DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Drawings
The drawings are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(5) because they do not include the following reference sign(s) mentioned in the description: CPU1 and MEM1 at pgpub [0048]. Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
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 1-5 and 7-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li et al. (US20070101012, hereinafter Li) in view of Kalaichelvan et al. (US20210185366, hereinafter Kalaichelvan).
Regarding claims 1-2, Li discloses a management method comprising:
managing playback (see Li, at least at [0012]-[0017], and other related text), by a playback device (settop box 12, see Li, at least [0012]-[0017], and other related text), of content which are accessible from content sources (i.e., content encoder 10 and streaming server 16, see Li, at least [0012]-[0017], Fig. 1, and other related text) which are able to transmit chunks of a same content with a time lag (i.e., time shift, see Li, at least [0012]-[0017], and other related text). The applicant should please note that “wherein the managing comprises:
when the content is played back from a first source at a playback speed, referred to as a reference speed, receiving a command to rewind the content is followed by playing back the content from a second source at a speed which is different from the reference speed, and by continuing to play back the content originating from the first source when the content is available from the first source” and “wherein playback at a different speed is carried out only if a duration of the rewind is less than a given duration, referred to as a first duration” are contingent limitations. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a method (or process) claim having contingent limitations requires only those steps that must be performed and does not include steps that are not required to be performed because the condition(s) precedent are not met. For example, assume a method claim requires step A if a first condition happens and step B if a second condition happens. If the claimed invention may be practiced without either the first or second condition happening, then neither step A or B is required by the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim. As such, the above cited limitations are not required (i.e., only required when the content is played back from a first source at a playback speed, and not, for example when the content is paused or when the duration of the rewind is greater than or equal to a given duration).
Li does not specifically disclose chunks of content.
In an analogous art relating to a system for managing content, Kalaichelvan discloses a management method comprising managing playback of chunks of content (see Kalaichelvan, at least at [0003], [0014]-[0017], Fig. 1-2, and other related text).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the invention to modify the system of the system of Li to include the limitations as taught by Kalaichelvan for the advantage of optimizing system resources and providing flexibility to the use of the content.
wherein the first source is a transformation entity transforming a multicast stream received from a multicast server into a unicast stream.
Regarding claims 3-4, the limitations are specific to the contingent limitations of claim 1 that are not required, and therefore are not considered, and are rejected the same as claims 1-2.
Regarding claim 5, Li in view of Kalaichelvan discloses wherein the first source transmits the content in real time and the second source is able to transmit the content in a delayed manner (i.e., time shift, see Li, at least [0012]-[0017], and other related text).
Regarding claim 7, Li in view of Kalaichelvan discloses wherein the first and second sources provide chunks with respective image qualities (see Li, at least [0012]-[0017], and other related text, and see Kalaichelvan, at least at [0017], and other related text), and said continuation of the playback of chunks originating from the first source is performed when the chunks to be played back are available from the first source (see Li, at least [0012]-[0017], and other related text ). The applicant should please note that “when the chunks to be played are available and when the chunks concerned have an image quality which is higher than an image quality of the chunks originating from the second source” are contingent limitations. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a method (or process) claim having contingent limitations requires only those steps that must be performed and does not include steps that are not required to be performed because the condition(s) precedent are not met. For example, assume a method claim requires step A if a first condition happens and step B if a second condition happens. If the claimed invention may be practiced without either the first or second condition happening, then neither step A or B is required by the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim. As such, “said continuation of the playback of chunks originating from the first source” is not required.
Regarding claims 8-10, Li discloses an entity for managing playback, by a playback device, of content accessible from content sources which are able to transmit the same content with a time lag (see Li, at least [0012]-[0017], Fig. 1, and other related text) which are able to transmit chunks of a same content with a time lag (i.e., time shift, see Li, at least [0012]-[0017], and other related text), the entity (settop box 12/processor/code of processor) comprising:
a processor configured to, when the content is played back from a first source at a playback speed, referred to as a reference speed (see Li, at least [0012]-[0017], and other related text), receiving a command to rewind the content (see Li, at least [0012]-[0017], and other related text) is followed by playing back the content from a second source at a speed which is different from the reference speed (see Li, at least [0012]-[0017], and other related text), and by continuing to play back the content originating from the first source when the content is available from the first source (see Li, at least at [0017], and other related text).
Li does not specifically disclose chunks of content.
In an analogous art relating to a system for managing content, Kalaichelvan discloses a management method comprising managing playback of chunks of content (see Kalaichelvan, at least at [0003], [0014]-[0017], Fig. 1-2, and other related text).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the invention to modify the system of the system of Li to include the limitations as taught by Kalaichelvan for the advantage of optimizing system resources and providing flexibility to the use of the content.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li (previously cited) in view of Kalaichelvan (previously cited), as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of St. Pierre et al. (US7525965, hereinafter St. Pierre).
Regarding claim 6, Li in view of Kalaichelvan does not specifically disclose wherein the first source is a transformation entity transforming a multicast stream received from a multicast server into a unicast stream.
In an analogous art relating to a system for providing content, St. Pierre discloses wherein a first source is a transformation entity transforming a multicast stream received from a multicast server into a unicast stream (see St. Pierre, at least at col 3, line 24 – col 4, line 38, and other related text).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the invention to modify the system of the system of Li in view of Kalaichelvan to include the limitations as taught by St. Pierre for the advantage of optimizing system resources.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yong (previously cited), as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Wang et al. (US20240013558, hereinafter Wang).
Regarding claim 8, Yong does not specifically disclose wherein generating the one or more embeddings comprises:
obtaining a video embedding representing visual features of a sequence of video frames of the media item;
obtaining an audio embedding representing audio features of the sequence of video frames;
obtaining a textual embedding representing textual features associated with content of the sequence of video frames;
performing one or more concatenation operations to concatenate the video embedding and the audio embedding with the textual embedding; and
responsive to obtaining an output of the one or more concatenation operations, performing one or more attention pooling operations to the obtained output, wherein an output of the one or more attention pooling operations comprises the one or more embeddings.
In an analogous art relating to a system for analyzing media, Wang discloses wherein generating the one or more embeddings comprises:
obtaining a video embedding representing visual features of a sequence of video frames of a media item (i.e., video modality, see Wang, at least at [0038], [0044]-[0047], [0052], [0057], [0060]-[0066], [0068]-[0070], [0077], [0108], [0112]-[0113], and other related text);
obtaining an audio embedding representing audio features of the sequence of video frames (i.e., audio/voice modality, see Wang, at least at [0036], [0038], [0044]-[0047], [0052], [0057], [0060]-[0066], [0068]-[0070], [0108], [0112]-[0113], and other related text);
obtaining a textual embedding representing textual features associated with content of the sequence of video frames (i.e., text modality, see Wang, at least at [0036], [0038], [0044]-[0046], [0052], [0057], [0060]-[0066], [0068]-[0070], [0077], [0108], [0112]-[0113], [0137], Fig. 7, and other related text);
performing one or more concatenation operations to concatenate the video embedding and the audio embedding with the textual embedding (see Wang, at least at [0036], [0038], [0044]-[0047],[0050], [0052], [0057], [0060]-[0066], [0068]-[0070], [0077], [0108], [0112]-[0113], [0137], Fig. 7, and other related text); and
responsive to obtaining an output of the one or more concatenation operations, performing one or more attention pooling operations to the obtained output, wherein an output of the one or more attention pooling operations comprises the one or more embeddings (see Wang, at least at [0036], [0038], [0044]-[0046],[0050], [0052], [0057], [0060]-[0066], [0068]-[0070], [0077], [0108], [0112]-[0113], [0137], Fig. 7, and other related text).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the system of Yong to include the limitations as taught by Wang for the advantage of more efficiently and more accurately providing desired content to a user.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHENEA DAVIS whose telephone number is (571)272-9524 and whose email address is CHENEA.SMITH@USPTO.GOV. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 8:00 am - 4:00 pm.
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/CHENEA DAVIS/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2421
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