Ex Parte Hwang et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 14, 2016

13222678 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 14, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/222,678 08/31/2011 66547 7590 11/16/2016 THE FARRELL LAW FIRM, P,C 290 Broadhollow Road Suite 210E Melville, NY 11747 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Sung-Oh HWANG 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. 678-4267 (Pl8473-US/DMC) CONFIRMATION NO. 5892 EXAMINER SITTNER, MATTHEW T ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3682 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/16/2016 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): pto@farrelliplaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte SUNG-OH HWANG and SERGEY NIKOLA YEVICH SELEZNEV Appeal 2014-009461 1 Application 13/222,678 Technology Center 3600 Before: MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, and MICHAEL W. KIM, Administrative Patent Judges. KIM, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF CASE This is an appeal from the final rejection of claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction to review the case under 35 U.S.C. Â§Â§ 134 and 6. The invention relates generally to requiring users to watch advertisements while receiving services or content. Spec. 1, 11. 14--16. 1 The Appellants identify Samsung Electronics, Inc. as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 1. Appeal2014-009461 Application 13/222,678 Claim 1 is illustrative: 1. A method for playing an advertisement in a device according to usage of a multimedia service, the method compnsmg: receiving a user request to execute request specific content on a multimedia player; determining whether advertisement enforced-watching information is included in a rights object representing a user's consumption rights for the specific content; executing the specific content; stopping, if the advertisement enforced-watching information is included in the rights object, the execution of the specific content according to the advertisement enforced- watching information and providing the advertisement to the user after stopping the execution of the specific content; and resuming the stopped execution of the specific content after providing the advertisement to the user is completed. The Examiner rejected claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 102(b) as anticipated by D'Amore (US 2009/0198542 Al, pub. Aug. 6, 2009). We AFFIRM. ANALYSIS Appellants argue independent claims 1, 6, 11, and 20 together as a group (Appeal Br. 6-7), so we select claim 1 as representative. See 37 C.F.R. Â§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv). We are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments that D 'Amore unlocks content, but, according to Appellants, fails to disclose stopping the "execution" of content, providing advertising, then restarting the content. Appeal Br. 4---6; see also Reply Br. 1-3. We disagree. 2 Appeal2014-009461 Application 13/222,678 D' Amore discloses displaying advertisements in conjunction with displaying other requested content (D 'Amore para. 7), where the advertising unlocks rights to the content (Id. at para. 16). D 'Amore discloses further that the placement of the advertisements may be made "upon product launch, after consumption of the content, and/ or any point there between." Id. at para. 48. The ordinary artisan would have understood this as disclosing that advertisement could be required any combination of before, during, and after the display of content. Accordingly, when displaying advertisements "at any point" between launch and consumption of the content, some of the content would be displayed, then stopped for the advertisement, then restarted, as claimed. For this reason, we sustain the rejection of claims 1, 6, 11, and 16. We also sustain the rejection of dependent claims 2-5, 7-10, 12-15, and 17- 20 that were not argued separately. See Appeal Br. 6-7. DECISION We affirm the rejection of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 102(b). No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. Â§ 1.136(a)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED 3