on an input, wherein the primary virtual meeting is one of the first virtual meeting or the second virtual meeting.
present, by the client application within a graphical user interface ("GUI"), a first display of the first meeting and a second display of the second meeting, the first display comprising at least one multimedia stream from the first set of multimedia streams and the second display comprising at least one multimedia stream from the second set of multimedia streams.
Claim 19:
modify, by the first client device, one or more multimedia streams of the first set of multimedia streams or the second set of multimedia streams based on the determined primary virtual meeting.
Claim 18:
A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising processor-executable instructions configured to cause one or more processors to:
join, by a first client device, a first virtual meeting hosted by a virtual conference provider and having a first plurality of participants;
join, by the first client device, a second virtual meeting hosted by the virtual conference provider and having a second plurality of participants, the second virtual meeting concurrent with the first virtual meeting;
receive from the virtual conference provider:
a first set of multimedia streams corresponding to the first virtual meeting; and
a second set of multimedia streams corresponding to the second virtual meeting,
wherein the first and second sets of multimedia streams comprise one or more of an audio stream or a video stream;
determine, based on an input, a primary virtual meeting, wherein the primary virtual meeting is one of the first virtual meeting or the second virtual meeting;
output a replay cue associated with the primary virtual meeting; and
modify one or more of the first set of multimedia streams or the second set of multimedia streams based on the primary virtual meeting.
See the comment above for Claim 1.
Claim 20:
monitor a non-primary virtual meeting;
identify an attention cue in the non-primary virtual meeting; and
output a notification based on the attention cue.
Claim 19:
identify an attention cue in an audio stream from the first set of multimedia streams corresponding to the first virtual meeting; and
generate an alert based on the attention cue identified in the audio stream from the first set of multimedia streams.
See the comment above for Claim 7.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-20 are allowable over the prior art, based on the following subject matter recited in independent Claims 1, 9, and 17, which was not found:
presenting, by the client application within a graphical user interface ("GUI"), a first display of the first meeting and a second display of the second meeting, the first display comprising at least one multimedia stream from the first set of multimedia streams and the second display comprising at least one multimedia stream from the second set of multimedia streams.
However, until the Double Patenting rejection is overcome, a Notice of Allowance cannot be filed.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. The additional prior art references listed on Form PTO-892 and not used in the prior art rejections are also relevant to this application.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PHYLLIS A BOOK whose telephone number is (571)272-0698. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10:00 am - 7:00 pm.
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/PHYLLIS A BOOK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2454
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