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 Objections
Claims 1, 7 are objected to because of the following informalities: claims 1 and 7 include the term ABR, which is an acronym that can mean different things and/or change in meaning over time; hence, it would be desirable to write out the actual words to which the acronym refers or define the acronym the first time it is used. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites the limitations "the time" and “the size” in line 7, “the quotient” in line 8, “the number of unicast requests” in line 12, and “the bandwidth” and “the respective quality level metric” in lines 14-15 of claim 1. There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim.
Claim 7, the is directed toward “a network element”, which is presumably directed toward an Apparatus claim. However, the body of the claim lacks any specific structural elements, but merely recites functional limitations of the “network element” (see MPEP 2106.03(I)), nor includes any transitional phrases (see MPEP 2111.03). Therefore, claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite.
Additionally, Claim 7 recites the limitations "the time" and “the size” in line 7, “the quotient” in line 8, “the number of unicast requests” in line 12, and “the bandwidth” and “the respective quality level metric” in lines 14-15 of claim 7. There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations in the claim.
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.
Claims 1, 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Appleby et al. (UK Pub. GB 2586637 A), herein referenced as Appleby.
Regarding claim 1, Appleby discloses “A method of managing content delivery to a client device by a network element, said content comprising a sequence of segments and wherein each of the segments is encoded at a plurality of quality levels (Pg. 1 lines 29-35, Pg. 3 lines 20-35, Figs. 2-3, i.e., managing content delivery over a network to a client device, wherein a client requests video segments and each segments is available at different bitrates), said method comprising:
i) receiving unicast requests for segments encoded at one or more of the quality levels from a client device, forwarding the requests to a unicast content source, receiving the requested segments, and transmitting the requested segments to the client device by unicast (Pg. 5 lines 3-5, Pg. 7 lines 24-35, Fig. 2-3, i.e., one or more client devices make requests for segments of content, such as a film stored at the content server 302, and receives responses (the segments) over unicast via Proxy Y);
ii) determining the time taken to receive each given segment and the size of each given segment, and estimating a delivery rate for each given segment as the quotient of the size of the segment and the time taken to receive the segment; iii) determining a bandwidth estimate as an average of the estimated delivery rates (Pg. 8 lines 7-20, Pg. 9 lines 1-13, i.e., Proxy Y measures the time interval between requests for segments received from client device and also measures the corresponding sizes of the segments it receives. The multicast controller 312 uses the interval and segment size data to estimate a unicast request rate given by the quotient of the segment size and the segment interval. In addition, Proxy Y 308a sends a consumption report with the interval and segment size data to the multicast controller 312);
iv) calculating an ABR level metric, one for each of one or more multicast channels, based on the number of unicast requests from the client device for content segments at the quality level delivered over the respective multicast channel (Pg. 9 lines 15-20, i.e., the multicast rate is effectively set as a function of the estimated rate);
v) determining to join one of the multicast channels in dependence on the bandwidth and the respective quality level metric (Pg. 8 line 16-36, Pg. 9 lines 26-32, i.e., multicast controller 312 also sends Proxy Y 308a instructions to provision a multicast listener. The instructions tell Proxy Y 308a to prepare to receive multicast. The multicast listener causes Proxy Y to issue an IGMP join command to a multicast address specified by the multicast controller); and
vi) joining the multicast channel, receiving segments over multicast, and storing the segments until requested by the client device.” (Pg. 10 lines 34-36, i.e., Proxy Y 308a is configured to receive multicast, and thus will receive the segments sent over multicast from Proxy X 306. The received segments are then sent over unicast from Proxy Y 308a to the client device 304a. It is noted that the Proxies must first store the segments, even temporarily, before they deliver them to the clients over unicast).
Regarding claim 7, Appleby discloses “A network element for managing content delivery to a client device, said content comprising a sequence of segments and wherein each of the segments is encoded at a plurality of quality levels (Pg. 1 lines 29-35, Pg. 3 lines 20-35, Figs. 2-3, i.e., managing content delivery over a network to a client device, wherein a client requests video segments and each segments is available at different bitrates), said network element adapted to:
i) receive unicast requests for segments encoded at one or more of the quality levels from a client device, forward the requests to a unicast content source, receive the requested segments, and transmit the requested segments to the client device by unicast (Pg. 5 lines 3-5, Pg. 7 lines 24-35, Fig. 2-3, i.e., one or more client devices make requests for segments of content, such as a film stored at the content server 302, and receives responses (the segments) over unicast via Proxy Y);
ii) determine the time taken to receive each given segment and the size of each given segment, and estimate a delivery rate for each given segment as the quotient of the size of the segment and the time taken to receive the segment; iii) determine a bandwidth estimate as an average of the estimated delivery rates (Pg. 8 lines 7-20, Pg. 9 lines 1-13, i.e., Proxy Y measures the time interval between requests for segments received from client device and also measures the corresponding sizes of the segments it receives. The multicast controller 312 uses the interval and segment size data to estimate a unicast request rate given by the quotient of the segment size and the segment interval. In addition, Proxy Y 308a sends a consumption report with the interval and segment size data to the multicast controller 312);
iv) calculate an ABR level metric, one for each of one or more multicast channels, based on the number of unicast requests from the client device for content segments at the quality level delivered over the respective multicast channel (Pg. 8 line 16-36, Pg. 9 lines 26-32, i.e., multicast controller 312 also sends Proxy Y 308a instructions to provision a multicast listener. The instructions tell Proxy Y 308a to prepare to receive multicast. The multicast listener causes Proxy Y to issue an IGMP join command to a multicast address specified by the multicast controller);
v) determine to join one of the multicast channels in dependence on the bandwidth and the respective quality level metric; and vi) join the multicast channel, receiving segments over multicast, and store the segments until requested by the client device.” (Pg. 10 lines 34-36, i.e., Proxy Y 308a is configured to receive multicast, and thus will receive the segments sent over multicast from Proxy X 306. The received segments are then sent over unicast from Proxy Y 308a to the client device 304a. It is noted that the Proxies must first store the segments, even temporarily, before they deliver them to the clients over unicast).
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 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Appleby in view of Kazerani et al. (US Pub. 2017/0366590), herein referenced as Kazerani.
Regarding claim 2, Appleby fails to explicitly disclose “wherein determining to join comprises comparing the respective quality level metric to a threshold, and where the threshold is dependent on the determined bandwidth.”
Kazerani teaches the technique of providing wherein determining to join comprises comparing the respective quality level metric to a threshold, and where the threshold is dependent on the determined bandwidth ([0064]-[0065], i.e., if the initial quality level underutilizes the user device resources and provides a poor end user experience as a result, the process will switch from the multicast group providing the initial quality level to a different multicast group providing a higher quality level. Additionally, the process monitors network connectivity by measuring network bandwidth, network throughput, and network latency, thus the end user experience (threshold) is dependent on the determined bandwidth).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply the technique of providing wherein determining to join comprises comparing the respective quality level metric to a threshold, and where the threshold is dependent on the determined bandwidth as taught by Kazerani, to improve the multicast delivery system of Appleby for the predictable result of providing an optimized viewing experience based on available network resources.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-6 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Alexander Q Huerta whose telephone number is (571)270-3582. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00 AM-5:00 PM.
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/ALEXANDER Q HUERTA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2425 April 27, 2026
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