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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. Claims 1-20 is/are directed to the abstract idea of a mathematical concept and a mental process. The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional computer elements, which are recited at a high level of generality, provide conventional computer functions that do not add meaningful limits to practicing the abstract idea.
The claim(s) recite(s) playing a video, determining visual layout priorities, and displaying the layout priorities. The rejected dependent claims only supply additional steps (mathematical calculations, and mental processes) that a processor must perform. All of these concepts relate to the abstract idea of certain methods of mathematical concepts and mental processes. The concept described in claims 1-20 is/are not meaningfully different than those methods of mathematical concepts and mental processes found by the courts to be abstract ideas. As such, the description in claims 1-20 is an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the additional elements when considered both individually and as an ordered combination do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. The hardware is recited at a high level of generality and are recited as performing generic computer functions routinely used in computer applications. Generic computer components recited as performing generic computer functions that are well-understood, routine and conventional activities amount to no more than implementing the abstract idea with a computerized system. The use of generic computer components that perform the generic functions of [e.g. "transmitting information", "generating information"] common to electronics and computer systems does not impose any meaningful limit on the computer implementation of the abstract idea. Thus, taken alone, the additional elements do not amount to significantly more than the above-identified judicial exception (the abstract idea).
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because looking at the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves another technology or technical field. Their collective functions merely provide conventional computer implementation (i.e. mere instructions to implement the abstract idea on a generic computing system).
Claims 1-20 are therefore not drawn to eligible subject matter as they are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
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.
Claims 1-3, 5-6, 11-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matias et. al. (US Patent 9,679,605) in view of Buehler et. al. (US Patent Publication 2012/0206605).
Regarding claims 1, 19, and 20, Matias discloses a method [system and computer-program product] of dynamically integrating vehicle-generated video and metadata, the method comprising, by a computer system: (C3 L29-45)
initiating
determining priorities
Matias does not appear to be explicit as to initiating playback of a video file in a display area, determining priorities of visual gadgets, and causing the selected subset of the plurality of visual gadgets to be placed in the display area, each placed visual gadget of the subset graphically presenting at least a portion of the vehicle metadata of the associated at least one vehicle metadata type.
Buehler however teaches initiating playback of a video file in a display area, the video file comprising recorded video in association with
determining priorities of a plurality of visual gadgets responsive to the initiated playback, wherein the plurality of visual gadgets are each associated with at least one
selecting a subset of the plurality of visual gadgets based on the determined priorities; and (¶7, 12, 31, 33)
causing the selected subset of the plurality of visual gadgets to be placed in the display area, each placed visual gadget of the subset graphically presenting at least a portion of the
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide the invention of Matias with initiating playback of a video file in a display area, determining priorities of visual gadgets, and causing the selected subset of the plurality of visual gadgets to be placed in the display area, each placed visual gadget of the subset graphically presenting at least a portion of the vehicle metadata of the associated at least one vehicle metadata type as taught by Buehler with a reasonable expectation of success because the technique for improving a particular class of devices was part of the ordinary capabilities of a person of ordinary skill in the art, in view of the teaching of the technique for improvement in other situations, would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
Regarding claim 2, Buehler teaches wherein the determining, the selecting, and the causing are performed iteratively during the playback of the video file. (¶34)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide the invention of Matias with wherein the determining, the selecting, and the causing are performed iteratively during the playback of the video file as taught by Buehler with a reasonable expectation of success because the technique for improving a particular class of devices was part of the ordinary capabilities of a person of ordinary skill in the art, in view of the teaching of the technique for improvement in other situations, would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
Regarding claim 3, Buhler teaches wherein, for at least one iteration of the determining, the selecting, and the causing: the determined priorities differ from the determined priorities for an immediately preceding iteration of the determining, the selecting, and the causing; and the causing comprises swapping, in the display area, a first visual gadget of the plurality of visual gadgets for a second visual gadget of the plurality of visual gadgets responsive to the difference. (¶11)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide the invention of Matias with wherein, for at least one iteration of the determining, the selecting, and the causing: the determined priorities differ from the determined priorities for an immediately preceding iteration of the determining, the selecting, and the causing; and the causing comprises swapping, in the display area, a first visual gadget of the plurality of visual gadgets for a second visual gadget of the plurality of visual gadgets responsive to the difference as taught by Buehler with a reasonable expectation of success because the technique for improving a particular class of devices was part of the ordinary capabilities of a person of ordinary skill in the art, in view of the teaching of the technique for improvement in other situations, would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
Regarding claim 5, Buehler teaches wherein, for at least one iteration of the determining, the selecting, and the causing: the selected subset is the same as the selected subset for an immediately preceding iteration of the determining, the selecting, and the causing; and the causing comprises maintaining an existing placement of the selected subset in the display area. (¶11; computed ranking don’t change)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide the invention of Matias with wherein, for at least one iteration of the determining, the selecting, and the causing: the selected subset is the same as the selected subset for an immediately preceding iteration of the determining, the selecting, and the causing; and the causing comprises maintaining an existing placement of the selected subset in the display area as taught by Buehler with a reasonable expectation of success because the technique for improving a particular class of devices was part of the ordinary capabilities of a person of ordinary skill in the art, in view of the teaching of the technique for improvement in other situations, would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
Regarding claim 6, Buehler teaches wherein the causing comprises positioning the selected subset in in the display area based on the determined priorities. (¶32)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide the invention of Matias with wherein the causing comprises positioning the selected subset in in the display area based on the determined priorities as taught by Buehler with a reasonable expectation of success because the technique for improving a particular class of devices was part of the ordinary capabilities of a person of ordinary skill in the art, in view of the teaching of the technique for improvement in other situations, would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
Regarding claim 11, Buehler teaches wherein the determining priorities comprises calculating metadata freshness scores for the plurality of visual gadgets based on an amount by which metadata has changed over a predetermined interval of time. (¶14, 31-32)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide the invention of Matias with wherein the determining priorities comprises calculating metadata freshness scores for the plurality of visual gadgets based on an amount by which metadata has changed over a predetermined interval of time as taught by Buehler with a reasonable expectation of success because the technique for improving a particular class of devices was part of the ordinary capabilities of a person of ordinary skill in the art, in view of the teaching of the technique for improvement in other situations, would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
Regarding claim 12, Buehler teaches wherein the determining priorities comprises calculating metadata contextual scores for the plurality of visual gadgets, wherein the metadata contextual scores indicate a current relevance of the plurality of visual gadgets based on contextual data. (¶35)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide the invention of Matias with wherein the determining priorities comprises calculating metadata contextual scores for the plurality of visual gadgets, wherein the metadata contextual scores indicate a current relevance of the plurality of visual gadgets based on contextual data as taught by Buehler with a reasonable expectation of success because the technique for improving a particular class of devices was part of the ordinary capabilities of a person of ordinary skill in the art, in view of the teaching of the technique for improvement in other situations, would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
Regarding claim 13, Matias further discloses updating the priorities based on one or more relationships between the plurality of visual gadgets for at least one vehicle mode. (C3 L29-45)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide the invention of Matias with updating the priorities based on one or more relationships between the plurality of visual gadgets for at least one vehicle mode as taught by Buehler with a reasonable expectation of success because the technique for improving a particular class of devices was part of the ordinary capabilities of a person of ordinary skill in the art, in view of the teaching of the technique for improvement in other situations, would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
Regarding claim 14, Buehler teaches wherein at least one visual gadget of the selected subset indicates a point of interest in the recorded video. (¶30)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide the invention of Matias with wherein at least one visual gadget of the selected subset indicates a point of interest in the recorded video as taught by Buehler with a reasonable expectation of success because the technique for improving a particular class of devices was part of the ordinary capabilities of a person of ordinary skill in the art, in view of the teaching of the technique for improvement in other situations, would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matias in view of Buehler as applied to claim 3 above, and further in view of McLeod et. al. (US Patent Publication 2017/0353519).
Regarding claim 4, McLeod teaches wherein the swapping is performed responsive to a determination that an amount of previous gadget swapping during at least a portion of the playback is less than a defined threshold. (¶41)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide the invention of Matias with wherein the swapping is performed responsive to a determination that an amount of previous gadget swapping during at least a portion of the playback is less than a defined threshold as taught by Matias with a reasonable expectation of success because the technique for improving a particular class of devices was part of the ordinary capabilities of a person of ordinary skill in the art, in view of the teaching of the technique for improvement in other situations, would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
Claims 7-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matias in view of Buehler as applied to claim1 above, and further in view of Kates (US Patent 8,347,228).
Regarding claim 7, Kates teaches wherein the determining priorities comprises calculating personal preference scores for the plurality of visual gadgets based on user preferences for the plurality of visual gadgets. (abstract)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide the invention of Matias with wherein the determining priorities comprises calculating personal preference scores for the plurality of visual gadgets based on user preferences for the plurality of visual gadgets as taught by Kates with a reasonable expectation of success because the technique for improving a particular class of devices was part of the ordinary capabilities of a person of ordinary skill in the art, in view of the teaching of the technique for improvement in other situations, would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
Regarding claim 8, Matias further discloses wherein the user preferences relate to visual gadget preferences within one or more vehicle modes. (C4 L10-27)
Claims 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matias in view of Buehler in further view of Kates as applied to claim 7 above, and further in view of Louch et. at. (US Patent Publication 2018/0011625).
Regarding claim 9, Louch teaches wherein the personal preference scores are calculated based on a graph of the user preferences for the plurality of visual gadgets. (¶28, 65)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide the invention of Matias with wherein the personal preference scores are calculated based on a graph of the user preferences for the plurality of visual gadgets as taught by Louch with a reasonable expectation of success because the technique for improving a particular class of devices was part of the ordinary capabilities of a person of ordinary skill in the art, in view of the teaching of the technique for improvement in other situations, would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
Regarding claim 10, Louch teaches updating the graph based on observed user behavior relative to the plurality of visual gadgets. (¶28, 65)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide the invention of Matias with updating the graph based on observed user behavior relative to the plurality of visual gadgets as taught by Louch with a reasonable expectation of success because the technique for improving a particular class of devices was part of the ordinary capabilities of a person of ordinary skill in the art, in view of the teaching of the technique for improvement in other situations, would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 15-18 would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims and if the claims are rewritten to overcome the applied §101 Rejection.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the prior art fails to disclose the method of claim 1, wherein at least one visual gadget of the selected subset graphically presents an interactive map display comprising a plurality of map markers, wherein the plurality of map markers correspond to a plurality of seek checkpoints in the recorded video.
the method of claim 15, wherein the interactive map display shows a speed pattern during a trip.
the method of claim 1, wherein at least one visual gadget of the selected subset graphically presents an interactive map display comprising a plurality of map markers indicative of a battery state of charge during a trip, wherein the plurality of map markers correspond to a plurality of seek checkpoints in the recorded video.
the method of claim 1, further comprising providing a seek bar comprising a plurality of seek checkpoints, the plurality of seek checkpoints corresponding to a plurality of map markers for a trip.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALAN D HUTCHINSON whose telephone number is (571)272-8413. The examiner can normally be reached 7-5 Mon-Thur.
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/ALAN D HUTCHINSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3669
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