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 § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 13-15 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the electronic device readable medium could be a signal per se. paragraph 0129 is open ended and does not limit it to purely a physical storage medium. The Examiner suggests amending the claim to include the phrase “non-transitory”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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.
Claim(s) 1-2, 5-6, 10, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 2019/0158733 A1 to Feng et al.
Regarding claim 1, Feng discloses an online conference system (0027 “this disclosure pertains to a video conference endpoint having one or more stational cameras and a plurality of adjustable cameras) , comprising: a first terminal device positioned in a default space and having a first capturing module to capture at least one of a video message and an audio message in the default space (0030, two or more cameras 50 AB capture audio video, figure 1d, there can be multiple devices 80/81 disposed around a room with multiple cameras/microphones which can operate in a master slave environment and allows for a cameras to pick the best view of a speaker in the environment, 0049-0051);
and a second terminal device positioned in the default space and communicatively coupled to the first terminal device (0050, element 80/81 in a master slave environment with the main device), the second terminal device having a second capturing module to capture the at least one of the video message and the audio message in the default space (0049-0051, each device 80/81 has its own audio/video capture device);
wherein the first terminal device calculates a first score according to a scoring algorithm and the first capturing module, and the second terminal device calculates a second score according to the scoring algorithm and the second capturing module; and wherein when the first score is higher than the second score, the first terminal device acquires an agent authority and is responsible for transmitting the message captured by the first capturing module and the message captured by the second capturing module to a remote host (0075-0085, a second order information score is created for each of the master device and slave devices, this is used to track a speakers location, if the SOIC at the slave device exceeds the master device, then that view is selected, and is included in the audio video feed, see 0081).
Regarding claim 2, see 0081 of Feng, where the master/slave relationship is discussed and the selected A/V stream is output based on a score, and thus the limitations of:
wherein the first terminal device controls the second capturing module of the second terminal device according to the agent authority.
Regarding claim 5, Feng discloses: wherein when the first terminal device acquires the agent authority, the first terminal device is responsible for managing all terminal devices in the default space, integrating and transmitting the messages captured by all the terminal devices in the default space (0075-0085, a second order information score is created for each of the master device and slave devices, this is used to track a speakers location, if the SOIC at the slave device exceeds the master device, then that view is selected, and is included in the audio video feed, see 0081).
Regarding claim 6, this substantially corresponds to the system claim 1 as addressed above. Please see the above rejection.
Regarding claims 10 and 13, see system claim 1 as addressed above. Furthermore, see fig 1b with processor 100 and memory 104.
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.
Claim(s) 3, 4, 7-9, 11, 12, 14 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2019/0158733 A1 to Feng et al in view of US 11,546,398 B1 to Carofiglio et al.
Regarding claims 3, 7, 11, and 14, while Feng discloses some timing information at 0072, and discloses a master slave environment where the selected streams are scored with the highest scored stream being output, Feng doesn’t specifically disclose:
wherein the first terminal device automatically synchronizes time information of the second terminal device with time information of the first terminal device according to the agent authority; and wherein the time information of the second terminal device or the time information of the first terminal device comprises at least one of set time zone information, time parameter information, time error information, and camera anti banding information.
Carofiglio discloses the use of “real time communication” architecture (column 8, lines 21-28), which synchronizes time information according to an agent authority between two terminal devices by a time parameter, such that frames may be skipped so that they are in sync with one another, (column 10, lines 25-60).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have modified Feng’s time information to utilize the time parameter information of Carofiglio, to synchronize the video such that the device may quickly resync to be in a sync state (figure 5).
Regarding claims 4,8, 12, and 15, the combination of Feng and Carofiglio discloses online conference system according to claim 3, wherein the first terminal device determines whether network speed information of a network in the default space is less than network speed threshold information according to a network monitoring algorithm, and wherein when the first terminal device determines that the network speed information is less than the network speed threshold information, the first terminal device sets a network resource of the network to be preferentially provided to the first terminal device according to the agent authority. More specifically, Carofiglio discloses that there can be bandwidth prioritization between “active” (currently broadcasting video) and passive participants in the video conference (column 10, lines 58-68, col 12, lines 43-61).
Regarding claim 9, Feng discloses that endpoint 10 can transmit composite/PIP videos of the cameras for selection by the user at 0038 and thus teaches the limitations of:
integrating, by the agent, information captured by all the terminal devices in the default space; and transmitting, by the agent, integrated information to a remote host.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HUNTER B LONSBERRY whose telephone number is (571)272-7298. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-5:30.
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HUNTER B. LONSBERRY
Supervisory Patent Examiner
Art Unit 3665
/HUNTER B LONSBERRY/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3665
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