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 .
Response to Amendment
The Amendment filed 7/9/2016 has been entered.
Claim Status
Claims 40-61 are pending in this Office Action.
Claims 40, 42, 45, 48, 50, 52, 55, and 58 are amended.
Claims 60-61 are new.
Claims 1-39, 49, and 59 are cancelled.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 40 and 50 have been considered but, are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection. The reasons set forth below.
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 40-46, 48, 50-56, 58, and 60-61 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Marlow et al. (US 2014/0068654) in view of Phillips et al. (US 2012/0117017).
Regarding claims 40 and 50, Marlow teaches: A computer-implemented method and a system [(abstract, Fig. 39)], comprising:
identifying, on a social media platform, a plurality of friends of a user [determining the user’s friends on the social network (par. 88-89, Fig. 5)],
wherein each friend of the plurality of friends is associated with a respective social media profile [The social networking system 160 stores user profiles describing the users of a social network in a user profile store 240 (par. 52, Fig. 2)]
identifying a subset of the plurality of friends of the user who have provided input to the social media platform indicating a preference for a video [determining one or more users, such as friends 101a-e, who have posted that indicate particular content such as a TV show or movie that the user is currently watching, is planning to watch, is liked by the user, or looks interesting to the user (par. 102, Fig. 7). The number of friends 101a-e of user 101 who have liked the specific program or who are currently watching the specific program (par. 235, 237, 253, 287)]
determining that a quantity of a plurality of users of the social media platform who have provided input to the social media platform indicating a preference for the video exceeds a threshold; and based at least in part on the determining that the quantity of the plurality of users exceeds the threshold, generating, for display on a device associated with the user, a recommendation comprising: (a) an identifier of the video, (b) names of at least two friends of the subset of the plurality of friends of the user that have provided input to the social media platform indicating a preference for the video; and (c) a number indicative of the quantity [Fig. 25, 29, and 31 demonstrate that when there is more than two friends that has indicated they are interested in a video, such as they like the video or are watching the video, the video may be recommended to the user and indicate the name of the video, a names of at least two friends, and a number indicative of the quantity. One or more users, two or more users, a large percentage of friends, etc. (par. 231-244, 253, 258, 278, and 287-288)].
Marlos does not explicitly disclose: wherein the threshold is greater than one.
Phillips teaches the threshold is greater than one [determining a predefined minimum threshold number of users (e,g, 3 users) with regards to recommending a video (par. 41)].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Marlow and Phillips before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the computer-implemented method of Marlow by incorporating the teaching of Phillips such that the threshold is greater than one. The motivation for doing so would have been to set the threshold numbers of users depending on the particular implementation (Phillips – par. 41). Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine the teachings of Marlow and Phillips to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim.
Regarding claims 41 and 51, Marlow and Phillips teach the computer-implemented method of claim 40; Marlow further teaches: based at least in part on determining that the quantity of the plurality of users exceeds the threshold, one or more names of one or more friends in the subset are not generated for display, despite the one or more friends having provided input to the social media platform indicating a preference for the video [Fig. 11, 25, 29, and 31 demonstrate that only one or two names of friends are displayed and the remaining friends who indicated interest in the video are not displayed.].
Regarding claims 42 and 52, Marlow and Phillips teach the computer-implemented method of claim 40; Marlow further teaches: the plurality of users who have provided input to the social media platform indicating a preference for the video includes users that are not friends of the user on the social media platform, and wherein the displayed number indicative of the quantity is based at least in part on the users that are not friends of the user [the plurality of users may be the total number of users of social networking system 160 who have liked the specific program or who are currently watching the specific program (par. 236, 238, 253, and 257)].
Regarding claims 43 and 53, Marlow and Phillips teach the computer-implemented method of claim 40; Marlow further teaches: the plurality of users includes one or more friends from the subset [one or more of the friends, such as Friend A (Fig. 31)].
Regarding claims 44 and 54, Marlow and Phillips teach the computer-implemented method of claim 40; Marlow further teaches: the input to the social media platform indicating the preference for the video comprises input selection of a "Like" option in relation to the video [clicking or selecting a "Like" icon with respect to the video (par. 83, 102, 235-236, and 267, Fig. 7, 27, 29, and 31)].
Regarding claims 45 and 55, Marlow and Phillips teach the computer-implemented method of claim 40; Marlow further teaches: the recommendation is a first recommendation, the video is a first video, the plurality of users is a first plurality of users, and the method further comprises: identifying at least two friends of the plurality of friends of the user who have provided input to the social media platform indicating a preference for a second video; determining that a quantity of a second plurality of users of the social media platform who have provided input to the social media platform indicating a preference for the second video does not exceed the threshold; and based at least in part on the determining that the quantity of the plurality of second users does not exceed the threshold, generating, for display on the device associated with the user, a second recommendation comprising: an identifier of the second video and a name of each of at least two friends who have provided input to the social media platform indicating a preference for the second video [Fig. 25 demonstrates recommendations of movies, TV shows, or other content including displaying a recommendation with a quantity of friends when there are more than two friends that have shown interest in the program, and displaying a recommendation with just the friend(s) names without any quantity when less friends have shown interest in the program (par. 231-232)].
Regarding claims 46 and 56, Marlow and Phillips teach the computer-implemented method of claim 40; Marlow further teaches: the recommendation is provided to the device in a trending video category of the social media platform [determining shows that are trending of a social networking system for a recommendation playlist (par. 257, Fig. 25 and 31)].
Regarding claims 48 and 58, Marlow and Phillips teach the computer-implemented method of claim 40; Marlow further teaches: the video is at least one of: a live video or a video on demand (VOD) video [the program may be a live TV show or on-demand programming (par. 114, 253, and 286-287)].
Regarding claim 60, Marlow and Phillips teach the computer-implemented method of claim 40; Marlow and Phillips further teach: the determining that the quantity of the plurality of users exceeds the threshold is performed at a first time; the method further comprises: at a second time earlier than the first time: identifying at least two friends of the plurality of friends of the user who have provided input to the social media platform indicating a preference for the video; determining that the quantity of the plurality of users who have provided input to the social media platform indicating a preference for the video does not yet exceed the threshold; and based at least in part on the determining that the quantity of the plurality of users does not yet exceed the threshold, generating, for display on the device associated with the user, a recommendation comprising: the identifier of the video and names of each of the at least two friends [Marlow - Fig. 25 demonstrates recommendations of movies, TV shows, or other content including displaying a recommendation with just the friend(s) names without any quantity when less friends have shown interest in the program (par. 231-232). Phillips – the threshold being three for example (par. 41)].
Regarding claim 61, Marlow and Phillips teach the computer-implemented method of claim 60; Marlow and Phillips further teach: a number indicative of the quantity of the plurality of users who have, as of the second time, provided input to the social media platform indicating a preference for the video is not provided for display with the identifier of the video and the names of each of the at least two friends [Marlow - Fig. 25 demonstrates recommendations of movies, TV shows, or other content including displaying a recommendation with just the friend(s) names without any quantity when less friends have shown interest in the program (par. 231-232). Phillips – the threshold being three for example (par. 41)].
Claims 47 and 57 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Marlow et al. (US 2014/0068654) in view of Phillips et al. (US 2012/0117017) and further in view of Reyna et al. (US 2012/0311453).
Regarding claims 47 and 57, Marlow and Phillips teach the computer-implemented method of claim 40; Marlow further teaches: the recommendation is included in a plurality of video recommendations provided to the device of the user [Fig. 25 and 31 demonstrate a plurality of recommendations on the device.],
the method further comprising: determining a number of selections of a "Like" option associated with each respective video recommendation of the plurality of video recommendations [Fig. 29 and 31 demonstrate a number of friends or users that liked each recommended program.].
While Marlow discloses a predetermined number of the top-ranked shows may then be presented to user 101 in playlist 2510 (par. 243), Marlow and Phillips do not explicitly disclose: causing the plurality of video recommendations to be ordered based at least in part on the number of selections of a "Like" option associated with each respective video recommendation of the plurality of video recommendations.
Reyna teaches: causing the plurality of video recommendations to be ordered based at least in part on the number of selections of a "Like" option associated with each respective video recommendation of the plurality of video recommendations [displaying a ranked list of titles of movies that are most liked from the social network of the user (par. 75)].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Marlow, Phillips, and Reyna before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the computer-implemented method of Marlow and Phillips by incorporating the teaching of Reyna for causing the plurality of video recommendations to be ordered based at least in part on the number of selections of a "Like" option associated with each respective video recommendation of the plurality of video recommendations. The motivation for doing so would have been to sort the videos by how popular they are on the social network, such as amongst the friends of the user, to help the user more easily find a video they would like to watch (Reyna – par. 29 and 75). Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine the teachings of Marlow and Phillips with Reyna to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim.
Conclusion
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action.
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/ALEXANDER BOYD/Examiner, Art Unit 2424
