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 .
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.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 10 to 14, 16 and 18 to 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Brenner; Vadim et al. (US 20090076821 A1), hereinafter BRENNER, in view of Fino; Jorge et al. (US 20110234480 A1), hereinafter FINO.
Regarding claim 1, BRENNER teaches:
A method comprising: receiving, by a human-machine interface of a device, first utterance data that includes a request to provide a list of playlists and that includes descriptor data, wherein the descriptor data represents one or more target playlist attributes;
BRENNER [0068]: “For example, using the speech recognition and synthesis apparatus 300, users may dynamically create automatic playlists using multiple criteria such as genre, era, year, region, artist type, tempo, beats per minute, mood, etc., or can generate seed-based automatic playlists with a simple spoken command to create a playlist of similar music. In an example embodiment, all basic playback commands (e.g., "Play," "Next," "Back," etc.) may be performed via voice commands. In addition, text-to-speech may also provide with commands like "More like this" or "What is this?" or any other domain specific commands. It will thus be appreciated that the speech recognition and synthesis apparatus 300 may facilitate and enhance the type and scope of commands that may be provided to a playback device such as an audio playback device by using voice commands.”
BRENNER [0083] “In an example embodiment, the alternate representation may include a nickname, a short name, a common abbreviation, and the like, such as may be associated with an artist name, an album title, a track title, a genre name, an artist origin, and an artist era description. ...”
BRENNER further disclose various voice commands that could archive the scope of the limitation. In Table 1 BRENNER disclose the commands "Browse Playlists”, “Browse Similar Artist” or “Browse Driving Playlist” wherein the command would allow the user to navigate throughout playlist related to a descriptor, such as playlist that feature a similar artist or playlist appropriate for driving.
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Figure 1: BRENNER’s Example Voice Commands Table (part 3 of 3)
in response to receiving the first utterance data, obtaining the list of playlists based on the descriptor data;
BRENNER [0039] “The playlist application layer 122 may enable the creation and/or management of playlists within the playlisting database 110. For example, the playlists may include media content as may be contained with the media database 126.”
BRENNER [0068] “For example, using the speech recognition and synthesis apparatus 300, users may dynamically create automatic playlists using multiple criteria such as genre, era, year, region, artist type, tempo, beats per minute, mood, etc., or can generate seed-based automatic playlists with a simple spoken command to create a playlist of similar music. In an example embodiment, all basic playback commands (e.g., "Play," "Next," "Back," etc.) may be performed via voice commands. In addition, text-to-speech may also provide with commands like "More like this" or "What is this?" or any other domain specific commands. It will thus be appreciated that the speech recognition and synthesis apparatus 300 may facilitate and enhance the type and scope of commands that may be provided to a playback device such as an audio playback device by using voice commands.”
BRENNER further disclose various voice commands that could archive the scope of the limitation. In Table 1 BRENNER disclose the commands "Browse Playlists" and "Browse Similar Regions" that is expected to execute a “Browsing via TTS Category Name Listing”.
BRENNER does not teach but FINO teaches:
and audibly outputting a portion of each of one or more respective playlists in the obtained list of playlists, the portion including a playlist trailer generated from one or more media content items of the respective playlist.
FINO [0035] “A scan preview provided in accordance with the principles of the invention can involve playing portions, or snippets, of songs in succession to provide the user with a preview of each song. The songs selected for the scan preview may be from a variety of categories, such as songs in different genres, from different artists, from different albums, from different seed-generated clusters, released in different time periods, or downloaded by the user at different times or seasons. This way, the user can preview different types of music to determine which type is currently of interest.”
It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to include in the teachings of BRENNER the capability to provide a trailer of a playlist in the form of a scan preview of the songs in it. The benefit and motivation of such modification is discussed by FINO in the following portion: FINO [0005] “In some embodiments of the invention, a scan preview can involve successively playing portions of songs (or "snippets") from different categories or music groups. This way, a user can experience different types of songs to determine which type suits the user's current mood, for example. The different categories may be, for example, different genres, artists, albums, release dates, download dates, or song speeds (e.g., by beats per minute ("BPM")). The electronic device providing the scan preview may play a snippet of one song in a category before moving to the next category, or may play snippets from multiple songs (e.g., 2, 5, 10, or 25 songs) in the same category before moving to the next category.”
Regarding claim 2, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated, furthermore BRENNER teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining the list of playlists based on the descriptor data comprises filtering a set of playlists based at least on the descriptor data.
BRENNER [0068] “For example, using the speech recognition and synthesis apparatus 300, users may dynamically create automatic playlists using multiple criteria such as genre, era, year, region, artist type, tempo, beats per minute, mood, etc., or can generate seed-based automatic playlists with a simple spoken command to create a playlist of similar music. ...”
BRENNER further disclose various voice commands that could archive the scope of the limitation. In Table 1 BRENNER disclose the commands "More like this Genre" and "Play Genre/Style", wherein the commands allow to filter the playlist, for example, by genres, one of the descriptor data.
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Figure 2: BRENNER’s Example Voice Commands Table (part 2 of 3)
Regarding claim 3, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated, furthermore BRENNER does not teach, but FINO teaches:
The method of claim 2, wherein filtering the set of playlists based on the descriptor data comprises removing one or more playlists from the set of playlists based on the one or more playlists being unrelated to the descriptor data.
FINO [0073] “As an alternative to step 818 and step 820, the electronic device can execute step 822 and provide the user with the ability to further filter songs based on a different attribute. For example, if the current categories are organized based on different genres, the electronic device can filter the songs down to only those of the selected song's genre. The electronic device can then repeat the steps of process 800 using a different attribute, such as artists in that genre, to further filter the songs based on a particular artist. In some embodiments, the electronic device may execute step 822 when the electronic device is implementing a hierarchical scan preview. After the electronic device executes step 818, step 820, or step 822, process 800 can move to step 824 and end.”
FINO [0064] “... At step 714, the electronic device determines whether the user has selected to filter music by attribute (e.g., using options 620 of FIG. 6), such as by genre, artist, time period (e.g., year released or year downloaded), or song speed (e.g., BPM). If not, process 700 moves to step 710 and ends. Otherwise, process 700 continues to step 716, where the electronic device provides a music submenu for the selected attribute. For example, if the user opts to filter by genre, the electronic device can provide a genre submenu listing different genres.”
It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to include in the teachings of BRENNER the capability to filter the media to be displayed according to the descriptor data. The benefit and motivation of such modification is discussed by FINO in the following portion: FINO [0051] “… By allowing the user to filter songs using multiple criteria (e.g., genre and artist), the user can locate one or more songs of particular interest, or can fully define the type of songs suitable for the user's current mood. This form of multi-level or multi-attribute scan preview may sometimes be referred to as a hierarchical scan preview.”
Regarding claim 7, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated, furthermore BRENNER does not teach but FINO teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein the playlist trailer of each respective playlist in the obtained list of playlists includes snippets of two or more of the media content items of the respective playlist.
FINO [0005] “In some embodiments of the invention, a scan preview can involve successively playing portions of songs (or "snippets") from different categories or music groups. This way, a user can experience different types of songs to determine which type suits the user's current mood, for example. The different categories may be, for example, different genres, artists, albums, release dates, download dates, or song speeds (e.g., by beats per minute ("BPM")). The electronic device providing the scan preview may play a snippet of one song in a category before moving to the next category, or may play snippets from multiple songs (e.g., 2, 5, 10, or 25 songs) in the same category before moving to the next category.”
It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to include in the teachings of BRENNER the capability to provide a trailer of a playlist in the form of a scan preview of 2 or more songs snippets. The benefit and motivation of such modification is discussed by FINO in the following portion: FINO [0005] “… This way, a user can experience different types of songs to determine which type suits the user's current mood, for example.
Regarding claim 9, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated, furthermore BRENNER teaches:
The method of claim 1, further comprising: while audibly outputting the portion of each of one or more respective playlists in the obtained list of playlists, receiving a further utterance defining a modification input;
BRENNER [0033] “FIG. 1 shows an example high level system architecture 100 for recognition of media content to enable playback control, navigation, media content search, media content recommendations, reading and/or delivering of enhanced metadata (e.g., lyrics and cover art) and/or dynamic playlisting of the media content. The architecture 100 may include a speech recognition and synthesis apparatus 104 in communication with a media management system 106 and an application layer/user interface (UI) 108. The speech recognition and synthesis apparatus 104 may receive spoken input 116 and provide speaker output 114 through speech recognition and speech synthesis respectively. For example, playback control, navigation, media content search, media content recommendations, reading and/or delivering of enhanced metadata (e.g., lyrics and cover art) and/or dynamic playlisting of media content using a text-to-speech (TTS) engine 110 for speech synthesis and an automated speech recognition (ASR) engine 112 for speech recognition commands may allow, for example, navigation functionality (e.g., browse content on a playback device) based on the delivered phonetic metadata 128.”
BRENNER further disclose various voice commands that can achieve the scope of the limitation. In Table 1 BRENNER disclose the commands Brenner "Save Mix As" (Figure 2) or "New playlist" (Figure 3) that allows to modify the list of playlists.
and responsive to the modification input defined by the received further utterance, modifying the list of playlists, and repeating the audible outputting with respect to the modified list of playlists.
BRENNER further disclose various voice commands that can achieve the scope of the limitation. In Table 1 BRENNER disclose the commands "Save Mix As" (Figure 2) or "New playlist" (Figure 3) + "Browse Playlist" (Figure 1). Wherein the first two commands allow to modify the list of playlists and the third command retrieve the list of playlists by “Browsing via TTS Category Name Listing”.
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Figure 3: BRENNER’s Example Voice Commands Table (part 1 of 3)
Regarding claim 10, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated, furthermore BRENNER teaches:
The method of claim 1, further comprising: while audibly outputting the portion of each of one or more respective playlists in the obtained list of playlists, receiving a playlist command;
BRENNER further disclose various voice commands that can achieve the scope of the limitation. In Table 1 BRENNER disclose the command "Browse Playlists" (Table 1). Wherein the response to the command should be to retrieve the list of playlists by “Browsing via TTS Category Name Listing”. BRENNER further disclose a command “Scan Similar Tracks” (Table 1) and “Scan Pink Floyd” (Table 1) wherein a form of preview would be output by “Browsing via 4-Second Audio Preview Listing”.
BRENNER does not teach but FINO teaches:
and responsive to the playlist command, initiating playback of a playlist based on the playlist command.
FINO [0089] “An electronic device (e.g., electronic device 200 of FIG. 2) may provide a scan preview in a particular mode of operation, which may be referred to sometimes as a "scan preview mode" (or simply "preview mode"). That is, in scan preview mode, the electronic device can provide any of the above-discussed scan previews or the scan previews discussed below in connection with FIGS. 13 and 15. While not in the scan preview mode, the mode of operation for playing audio may sometimes be referred to "play mode." Play mode may be the mode used when the electronic device is playing through a playlist of songs or when a song/album is selected by the user from a menu or from a scan preview, for example.”
It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to include in the teachings of BRENNER the capability to select one of the scan reviews and switch to a regular play mode based on the selection. The benefit and motivation of such modification is discussed by FINO in the following portion: FINO [0006] “In some embodiments, the electronic device may operate in a "scan preview mode" (or simply a "preview mode") when providing the user with a scan preview. The electronic device may seamlessly transition between the preview mode and a "normal mode," which allows a user to listen to music in a typical fashion (e.g., by creating a playlist of songs or by selecting a song from a list of songs), and back again. …”
Regarding claim 11, the rejection of claim 10 is incorporated, furthermore BRENNER does not teach but FINO teaches:
The method of claim 10, wherein initiating playback of a playlist based on the playlist command comprises initiating playback of a playlist whose portion is most recently audibly output.
FINO [0094] “If, instead, the user selects one of the previewed songs from the scan preview mode, the electronic device may switch back to play mode and may continue playing the selected song. Thus, there may be a seamless transition back to play mode from scan preview mode regardless of whether the user selects a song from the scan preview mode. When returning to play mode after selecting a new song from the scan preview, the electronic device may provide a display screen similar to display screen 1200, but corresponding to the new song.”
FINO [0049] “In other embodiments, responsive to the user selection of a song, electronic device 200 can provide a menu of options related to the selected song (e.g., a menu with songs in the same genre, from the same artist, or from the same album as the selected song). In still other embodiments, electronic device 200 can filter songs stored on electronic device 200 by the genre of the selected song, and can enable the user to further filter the remaining songs by another attribute. For example, responsive to the user selection of a song from the genre-based scan preview of FIG. 3, electronic device 200 can provide an artist-based scan preview to enable a user to filter songs in the selected genre by artist.”
It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to include in the teachings of BRENNER the capability to select one of the scan preview snippets and switch to a regular play mode based on the selection to continue playing the last listened song from the portions of songs. The benefit and motivation of such modification is discussed by FINO in the following portion: FINO [0006] “In some embodiments, the electronic device may operate in a "scan preview mode" (or simply a "preview mode") when providing the user with a scan preview. The electronic device may seamlessly transition between the preview mode and a "normal mode," which allows a user to listen to music in a typical fashion (e.g., by creating a playlist of songs or by selecting a song from a list of songs), and back again. …”
Regarding claim 12, the rejection of claim 10 is incorporated, furthermore BRENNER teaches:
The method of claim 10, wherein the playlist command includes a playlist identifier, and wherein initiating playback of a playlist based on the playlist command comprises initiating playback of a playlist having the playlist identifier.
BRENNER further disclose various voice commands that could archive the scope of the limitation. In Table 1 BRENNER disclose the commands Brenner "Save Mix As" <Darcy’s Party Mix> (Figure 2) or "New playlist" (Figure 3) that allows to modify the list of playlists, by creating a new playlist and define an identifier for the playlist. Furthermore, BRENNER disclose the commands that include “Play Mix” <Darcy’s Party Mix> (Figure 2) where the user can “Re-Mix/Play Saved Auto-Playlist Definition” by “Play User-defined AutoPL”.
Regarding claim 13, arguments analogous to claim 1 are applicable, furthermore BRENNER teaches:
A device comprising: a human-machine interface; at least one processor; and at least one non-transitory data storage medium having instructions executable by the at least one processor to cause the device to carry out operations
BRENNER [0196] “FIG. 22 shows a diagrammatic representation of machine in the exemplary form of a computer system 2200 within which a set of instructions, for causing the machine to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, may be executed. In alternative embodiments, the machine operates as a standalone device or may be connected (e.g., networked) to other machines. In a networked deployment, the machine may operate in the capacity of a server or a client machine in server-client network environment, or as a peer machine in a peer-to-peer (or distributed) network environment. The machine may be a personal computer (PC), a tablet PC, a set-top box (STB), a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a cellular telephone, a portable music player (e.g., a portable hard drive audio device such as an MP3 player), a car audio device, a web appliance, a network router, switch or bridge, or any machine capable of executing a set of instructions (sequential or otherwise) that specify actions to be taken by that machine. Further, while only a single machine is illustrated, the term "machine" shall also be taken to include any collection of machines that individually or jointly execute a set (or multiple sets) of instructions to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein.”
BRENNER [0197] “The exemplary computer system 2200 includes a processor 2202 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU) a graphics processing unit (GPU) or both), a main memory 2204 and a static memory 2206, which communicate with each other via a bus 2208. The computer system 2200 may further include a video display unit 2210 (e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD) or a cathode ray tube (CRT)). The computer system 2200 also includes an alphanumeric input device 2212 (e.g., a keyboard), a cursor control device 2214 (e.g., a mouse), a disk drive unit 2216, a signal generation device 2218 (e.g., a speaker) and a network interface device 2230.”
Regarding claim 14, the rejection of claim 12 is incorporated, furthermore arguments analogous to claim 2 are applicable.
Regarding claim 16, the rejection of claim 12 is incorporated, furthermore arguments analogous to claim 7 are applicable.
Regarding claim 18, the rejection of claim 12 is incorporated, furthermore arguments analogous to claim 9 are applicable.
Regarding claim 19, the rejection of claim 12 is incorporated, furthermore arguments analogous to claim 10 are applicable.
Regarding claim 20, arguments analogous to claim 1 and claim 13 are applicable, furthermore BRENNER teaches:
At least one non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon instructions executable by at least one processor of a computing system to cause the computing system to carry out operations
BRENNER [0197] “The exemplary computer system 2200 includes a processor 2202 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU) a graphics processing unit (GPU) or both), a main memory 2204 and a static memory 2206, which communicate with each other via a bus 2208. The computer system 2200 may further include a video display unit 2210 (e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD) or a cathode ray tube (CRT)). The computer system 2200 also includes an alphanumeric input device 2212 (e.g., a keyboard), a cursor control device 2214 (e.g., a mouse), a disk drive unit 2216, a signal generation device 2218 (e.g., a speaker) and a network interface device 2230.”
BRENNER [0198] “The disk drive unit 2216 includes a machine-readable medium 2222 on which is stored one or more sets of instructions (e.g., software 2224) embodying any one or more of the methodologies or functions described herein. The software 2224 may also reside, completely or at least partially, within the main memory 2204 and/or within the processor 2202 during execution thereof by the computer system 2200, the main memory 2204 and the processor 2202 also constituting machine-readable media.”
Claims 4, 5 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BRENNER in view of FINO in further view of Khedouri; Robert K. et al. (US 20060008256 A1), hereinafter KHEDOURI.
Regarding claim 4, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated, furthermore BRENNER in view of FINO does not teach, but KHEDOURI teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining the list of playlists based on the descriptor data comprises reordering a set of playlists based at least one the descriptor data.
KHEDOURI [0060] “The present invention also allows users to share their content over the network. A user may connect to the network over WiFi and then browse or search the playlists, audio and/or video collections and favorite content of other users in a variety of ways, including by requesting from the network database a list of content sorted in descending order by popularity (e.g., number of users accessing selection, or total number of times listened/viewed), ranking (e.g., on published charts such as Billboard) or user rating; a list of audio and/or video selections sorted by geographic proximity of users (e.g., most popular videos/songs by number of views/listens for Birmingham, Ala., based on the billing addresses of the owners); a list of content selections a particular named user (who may be identified based on ratings or use of a particular playlist or other ways) currently stores on his or her portable device; or sorted in other ways. In each case, the network performs the necessary computation on request (or stores the results from such a computation) and provides it to the user by transmitting the appropriate listing of file IDs to the portable device. Each user is further given the opportunity to provide ratings for each piece of content and playlist they have, which may be shared with other users in a similar fashion, and may be used by the user as a way to personally track his or her favorite selections. Averages and statistics may also be compiled on the network in order to list content selections and playlists in order of their popularity according to user rating, number of listens/views or by other metrics. Users can also search the collections of other users based on the presence of particular content selections contained in the other user's playlists. …”
It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to include in the teachings of BRENNER in view of FINO the capability to reorder the playlist under different sorting parameters. The benefit and motivation of such modification is discussed by KHEDOURI in the following portion: KHEDOURI [0096] “FIGS. 14, 15, 16 and 17 depict custom delivery of programmed content, which allows a user to specify a taste for particular genres or preferred activity and have continuous commercial-free programming delivered automatically (at periodic Device-Network Synchronizations, invisible to the user), including updated playlists, which can then provide hours of continuous play at the push of the button while still allowing (unlike in the case of broadcast media) the ability to replay content, pause the entertainment, save particular selections to the user's collection, fast-forward/rewind, or skip content selections. …”
Regarding claim 5, the rejection of claim 4 is incorporated, furthermore BRENNER in view of FINO does not teach, but KHEDOURI teaches:
The method of claim 4, wherein the reordering is further based on an activity of a user of the device.
KHEDOURI [0060] “The present invention also allows users to share their content over the network. A user may connect to the network over WiFi and then browse or search the playlists, audio and/or video collections and favorite content of other users in a variety of ways, including by requesting from the network database a list of content sorted in descending order by popularity (e.g., number of users accessing selection, or total number of times listened/viewed), ranking (e.g., on published charts such as Billboard) or user rating; a list of audio and/or video selections sorted by geographic proximity of users (e.g., most popular videos/songs by number of views/listens for Birmingham, Ala., based on the billing addresses of the owners); a list of content selections a particular named user (who may be identified based on ratings or use of a particular playlist or other ways) currently stores on his or her portable device; or sorted in other ways. In each case, the network performs the necessary computation on request (or stores the results from such a computation) and provides it to the user by transmitting the appropriate listing of file IDs to the portable device. Each user is further given the opportunity to provide ratings for each piece of content and playlist they have, which may be shared with other users in a similar fashion, and may be used by the user as a way to personally track his or her favorite selections. Averages and statistics may also be compiled on the network in order to list content selections and playlists in order of their popularity according to user rating, number of listens/views or by other metrics. Users can also search the collections of other users based on the presence of particular content selections contained in the other user's playlists. …”
KHEDOURI [0096] “FIGS. 14, 15, 16 and 17 depict custom delivery of programmed content, which allows a user to specify a taste for particular genres or preferred activity and have continuous commercial-free programming delivered automatically (at periodic Device-Network Synchronizations, invisible to the user), including updated playlists, which can then provide hours of continuous play at the push of the button while still allowing (unlike in the case of broadcast media) the ability to replay content, pause the entertainment, save particular selections to the user's collection, fast-forward/rewind, or skip content selections. "Interactive radio" allows users to subscribe to playlists that are delivered on a scheduled basis--users can search through a variety of lists in multiple ways (e.g. by mood, activity or genre), as shown in 1401. …”
KHEDOURI [0098] “FIG. 18 also describes the process of programmed media delivery in detail. The network updates a list of available programmed content channels on the device. The user selects from available programmed content channels displayed on the portable device, (e.g., "workout mix," "comedy") specifying frequency of update and number of content files to be delivered per update. Upon the next connection to the network, the device provides this information to the network, which is stored in the subscriber data database.”
It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to include in the teachings of BRENNER in view of FINO the capability to reorder the playlist under different sorting parameters. The benefit and motivation of such modification is discussed by KHEDOURI in the following portion: KHEDOURI [0096] “FIGS. 14, 15, 16 and 17 depict custom delivery of programmed content, which allows a user to specify a taste for particular genres or preferred activity and have continuous commercial-free programming delivered automatically (at periodic Device-Network Synchronizations, invisible to the user), including updated playlists, which can then provide hours of continuous play at the push of the button while still allowing (unlike in the case of broadcast media) the ability to replay content, pause the entertainment, save particular selections to the user's collection, fast-forward/rewind, or skip content selections. …”
Regarding claim 15, the rejection of claim 13 is incorporated, furthermore arguments analogous to claim 4 are applicable.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BRENNER in view of FINO in view of KHEDOURI in further view of FAENGER; JENS et al. (US 20110209062 A1), hereinafter FAENGER.
Regarding claim 6, the rejection of claim 4 is incorporated, furthermore BRENNER in view of FINO in further view of KHEDOURI does not teach, but FAENGER teaches:
The method of claim 4, wherein the reordering is further based on an amount of content cached at the device.
FAENGER [0049] “System 12 may store music that originated from external networks and broadcast sources 16. For example, musical content may be recorded into the entertainment system's local storage memory, such as song cache 22. Because songs can also be deleted from it, this storage represents a temporary storage, i.e., a song cache. For each song recorded, information 24 about similar songs may be requested from music similarity web service 14, which may include internet services or other external networks. These recommendations 24 may be stored in a local cache as well, such as artist/song similarity cache 26. In addition, system 12 may store user feedback 28 and playback statistics for each song in a third cache 30. Based on all three data bases 22, 26, 30, a playlist generator 32 creates a sequence of songs 34 that might be of interest to the user and that may be played on an audio speaker 36.”
FAENGER [0072] Next, in step 318, the stored first and/or second items are retrieved from memory. For example, at some future point in time, playlist generator 32 may retrieve songs from song cache 22 and include the songs in a playlist (e.g., a list of songs that are to be played back to the user wherein the songs that are selected, and the order in which the songs are played back, meets some criteria defined by the particular user's preferences as well as by other more universal criteria).
It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to include in the teachings of BRENNER in view of FINO in further view of KHEDOURI the capability to reorder the playlist, or a sequence of songs, under different sorting parameters, such as the number of cached elements in the device. The benefit and motivation of such modification is discussed by FAENGER in the following portion: FAENGER [0083] “An eighth novel feature is that, based on the cached song knowledge and cached song content, the system may be able to compile playlists of locally stored music. In compiling a playlist, the system may consider which songs have recently been collected and which have been available in the device's storage for a while. For example, it may be considered desirable for a playlist to include a mix of, or alternate between, newer songs and songs that have been stored within the system for a longer period of time. In one embodiment, a playlist includes a plurality of old items that have been included in a previous playlist, as well as at least one new item that has never been included in a playlist within system 12, such as items that may have been acquired in the previous twenty-four hours. Each of the new items may be immediately preceded and immediately followed by ones of the old items in the playlist.”
Claims 8 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BRENNER in view of FINO in further view of Renshaw; Erin et al. (US 20060112098 A1), hereinafter RENSHAW.
Regarding claim 8, the rejection of claim 7 is incorporated, furthermore
BRENNER does not teach, but FINO teaches:
wherein the playlist trailer is generated from the selected proper subset of the media content items.
FINO [0007] “In some embodiments, the electronic device can provide a multi-directional interface that allows a user to control which previews are provided during a scan preview. For example, the "multi-directional interface" can refer to an interface of an electronic device that can receive horizontally-directed and vertically-directed user inputs to affect different aspects of the scan preview. Responsive to receiving a directional input in a horizontal direction, the electronic device may visually rotate the visual interface horizontally and may play a scan preview for songs associated with a different category (e.g., songs by Usher) in the same attribute (e.g., artists). Responsive to receiving a directional input in a vertical direction, the electronic device may visually rotate the visual interface vertically and may play a scan preview for songs associated with a category (e.g., hip hop) for a different attribute (e.g., genre). This way, the user can choose the way in which the user wants to search for a song (i.e., by using vertically-directed movements to change between searching by artist, genre, album, etc.), and can also move between categories to locate the specific song (e.g., by using horizontally-directed movements).”
It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to include in the teachings of BRENNER the capability to provide a trailer of a playlist in the form of a scan preview of the songs in a category or a subset. The benefit and motivation of such modification is discussed by FINO in the following portion: FINO [0005] “In some embodiments of the invention, a scan preview can involve successively playing portions of songs (or "snippets") from different categories or music groups. This way, a user can experience different types of songs to determine which type suits the user's current mood, for example. The different categories may be, for example, different genres, artists, albums, release dates, download dates, or song speeds (e.g., by beats per minute ("BPM")). The electronic device providing the scan preview may play a snippet of one song in a category before moving to the next category, or may play snippets from multiple songs (e.g., 2, 5, 10, or 25 songs) in the same category before moving to the next category.”
BRENNER in view of FINO does not teach, but RENSHAW teaches:
The method of claim 7, further comprising, for each respective playlist in the obtained list of playlists, using machine learning to select a proper subset of the media content items of the respective playlist,
RENSHAW [Abstract] “A "Music Mapper" automatically constructs a set coordinate vectors for use in inferring similarity between various pieces of music. In particular, given a music similarity graph expressed as links between various artists, albums, songs, etc., the Music Mapper applies a recursive embedding process to embed each of the graphs music entries into a multi-dimensional space. This recursive embedding process also embeds new music items added to the music similarity graph without reembedding existing entries so long a convergent embedding solution is achieved. Given this embedding, coordinate vectors are then computed for each of the embedded musical items. The similarity between any two musical items is then determined as either a function of the distance between the two corresponding vectors. In various embodiments, this similarity is then used in constructing music playlists given one or more random or user selected seed songs or in a statistical music clustering process.”
RENSHAW [0016] “Given this recursive embedding of music items into music space, coordinate vectors are then computed for each of the embedded musical items and stored to a set or table of coordinate vectors. This set of coordinate vectors is then used for a number of purposes, such as, for example, constructing music playlists from one or more random or user selected seed songs, or for clustering similar songs, albums, or artists. In various embodiments, the similarity between any two musical items is then determined as either a function of the distance between the two corresponding coordinate vectors, or as a function of a statistical clustering process.”
Wherein RENSHAW teaches an automated clustering technique in which music files are represented as multidimensional similarity vectors and then the statistical music clustering group them according to the distances of the vectors. Such clustering process is a recognized form of unsupervised machine learning model.
It would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to include in the teachings of BRENNER in view of FINO the capability to cluster a subset of media using a machine learning technique. The benefit and motivation of such modification is discussed by RENSHAW in the following portion: RENSHAW [0138] “Regardless of the clustering techniques used by the clustering module 710, the end result is the set of clusters of similar music objects 290. In various embodiments, this set of clusters of similar music objects 290 is then used to accomplish various tasks via interaction with the clusters a user interface module. For example, users with a large local music library 260 tend to have difficulty keeping their music collection in order. In particular, manually organizing the music into groups of similar items or labeling tracks is a tedious task for someone with even a few hundred tracks. Consequently, in one embodiment, a cataloging module 730 automatically catalogs the contents music library 260 as a function of the clusters of similar music objects 290 for organizing tracks into partitions of similar music or to bulk label those tracks.” As well as RENSHAW [0139] “In another embodiment, as noted above, the clusters of similar music objects 290 are used to automatically create or provide playback (via the playback module 295) of one or more clusters of music objects. In general, the clusters used to populate the playlists are chosen either at random, or via user selection of a particular music object (i.e., artist, track, or album). Other music objects in the same cluster as the selected music object are then provided either randomly, or as a group for immediate playback via the playback module 295, or as a playlist which can be edited via the user interface module 720, or stored for later use, as desired.”
Regarding claim 17, the rejection of claim 16 is incorporated, furthermore arguments analogous to claim 8 are applicable.
Summary of art used
BRENNER is used as a primary reference because it provides a good framework to manage different aspect of a list of playlists with a voice interface and provide a basic introduction to a 4-second scan of songs. FINO is used because of their scan previews that could be customized to show various song of a genre, artist or playlist in a device. KHEDOURI is used for their ability to sort different playlist according to the genre, artist, year, and to sort during a search. FAENGER is used for their distinction of cached songs and cached playlist in the device and relating them to the user preferences. RENSHAW is used for their statistical clustering of the music elements in a playlist to group them and organize them.
Pertinent art not relied on above:
Bishop; F. Avery et al. (US 20140278419 A1 ) VOICE COMMAND DEFINITIONS USED IN LAUNCHING APPLICATION WITH A COMMAND
Friesen; Sharon E. et al. (US 20130167029 A1 ) Playlist Configuration And Preview
Liu; Sherwin et al. (US 20190347063 A1 ) Systems And Methods For Voice-Assisted Media Content Selection
MARTELLA; Brandon James (US 20160162125 A1 ) SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING MEDIA PREVIEW FOR PLAYLISTS
Conclusion
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/HECTOR J. CRESPO FEBLES/Examiner, Art Unit 2657
/DANIEL C WASHBURN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2657
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