Ex Parte Goldman et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 25, 2016

12986882 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 25, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/986,882 01107/2011
23669 7590 03/29/2016
HUFFMAN LAW GROUP, P.C.
7702 Barnes Rd., Ste. 140-46
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO 80922
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Daniel M. Goldman
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
ODDM.0107 7310
EXAMINER
FORTINO, ASHLEY
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2143
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/29/2016 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):
PTOHLG@me.com
chris@huffmanlaw.net
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DANIEL M. GOLDMAN and LORNE LANNING
Appeal2015-000481
Application 12/986,882
Technology Center 2100
Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JENNIFER L. McKEOWN, and
SCOTT B. HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judges.
McKEOWN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
decision to reject claims 1 and 3-20. Claim 2 has been cancelled. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants' invention is directed to
A method is provided for sharing emotional reactions to
social media. A virtual social venue is provided for sharing
streaming media content with a plurality of users. Users are
provided with a tool or tools to express emotional reactions,
such as clapping, laughing, cheering, whistling, expressions of
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Application 12/986,882
surprise, and booing, to the media content. The users'
emotional reactions are stored in time association with the
streaming media content. If and when other users subsequently
view and/ or listen to the shared media content, the stored
emotional reactions of previous viewers and/or listeners are
presented along and in time correlation with the shared media
content.
Abstract.
Claim 1 is illustrative and reads as follows:
1. A computer-implemented method for sharing a
streaming media experience in a social setting, the method
compnsmg:
providing a virtual three-dimensional social venue for
sharing streaming media content with a plurality of users;
providing an avatar for each user who enters the virtual
three-dimensional social venue and representing that avatar as a
spectator within a three-dimensional spatial representation of
the virtual social venue;
providing a tool to the user to express visible and/or
audible emotional reactions, in the form of gestures and/or
audible exclamations, to the media content;
storing a first user's expressed emotional reactions in
time-association with the streaming media content; and
if and when other users subsequently view and/or listen
to the shared streaming media content, presenting the first user's
emotional reactions at times that are correlated with the first
user's reactions to the presentation of the steaming media
content, wherein:
the first user's emotional reactions, if visible, are
expressed through gestures by the first user's avatar
within the spatial representation of the virtual social
venue; and
the first user's emotional reactions, if audible, are
presented as originating from the direction of the first
user's avatar.
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Application 12/986,882
THE REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 3, 6, 7, and 9-17 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Gates (US 2008/0079752 Al; published Apr.
3, 2008), Fletcher (US 2007 /0266304 Al; published Nov. 15, 2007); and
Hyndman (US 2010/0169799 Al; published July 1, 2010, filed Dec. 30,
2008). Final Act. 2-27. 1
The Examiner rejected claims 4, 5, 8, and 18-20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Gates, Fletcher, Hyndman, and Billmaier (US
2008/0268929 Al; published Oct. 30, 2008). Final Act. 28-34.
THE OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION BASED ON
GATES, FLETCHER, AND HYNDMAN
Claims 1, 3, 6, 7 and 9-17
Based on the record before us, we are not persuaded that the Examiner
erred in rejecting claims 1, 3, 6, 7, and 9-17 as unpatentable over Gates,
Fletcher, and Hyndman.
Appellants contend that a skilled artisan would not have been
motivated to combine Gates, Fletcher, and Hyndman. See Br. 8-14.
Namely, Appellants assert that "[t]here is nothing in Gates' teachings, nor in
any of the cited prior art, to motivate ordinarily skilled artisans to
incorporate Fletcher's annotation capabilities into Gates' virtual reality
1 Throughout this opinion, we refer to (1) the Examiner's Final Action,
mailed August 29, 2013 ("Final Act."); (2) the Appeal Brief, filed March 17,
2014 ("Br."); and (3) the Examiner's Answer, mailed July 16, 2014
("Ans.").
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Application 12/986,882
system so that subsequent users could watch and hear how previous users
reacted to replayed media content." Br. 7. Further, Appellants argue that:
Neither Fletcher nor Gates suggests or in any way points a
skilled artisan in the direction of creating a virtual social 3D
venue that simulates crowd dynamics in a progressively
augmented way by using stored emotional reactions of prior
participants. Neither Fletcher nor Gates appreciated the
entertainment-enhancing benefits that such a combination
would yield. And there is also no other credible evidence that
ordinarily skilled artisans would have been motivated to
combine Fletcher, Gates, and the other cited references in the
manner claimed.
Br. 8-9.
We disagree. While the Examiner's obviousness rejection must be
based on "some articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to
support the legal conclusion of obviousness," "the analysis need not seek out
precise teachings directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged
claim, for a court can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a
person of ordinary skill in the art would employ." KSR Int'!. Co. v. Teleflex,
Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007) (citations omitted).
As the Examiner identifies, Gates alone teaches or suggests the
disputed limitations of claim 1. Namely, Gates teaches "a virtual 3D
environment that simulates guests sharing in the viewing of an
experience and displaying the emotions of said guests during the
viewing of an event." Ans. 34; see also Gates, Abstract, i-fi-125, 26. Gates
further teaches supplementing available experiences by "the continuous
capturing of data and images (e.g., live video, continuous motion), to
encompass information about the event/virtual guests, and to further allow
such information to be accessible to a user on demand." Ans. 34 (quoting
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Application 12/986,882
Gates, if6) (emphasis added); see also Gates if 26 (noting that the
presentation system for the event may be live or "based on stored data"). In
other words, a skilled artisan would understand Gates teaches not only
storing and making available "on demand" information about the event, but
also virtual guest information, such as the displayed emotions of the guests
during the viewing of the event.
The Examiner, then, relies on Fletcher for the limited purpose of
teaching storing data in time-association with media content. See Ans. 5
(citing Fletcher, if I 8). Fletcher, in particular, teaches recording a
collaboration session including annotations of the user activity during the
session. For example, "[Fletcher's] facility can actively collect [user activity
during the session] and store the collected information as annotations
relative to an annotation time (e.g. the time at which the user made the
change or joined a collaboration session)." Fletcher, ifl 8. Further, Fletcher
teaches that when the collaboration session is played back, "a stored
annotation may be rendered when the facility renders a portion of the media
file corresponding to a time at which the stored annotation is associated with
the collaboration file (e.g., the annotation time)." Fletcher, ifl9.
Although Fletcher is not directed to emotional responses of guests,
Fletcher generally teaches storing user activity in time-association with a
collaboration session and presenting the user activity at the associated time
when the recorded collaboration session is played back. As the Examiner
explains,
In Gates, allowing the user to "feel" presence of the virtual
guests during the event is reiterated several times (see
Paragraphs 0006, 0036, 0047, 0048, 0054). It would follow,
given the apparent importance of the sensation of virtual guest
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Application 12/986,882
presence, that one of ordinary skill in the art would be
motivated to allow a user to view emotional responses of guests
who view the event at a different time than the user, as is taught
in Fletcher.
Ans. 36. Appellants' general assertions that neither Gates nor Fletcher teach
any motivation to combine the references fails to address the Examiner's
articulated reasons for combining the references and, thus, are unpersuasive.
Similarly unpersuasive is Appellants' argument that Gates is only
directed to guests concurrently experiencing a live event. Br. 9. Appellants
assert that Gates does not disclose "something analogous to 'cable on
demand' but rather only "immersive live shared experiences 'on demand'."
Br. 9. To the contrary, as discussed above, Gates expressly discloses that the
event as well as information about virtual guests are both available "on
demand." See, e.g., Gates, i-fi-f6, 8, and 24--26. Appellants also fail to
provide any persuasive explanation or support for the proposed narrow
interpretation of" on demand." Therefore, we agree with the Examiner that
Gates and Fletcher combined teach the disputed limitations of claimed
invention.
Accordingly, for the reasons discussed above and by the Examiner,
claim 1 as well as claims 2, 3, 6, 7 and 9-17, not argued with particularity,
are unpatentable over Gates, Fletcher, and Hyndman.
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Application 12/986,882
THE OBVIOUSNESS REJECTIONS BASED ON
GATES, FLETCHER, HYNDMAN, AND BILLMAIER
Claims 4, 5, 8, and 18-20
Based on the record before us, we are not persuaded that the Examiner
erred in rejecting claims 4, 5, 8, and 18-20 as unpatentable over Gates,
Fletcher, Hyndman, and Billmaier.
With respect to claims 8 and 20, Appellants additionally contend that
"[ w ]hile Gates teaches providing multiple perspectives of the 3D world to
users, Gates does not teach zooming between a perspective view of the
venue and a streaming-media-only view." Br. 11. However, as the
Examiner points out, Gates expressly teaches that "users can employ virtual
camera control to select a desired viewpoint to observe occurrence of the
event and/or interaction with virtual guests." Ans. 38 (quoting Gates,
i-f34)( emphasis added). As such, Gates teaches or suggests selecting to view
only the event or the event along with the virtual guests. We agree with the
Examinerthat Gates teaches the recited limitations of claims 8 and 20.
Accordingly, for the reasons discussed above and by the Examiner,
claims 8 and 20 as well as claims 4, 5, 18, and 19, not argued with
particularity, are unpatentable over Gates, Fletcher, and Hyndman.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1and3-20 under§ 103.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1 and 3-20.
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No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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