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 .
Claims 5 & 17 have been cancelled.
Claims 21 & 22 are new.
Claims 1-4, 6-16, & 18-22 are pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-4, 6-16, & 18-22 have been considered but are moot because of the new grounds of rejection. See Office Action below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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) 1-3, 6-9, 11-15, & 18-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being unpatentable over Craner (US Pub. No. 2012/0060181 A1).
In respect to Claim 1, Craner teaches:
a computer-implemented method comprising: receiving, by a media content source, a query for media content; (Craner teaches [0076] the user selects and requests a reference asset and later selects search buttons to run a search.)
determining that the media content is not available to be accessed via the media content source; (Craner teaches [0105] that the content control application may determine if the current user is authorized to access the asset… if the asset’s parental control information conflicts with the user’s parental control settings or locks, the user may not be authorized to access the asset; wherein being lock out by the applicable access restriction is analogous to not being available to be accessed via the media content source.)
based at least in part on the determining: providing for display one or more textual indications that the media content is not available to be accessed via the media content source; (Craner teaches [0075] that the prompt may inform the user of the blocked access and, in some embodiments, the reasons why access has been restricted. For example, the type of parental lock that the program has exceeded or violated may be displayed to the user.)
retrieving metadata of the media content; (Craner teaches [0093] search terms that relate to the reference media…may be automatically pre-selected by the content control application, drawn from the actors/actresses appearing in the asset, the director or writer of the asset, the asset’s genre, or any other media descriptor – i.e., the (unavailable) reference asset’s own metadata is retrieved.)
and identifying a plurality of media content items available to be accessed via the media content source, wherein each respective media content item of the plurality of media content items is identified based at least in part on being associated with metadata that corresponds to at least a portion of the metadata of the media content; (Craner teaches [0077] a comprehensive search of all available media accessible by the user equipment may be performed using the pre-selected metadata-derived search terms, with results of the search…limited to assets permitted by the current user’s parental control settings – i.e., other, accessible items are identified because their metadata (actor, genre, etc.) corresponds to the unavailable reference asset’s metadata.)
and based at least in part on the identifying, providing for display a plurality of identifiers respectively corresponding to the plurality of media content items (Craner teaches [0085] the display screen may include relevance column, content column, rating column, and channel/source column…the user may select any content name in the column to access the asset directly.)
As per Claim 2, Craner teaches:
modifying the query to include one or more terms indicated in the metadata of the media content; and using the modified query to identify the plurality of media content items (Craner [0093] teaches search terms drawn from the reference asset’s metadata are selected to modify a query.)
As per Claim 3, Craner teaches:
wherein the query comprises at least one term that is present in the metadata, and the one or more terms of the modified query are distinct from the at least one term (Craner teaches [0093, 0095] the original query or selection is the title “The Bourne Identity” which is itself present in the asset’s own metadata, for example the title field, while the terms added to the new search such as the actor and genre are distinct terms drawn from other metadata fields of the same asset.)
As per Claim 6, Craner teaches:
wherein the at least a portion of the metadata of the media content indicates at least one genre of the media content and at least one actor of the media content, and wherein identifying the plurality of media content items is based at least in part on determining that metadata of each respective media content item of the plurality of media content items corresponds to one or more of the at least one genre or the at least one actor (Craner teaches [0095] that the content control application is searching for movies and websites, media with Matt Damon as an actor, and movies classified in the spy genre [FIG. 12]; wherein genre and actor metadata are used together to drive the substitute item search.)
As per Claim 7, Craner teaches:
receiving, from a device associated with a user, an input to generate the query; accessing preferences indicated in a profile of the user; based at least in part on determining that the media content is not available to be accessed via the media content source, automatically modifying the query based at least in part on the preferences; and using the modified query to identify the plurality of media content items (Craner teaches [0075] that the results are automatically constrained by the current user’s parental control settings, which is a form of stored user profile preference, in the same search flow triggered by the authorization and availability determination.)
As per Claim 8, Craner teaches:
wherein a data structure associated with the media content source comprises a plurality of fields indicating metadata of the plurality of media content items, respectively, and wherein the identifying the plurality of media content items comprises comparing a value associated with the at least a portion of the metadata of the media content to respective values of corresponding fields of the plurality of media content items (Craner teaches [FIG. 12] a search terms display screen that includes type column, actor/actress column, director/writer column, and genre column, and [0083, 0101] or relevance between two assets may be determined by calculating the weighted average of all the selected comparison dimensions.)
As per Claim 9, Craner teaches:
wherein the metadata of the media content is retrieved from a source that is distinct from the media content source (Craner [0093])
As per Claim 11, Craner teaches:
wherein the at least a portion of the metadata of the media content indicates at least one genre of the media content, and wherein identifying the plurality of media content items is based at least in part on determining that metadata of each respective media content item of the plurality of media content items corresponds to the at least one genre (Craner [FIGs. 12-13])
As per Claim 12, Craner teaches:
wherein the at least a portion of the metadata of the media content indicates at least one actor of the media content, and wherein identifying the plurality of media content items is based at least in part on determining that metadata of each respective media content item of the plurality of media content items corresponds to the at least one actor (Craner [0095])
Claims 13-15 & 18-20 are the system claims corresponding to method claims 1-3, 6-7, & 9 respectively, therefore are rejected for the same reasons noted previously.
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) 4 & 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Craner in view of Allen et al. (US Pub. No. 2008/0133570 A1).
As per Claim 4, Allen teaches:
wherein the query comprises a Boolean operator, and wherein the modifying the query further comprises modifying the Boolean operator to be a different Boolean operator (Allen teaches [0009] that conditions referencing the same database field are grouped and joined using logical operators, while different field groups are connected with other operators.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Allen into the system of Craner. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to provide a system and method for automatically determining Boolean logic and operator precedence of query conditions for users composing a database query. (Allen [0002])
Claim 16 is the system claim corresponding to method claim 4 above, therefore is rejected for the same reasons noted previously.
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Craner in view of Athsani et al. (US Pub. No. 2010/0250578 A1).
As per Claim 10, Athsani teaches:
automatically modifying the query based at least in part on an age of a user or users associated with a device at which the query is received; and using the modified query to identify the plurality of media content items (Athsani teaches [0022] a profile based search in which a user profile including age and area is one of the inputs refining a search request prior to conducting a search operation, and the system’s refined queries [0053] combines the input received from the user, the query category and the profile information to for a refined query.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Athsani into the system of Craner. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to provide a system for refining and adjusting search operation results based on profile information. (Athsani [0002])
Claim(s) 21-22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Craner in view of Rippich (US Pub. No. 2002/0099701 A1).
As per Claim 21, Craner teaches:
wherein the one or more textual indications that the media content is not available to be accessed via the media content source comprises displayed text explicitly stating that no results matching the query were found (Rippich teaches [0013] the text “no results matching…” as already conventional language; wherein this provides evidence that the limitation is a routine design choice carrying no patentable weight on its own.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Rippich into the system of Craner. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to provide a system of eliminating terms relating to choices that are not possible in light of a search operation. (Rippich [0013])
Claim 22 is the system claim corresponding to method claim 21 above, therefore is rejected for the same reasons noted previously.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSHUA BULLOCK whose telephone number is (571)270-1395. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00 am - 4:00 pm.
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/JOSHUA BULLOCK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2153 September 11, 2026
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