Ex Parte GilsonDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 27, 201713291355 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 27, 2017) Copy Citation United States Patent and Trademark Office UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O.Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 13/291,355 11/08/2011 Ross Gilson 007412.01584 5393 71867 7590 09/29/2017 BANNER & WITCOFF , LTD ATTORNEYS FOR CLIENT NUMBER 007412 1100 13th STREET, N.W. SUITE 1200 WASHINGTON, DC 20005-4051 EXAMINER BELANI, KISHIN G ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2443 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/29/2017 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): PTO-71867 @bannerwitcoff.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ROSS GILSON Appeal 2017-002715 Application 13/291,355 Technology Center 2400 Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., JEFFREY S. SMITH and ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges. WHITEHEAD JR., Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant is appealing the Final Rejection of claims 1—8 and 18—29 under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a). Appeal Brief 5. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b) (2012). We reverse. Appeal 2017-002715 Application 13/291,355 Introduction The invention is directed generally to distributing various content to one of more devices using one or multiple feeds. Specification, paragraph 5. Illustrative Claim (disputed limitations emphasized)'. 1. A method comprising: downloading, by a computing device, data in response to a request; determining, by the computing device, that the downloading of at least a portion of the data completed before an anticipated point in time', and selecting, by the computing device, based at least in part on the determining, differential data for downloading. Rejections on Appeal Claims 1—3, 7, 8, 18, 21—27 and 29 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §102 (e) as being anticipated by Asarikuniyil (US Patent Application Publication 2012/0066338 Al; published March 15, 2012). Answer 2—8. Claims 4—6 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Asarikuniyil and Hunt (US Patent Application Publication 2012/0141089 Al; published June 7, 2012). Answer 8-11. Claim 19 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being unpatentable over Asarikuniyil and Shiragaki (US Patent Application Publication 2010/0023974 Al; published January 28, 2010). Answer 11—12. Claim 20 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Asarikuniyil and Vasudevan (US Patent Application Publication (2009/0150943 Al; published June 11, 2009). Answer 12. 3 Appeal 2017-002715 Application 13/291,355 Claim 28 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Asarikuniyil and Willman (US Patent Application Publication 2002/0161848 Al; published October 31, 2002). Answer 13. ANALYSIS Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed August 8, 2016), the Reply Brief (filed December 6, 2016), the Final Rejection (mailed August 21, 2015) and the Answer (mailed October 6, 2016) for the respective details. Anticipation Rejection Appellant contends: Asarikuniyil describes a system that provides a “variable-quality content stream recording,” which “may include low-quality recordings 502,...intermediate-quality recording 504,... and a high quality recording 506.” Asarikuniyil at Fig. 5 and 1 [0039]. Asarikuniyil’s system thus provides a single stream that can at any given time be composed of one of three types of content qualities: low, intermediate, or high. Id. Appeal Brief 11. The Examiner finds: As shown in Fig. 5 of Asarikuniyil, if at time interval t3-t4, available bandwidth exceeds 25 MB/sec, in less than the anticipated time interval of 10 seconds [e.g. in 8 seconds], the required 250 MB of content will be downloaded in the content buffer for presentation at the medium quality rate of 25 MB/sec for 10 seconds. The remaining 2 seconds of the anticipated medium quality download time along with the next 10 seconds t4-t5 time may then be used to download additional data [total of 400 MB] for presenting buffered content in high quality for 10 seconds. Thus, Asarikuniyil reference does teach/suggest the claimed [determining, by the computing device, that the downloading of at least a portion of the data completed before an anticipated point in time]. 4 Appeal 2017-002715 Application 13/291,355 Answer 14. Asarikuniyil’s Figure 5 discloses a timing diagram illustrating variable-quality content stream recording (Asarikuniyil paragraph 7) and is reproduced below: Figure 5 discloses the content stream “recording 500 may include low-quality recordings 502 (i.e., low-quality recording 502-1 and recording 502-2), intermediate-quality recording 504 (i.e., intermediate-quality recording 504-1 and recording 504-2), and a high-quality recording 506 (i.e., high quality recording 506-1 and recording 506-2).” Asarikuniyil, paragraph 39. Appellant further contends: Asarikuniyil’s 10-second threshold is not an amount of time it takes (or is anticipated to take) to download content, but instead is the required amount of buffered content at a particular quality that is required to be buffered before presenting that content at that particular quality. Thus, if the amount of content buffered at 5 Appeal 2017-002715 Application 13/291,355 a particular quality is less than a 10-second chunk of content at that particular quality (e.g., a 2-second chunk of intermediate- quality content), then lower quality content is presented (i.e., the low-quality content instead of the intermediate-quality content). Asarikuniyil’s 10-second threshold of buffered content therefore has nothing to do with “determining, by the computing device, that the downloading of at least a portion of the data completed before an anticipated point in time,” as asserted by the Office. Appeal Brief 14. We find Appellant’s arguments persuasive because Asarikuniyil discloses in paragraphs 40-51 a detailed description of the content stream recording illustrated in Figure 5 that supports Appellant’s position that the time of Asarikuniyil refers to a content amount rather than the required download time.1 Asarikuniyil discloses in paragraph 43 the following example: During recording 504-1, the available bandwidth at content player device 102 intermittently falls below B2 [bandwidth threshold associated with a stream at a given quality], causing the amount of buffered intermediate-quality content to dwindle to an amount less than C2 [threshold for the amount of buffered content (measured in seconds)] (e.g., 2 seconds of content). Accordingly, at t2, content player device 102 records 1 “Because the hallmark of anticipation is prior invention, the prior art reference — in order to anticipate under 35U.S.C. § 102 — must not only disclose all elements of the claim within the four comers of the document, but must also disclose those elements arranged as in the claim.” Net Moneyln, Inc. v. Verisign, Inc., 545 F.3d 1359, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (emphasis added; citation and internal quotation marks omitted); see also id. at 1371 (“Thus, it is not enough that the prior art reference discloses part of the claimed invention, which an ordinary artisan might supplement to make the whole, or that it includes multiple, distinct teachings that the artisan might somehow combine to achieve the claimed invention.”). 6 Appeal 2017-002715 Application 13/291,355 low-quality stream 502-2 and sends a corresponding stream to content presentation device 104. Consequently, we reverse the Examiner’s anticipation rejection of independent claims 1,18, and 22 commensurate in scope, as well as, dependent claims 2, 3, 7, 8, 21, 23—27, and 29 for the same reasons. See Appeal Brief 14—15. Obviousness Rejections We reverse the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of dependent claims 4—6, 19, 20 and 28 for the same reasons as the independent claims upon which they depend. See Appeal Brief 15—16. DECISION The Examiner’s anticipation rejection of claims 1—3, 7, 8, 18, 21—27, and 29 is reversed. The Examiner’s obviousness rejections of claims 4—6, 19, 20, and 28 are reversed. REVERSED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation