DETAILED ACTION
1. Claims 1-30 are presented for consideration.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 12/05/2025 has been entered.
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.
Claim(s) 1-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Siddiqi et al. [ U.S. Patent No 10,182,096 ], in view of Joseph et al. [ US Patent No 10,148,716 ].
As per claim 1, Siddiqi discloses the inventio as claimed including a method of directing adaptive streaming video delivery from multiple content delivery networks [ i.e. generate and sends to the client a manifest file ] [ Fig. 8; and col 8, lines 60-col 9, lines 6 ], comprising:
monitoring, by a manifest serving system, performance metrics of a plurality of content delivery networks (CDNs) [ i.e. the CDN assigned to Alice’s client device can be selected in a variety of ways, based on current estimated load, or distance, load balancing scheme, and performance metric associated with three different CDNs ] [ Figure 2; and col 3, lines 17-col 4, lines 29 ];
receiving from a user device, by the manifest serving system, a request for a particular adaptive streaming video [ i.e. manifest request ] [ 806, Figure 8; col 8, lines 49-61 ];
generating, using the manifest serving system, manifest information comprising CDN information, designating at least two CDNs from the plurality of CDNs for retrieval of the particular adaptive streaming video based upon the monitored performance metrics [ i.e. dynamic generate a manifest file including a priority rank list of CDNs ] [ 1108, Figure 11; col 13, lines 50-col 14, lines 9; and col 16, lines 21-43 ].
Siddiqi does not specifically disclose
wherein the manifest information comprises separate information for each of the designated at least two CDNs; and the separate information for a given CDN from the designated at least two CDNs enables the user device to request an manifest file for the requested video content from the given CDNk; and
issuing to the user device, by the manifest serving system, the manifest information.
Joseph discloses
wherein the manifest information comprises separate information for each of the designated at least two CDNs [ i.e. manifest file contains list of URLs pointing to different sub-manifest files, each of which corresponds to one particular bitrate and one particular server/CDN, and dynamic assembled flattened mix of URLs of chunks of various bitrates and CDNs/servers (chunks from CDN A and B ] [ col 3, lines 20-27; and col 5, lines 57-64 ]; and the separate information for a given CDN from the designated at least two CDNs enables the user device to request a manifest file for the requested video content from the given CDN [ i.e. Alice’s video player can switch between CDNs ] [ col 5, lines 28-67; and col 6, lines 6-20 ]; and
issuing to the user device, by the manifest serving system the manifest information [ i.e. generated/assembled manifest file can then be sent/provided to Alice’s video player ] [ col 6, lines 3-20; and col 9, lines 4-9 ].
It would have been obvious to a person skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Siddiqi and Joseph because the teaching of Joseph would enable to provide dynamic adjustment of the video bitrate and CDN can be utilized to optimize the viewing experience of the user [ Joseph, col 3, lines 55-61 ].
As per claim 2, Siddiqi discloses wherein designation of the at least two CDNs is further based upon a geographic location of networks in the plurality of CDNs [ i.e. location of CDNs ] [ Figure 1; and col 3, lines 1-50 ].
As per claim 3, Siddiqi discloses wherein designation of the at least two CDNs is further based upon a geographic location of a name server receiving the request for obtaining the particular adaptive streaming video [ i.e. DNS provider ] [ col 18, lines 28-53 ].
As per claim 4, Siddiqi discloses wherein the designated at least twop CDNs are assigned priorities based upon a distribution policy [ i.e. prioritized ranked list of CDNs ] [ col 6, lines 53-55; and col 12, lines 61-col 13, lines 4 ].
8. As per claim 5, Joseph discloses wherein to monitor the performance metrics comprises receiving, by the manifest serving system, information regarding performance of a given CDN from a performance manager of the given CDN [ i.e. global distribution performance information ] [ col 8, lines 27-44 ].
As per claim 6, Siddiqi discloses wherein the manifest serving system comprises a plurality of manifest servers, and the method further comprises selecting a receiving manifest server from the manifest serving system to receive the request based on at least one of: the requesting user device, deterministic distribution of requests, the receiving manifest serving system having previously processed requests for particular adaptive streaming video; or relative network distance to a location of the user device from the receiving manifest serving system [ i.e. select a dispatcher server from the list ] [ Figure 20; and col 42, lines 54-col 43, lines 14 ].
As per claim 7, Siddiqi discloses assigning a session ID, and incorporating the session ID in the manifest information [ col 25, lines 1-4 ].
As per claim 8, Siddiqi discloses wherein each CDN of the plurality of CDNs is an independently managed CDN [ i.e. CDN 1, CDN 2 ] [ Figures 5A and 5B ].
As per claim 9, Siddiqi discloses wherein the monitored performance metrics comprise at least one of: availability, performance, load, network performance, or whether the particular adaptive streaming video is in memory [ i.e. load, bandwidth ] [ Figure 2; and col 3, lines 53-col 4, lines 9 ].
As per claim 10, Siddiqi discloses wherein designation of the at least two CDNs comprises providing a hostname for a network as part of the manifest information [ i.e. hostname ] [ col 20, lines 32-38 ]
As per claim 11, Siddiqi discloses wherein the manifest information is stored in a first manifest file, and issuing the manifest information to the user device comprises transmitting the first manifest file to the user device [ i.e. send or return manifest file to the client ] [ 808, Figure 8; col 8, lines 61-62; and col 25, lines 50-53 ].
As per claim 12, Siddiqi discloses collecting, by a given CDN from plurality of CDNs, performance metrics about the given CDN; and transmitting the collected performance metrics to the manifest serving system [ Figure 8; and col 8, lines 49-col 9, lines 6 ].
16. As per claim 13, Joseph discloses requesting, by the user device using the manifest information, the particular adaptive streaming video from a selected CDN of the designated at least two CDNs [ i.e. determine that the best CDN to begin with is CDN B rather than CDN A ] [ col 8, lines 31-44 ].
17. As per claim 14, Siddiqi discloses receiving in response to the requesting, by the user device, a manifest file from the selected CDN, the manifest file comprising a plurality of uniform resource locators (URLs) for requesting segments of the particular adaptive streaming video from one or more segment file servers in the selected CDN [ i.e. m3u8 ] [ col 35, lines 36-67 ].
18. As per claim 15, Siddiqi discloses wherein the segments of the particular adaptive streaming video are stored within video segment files [ i.e. video chunks ] [ col 14, lines 10-18 ].
19. As per claim 16, Joseph discloses receiving in response to the requesting, by the user device, a manifest file from the selected CDN, the manifest file comprising a plurality of uniform resource locators (URLs) for requesting segments of the particular adaptive streaming video from one or more segment file server clusters in the selected CDN [ i.e. list URLs pointing chunks at one particular bitrate on CDN C ] [ col 3, lines 11-26 ].
As per claim 17, Siddiqi discloses wherein the segments of the particular adaptive streaming video are stored within video segment files [ i.e. video chunks ] [ col 14, lines 10-18 ].
21. As per claim 18, it is rejected for similar reasons as stated above in claims 1, 4, and 13, furthermore, Siddiqi discloses receiving, by the user device, the particular adaptive streaming video from the first CDN [ i.e. download and start playing the video chunks ] [ col 9, lines 16-19 ].
22. As per claim 19, it is rejected for similar reasons as stated above in claim 8.
23. As per claim 20, it is rejected for similar reasons as stated above in claim 11.
24. As per claim 21, it is rejected for similar reasons as stated above in claim 1, furthermore, Joseph discloses where the CDN information designating the at least two networks is capable of enabling the playback device at a later point in time to select a CDN from the at least two CDNs that is determined to be best suited to handle requests for video segment files of the particular adaptive streaming video [ i.e. mid-stream CDN switching ] [ col 5, lines 57-col 6, lines 20; and col 8, lines 45-col 9, lines 9 ].
As per claims 22-30, they are rejected for similar reasons as stated above in claims 3-7, 9, and 11-13, respectively.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-30 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
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/DUSTIN NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2446