ARRIS Enterprises LLCDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardOct 26, 20212020005407 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 26, 2021) 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. 15/235,990 08/12/2016 Benedito J. Fonseca JR. 0036278-000466 2373 168780 7590 10/26/2021 BUCHANAN, INGERSOLL & ROONEY PC CommScope 1737 King Street Suite 500 ALEXANDRIA, VA 22314-2727 EXAMINER SAINT CYR, JEAN D ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2425 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/26/2021 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): ADIPDOC1@BIPC.COM PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte BENEDITO J. FONSECA JR., FAISAL ISHTIAQ, ANTHONY J. BRASKICH, VENUGOPAL VASUDEVAN, and ISSELMOU OULD DELLAHY Appeal 2020-005407 Application 15/235,990 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before JOHN A. EVANS, JUSTIN BUSCH, and JOHN P. PINKERTON, Administrative Patent Judges. EVANS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL1 Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final decision to reject Claims 1–8 and 15–22. Appeal Br. 6. Claims 9–14 are withdrawn. Appeal Br. 11–12, Claims App. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6. We REVERSE.2 1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies ARRIS Enterprises LLC as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 3. 2 Throughout this Decision, we refer to the Appeal Brief (Appeal Br.) and Claims Appendix (Claims App.) filed February 14, 2020; the Reply Brief filed July 15, 2020 (“Reply Br.”); the Final Office Action mailed February 14, 2019 (“Final Act.”); the Examiner’s Answer mailed May 15, 2020 Appeal 2020-005407 Application 15/235,990 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims relate to “multimedia identification and recognition, and more particularly, to systems and methods for identifying or recognizing advertisements in audiovisual multimedia, such as television programming.” Spec. ¶ 2. CLAIMS Claims 1, 15, and 22 are independent. Claim 1 is illustrative and reproduced below: 1. A method comprising: obtaining an audio signature corresponding to a time period of a multimedia asset; identifying a match between the obtained audio signature and one or more stored audio signatures, the stored audio signatures corresponding to time periods of a plurality of other multimedia assets; comparing programming metadata of the multimedia assets of the obtained audio signature and the one or more matching audio signatures; and determining whether the time period of the multimedia asset contains an advertisement based on the comparison of the programming metadata of the multimedia assets of the obtained audio signature and the one or more matching audio signatures. Appeal Br. 9, Claims App. (“Ans.”); and the Specification filed August 12, 2016, as amended August 15, 2017 and September 18, 2017 (“Spec.”). Appeal 2020-005407 Application 15/235,990 3 REFERENCES AND REJECTION3 AT ISSUE Claims 1–8 and 15–22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over LaJoie4 and Ady.5 Final Act. 3–10. ANALYSIS Independent Claim 1 recites, among other limitations, “determining whether the time period of the multimedia asset contains an advertisement based on the comparison of the programming metadata of the multimedia assets of the obtained audio signature and the one or more matching audio signatures.” Independent Claims 15 and 22 each recite a commensurate limitation. Appeal Br. 12–13, 15, Claims App. The Examiner presents the same findings and explanations for this limitation in addressing each of the independent claims. Compare, e.g., Final Act. 4–5, with id. at 9–10. The Examiner finds Ady teaches the quoted limitation because “Ady discloses a system for comparing audio data with stored audio data[,] and the system is able to collect timestamp information from audio data in order to determine location of [a] commercial.” Ans. 13 (citing Ady ¶ 27); id. at 13– 14 (additionally citing Ady ¶¶ 14, 17, 24, 26, 28–31, 62, 65); Final Act. 4–5, 9–10. The Examiner also finds that “one such application [of Ady’s timestamping technique] includes advertising functions wherein mobile devices receiving a common audio signature may be sent advertising messages related to interests that may coincide or correspond to the detected audio signatures.” Ans. 13 (citing Ady ¶¶ 24, 65). 3 “The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA.” Final Act. 2. 4 LaJoie et al., US 2011/0078020 A1, published March 31, 2011 (“LaJoie”). 5 Ady et al., US 2015/0127710 A1, published May 7, 2015 (“Ady”). Appeal 2020-005407 Application 15/235,990 4 Among other arguments, Appellant contends the Examiner erred in finding Ady teaches the “determining” limitation. Appeal Br. 6–7; Reply Br. 3–5. Appellant argues that Ady “does not determine the presence of an advertisement within multimedia content,” but “[i]nstead . . . obtains audio data from a plurality of mobile devices, compares the audio data to stored audio signatures, and groups mobile devices that have audio data containing the stored audio signature.” Reply Br. 4 (citing Ady ¶ 14). In Appellant’s view, “Ady already knows there is an advertisement within the content and tries to group mobile devices based on that advertisement.” Id. Appellant further argues that “the timestamp data in Ady is not used to identify whether an advertisement is present in the multimedia content[,]” but instead “to identify the location (time and place) of the mobile device when it receives multimedia data.” Id. at 5, 4 (citing Ady ¶¶ 14–17, 24–31, 62, 65). Appellant explains that, “[w]ith the Ady system, when the audio advertisement occurs [it] is already known (i.e., it is already known if the advertisement is present in the multimedia), and the timestamp is used to determine which mobile phone devices were in range of the advertisement.” Id. at 4. We are persuaded that the Examiner erred. The Final Rejection and Examiner’s Answer cite several paragraphs of Ady, but having reviewed these paragraphs, it remains unclear how they teach or suggest “determining whether the time period of the multimedia asset contains an advertisement,” as recited in Claim 1, and recited commensurately in independent Claims 15 and 22. As cited by the Examiner, Ady describes collecting audio data from mobile devices and examining it for various audio signatures to indicate how many mobile device users are in hearing range of an audio advertisement. Appeal 2020-005407 Application 15/235,990 5 Ady ¶¶ 14–17, 24, 27. Ady also describes that mobile devices receiving a common audio signature may be sent corresponding advertising messages, and that timestamp information can be obtained from the audio data for the purpose of grouping mobile devices. Id. ¶¶ 15, 16, 27, 31, 65. But the Examiner fails to present sufficient reasoning or explanation that shows how the cited disclosures of Ady, or LaJoie, teach or suggest the disputed claim language. For example, the Examiner does not sufficiently explain how or why it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to use one of LaJoie’s or Ady’s audio analysis techniques (such as timestamping) to determine whether a time period of an audio data sample has an advertisement. In essence, the Examiner has passed its burden of setting forth a prima facie case of obviousness to the Board. But “[i]t is not the Board’s burden or the burden of any panel of this Board to initially assert and to even formulate the details of a prima facie case of obviousness within 35 U.S.C. 103. This burden of proof rests solely upon the examiner.” Ex parte Forest, 2002 WL 33951036, at *3 (BPAI May 30, 2002) (citing In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1992)). Therefore, the Examiner has not set forth a prima facie case of obviousness in the rejection of independent Claims 1, 15, 22. Accordingly, we decline to sustain the rejection of Claims 1, 15, and 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over LaJoie and Ady. For the same reasons, we decline to sustain the rejection of Claims 2–8 and 16–21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over LaJoie and Ady. For these claims, which depend from independent Claim 1 or 15, the Examiner does not present any additional finding or reasoning that fills the gaps in the rejection of the independent Claims. Appeal 2020-005407 Application 15/235,990 6 CONCLUSION In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1–8, 15–22 103 LaJoie, Ady 1–8, 15–22 REVERSED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation