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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for priority based on a parent application 16/057,334 (now USPN 12,355,778) filed on 8/7/18.
Information Disclosure Statement
The examiner reviewed IDS document(s) on 7/16/25, carefully considering the art cited within the document(s).
Claims 1-20 have been examined.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP §§ 706.02(l)(1) - 706.02(l)(3) for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/process/file/efs/guidance/eTD-info-I.jsp.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under the judicially created doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-30 of U.S. Patent No. 12,355,778. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they either recite a concomitance of the claim features, or they are their obvious modifications.
Specifically, the instant claims are much broader version of the patented claims (e.g., compare the corresponding independent claims 1.)
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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 or 103
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
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 of this title, 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-2, 4-16 and 18-20, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by or, in alternative, under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) unpatentable over Farrell (USPUB 20150365787).
As per claims 1-2, 6-7, and 20, Farrell teaches receiving, by a host device associated with a first user and based on a request for access to a trusted network service by a user device associated with a second user, an identifier associated with the second user of the user device determining, based on the identifier, that the user device is a trusted device; and granting, based on the determining that the user device is a trusted device, the user device access to the trusted network service, wherein the host is authorized to use the trusted network service (see Fig. 1 and the associated text, e.g., the device 110 may be a part of a gateway 111 to allow one or more other devices in the home to communicate with the local office and other devices beyond the local gateway, the gateway may be a set-top box (STP), or a server. User may register devices that may be may correlated with user identifiers. By correlating user devices with user identifier, the user might automatically be logged on to accounts, para 39, the computing device may automatically detect the user device, para 47 each device includes identifiers such as IP/MAC address, and can be mapped to one or service account identifier. The computing device may identify and store the identifier for devices that may be used to determine the user’s location, the physical location may be identified by devices’ address. The computing device may generate a group with users as members and different users in a content service account may be included in the same group. The users may add other users to the group. By binding devices to one another and/or service account identifiers, authentication and content access permissions may be established for devices in the group. The user may be given full access to streaming content (e.g., via a set-top box, authorized to access under the subscription plan. The access may be restricted based on the location of the user’s device. Users may be categorized as trusted (e.g., associated with a permanent device or untrusted (e.g., associated with a guest device) and trusted users may add guest devices to the group. The trusted and guest devices may be permitted to access services. User devices 606 may have one or more device identifiers, including IP addresses, MAC address, etc. A user device may be used for signing in a user for any products and services associated with the user's or user device's identifiers (e.g., the device identifiers 606). By using the user device for authentication, the user might be able to access these services and/or products without having to manually authenticate him or herself (e.g., by entering a username and password), para 29, 49-51, 60-61, 65-68);
Lastly, although not expressly cited, any connection of a computing device that results in a devices access could read on the “request”, it is noted that the concept of devices requesting access, if not implicit, would have been old and well known in the art of computing offering the predictable benefit of content consumption.
As per claim 5, as discussed above, Farrell enables multiple user devices, including visiting guest devices access to the network (as hosted by the host device, for example. Note that Farrell also allows access to the network based on the location as well as a user of the group adding other devices as trusted/guest devices). Thus, although not expressly stated, clearly granting a network device to grant the user device access to the trusted network service when the user device is located at a same premises as the network device would have been implicit. Similarly, if not inherently (by using the definition of being trusted based on being part of a specified group with an access). The limitation of claim 6 would also being implicit.
Claims 8-10 and 13-16, are substantially similar to claims addressed above, and although not expressly cited, devices requesting access if not inherent, would have been implicit; therefore, the claims are similarly rejected.
As per claims 4 and 11-12 18-19, the data structure including identifiers such addresses as taught by Farrell, facilitating access to the trusted network service would reasonably meet the limitation of the access control list. However, for the purpose of the expedited prosecution, Official Notice is taken that utilizing ACL (sometimes called white list) including device identifiers (such as device addresses), as well updating (adding/removing) the ACL with new and existing entries, were old and well known in the art at the time the application (e.g., gateways, firewalls, etc.) while offering the predictable benefit of preventing unauthorized access.
Claims 1-2, 8-9 and 14-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by or, in alternative, under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) unpatentable over Netflix (as illustrated by Tamra Chuang, “Netflix: Sharing passwords is OK — just don’t sell them”, found at https://www.denverpost.com/2016/07/14/netflix-sharing-passwords-is-ok-just-dont-sell-them/, 7/16, Devin Coldewey, “Sharing Netflix Account With Friends? You're Not the Only One”, found at https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/two-thirds-netflix-users-share-access-others-n396671, 7/15 and Daniel Nield, “How to Safely Share Your HBO, Netflix, and Other Streaming Logins With Friends”, found at https://gizmodo.com/how-to-safely-share-your-hbo-netflix-and-other-stream-1797530211, 8/17).
User’s sharing account information, such as login credentials allowing access to various network services, such as Netflix are well known in the art as illustrated by Chuang, Coldewey and Nield. A skilled in the art would readily appreciate that credentials include user identifier (identifying an account) that is verified before access to a device sharing the identifier is granted, sharing includes sharing between “trusted” users and the users accessing the service network using different devices, which would meet at least the limitations of the independent claims 1, 8 and 15.
(Note that Netflix has been offered as an example but a skilled in the art of password sharing would readily appreciate that the practice extends to other network services, e.g., Sling, Amazon, HBO, Spotify, etc., as also noted by Nield).
Note that in the broadest reasonable interpretation of claim 1, given the fact that the claims do not prohibit the first and second user being different users, a user utilizing different devices to access any of these streaming services would also meet the claimed limitations.
Claims 3 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) over Farrell (USPUB 20150365787) in view of Song (USPN 20160294917).
Farrell teaches an identifier that could include the address of the device to be granted access based on the device being added to a group, as discussed above. Furthermore, in para 48, Farrell teaches that that when a device is automatically added, the host may trigger a message to be sent to an owner of the network to validate the device (e.g., as a trusted/guest device). Although, Farrell does not expressly teach the message including information identifying a device (such as the address of the device) not only would have been implicit but providing a message with the device identifier (e.g., address) would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was filed as illustrated by Song (notifying that an address of the device has been added, para 67) offering the predictable benefit of identification of a newly added devices.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Peter Poltorak whose telephone number is (571) 272-3840. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeffrey Pwu can be reached on (571) 272-6798. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/PIOTR POLTORAK/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2433
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