Obviousness

Based on the provided analysis of prior art, the following is an obviousness analysis of the independent claims of US patent 10,880,592 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.

This analysis presumes a Person Having Ordinary Skill in the Art (PHOSITA) as of the patent's priority date of September 14, 2008. A PHOSITA would be an engineer or computer scientist with experience in digital television systems, set-top boxes, video-on-demand (VOD) platforms, and internet streaming technologies. Such a person would be aware of the market demand for a seamless and integrated user experience combining broadcast and internet-delivered content.

Analysis of Claim 1

Claim 1 describes a receiving apparatus that designates content, stores information to re-select it, and automatically obtains "information relating to control" (e.g., an expiration date) from the source, linking it to the stored selection information.

• Proposed Combination: US 8,332,492 B2 (Marsh) in view of US 8,438,610 B2 (Herigstad).

• Reasoning:

  1. Marsh ('492) teaches the core elements of claim 1. Marsh's system for a "Personal Media Channel" explicitly involves selecting content from various sources (the first unit), storing identifiers for that content like URLs in a user's playlist (the second unit), and retrieving associated metadata from the source. This metadata, as described by Marsh, can include rights management and content availability information, which directly corresponds to the "information relating to control of the designated digital content" recited in claim 1's third unit.
  2. Herigstad ('610) teaches a system for bookmarking and resuming media content. This establishes that managing the state of a user's interaction with a piece of content (i.e., the playback position) was a well-known method for improving user experience.

• Motivation to Combine: A PHOSITA, tasked with improving the personal media channel system of Marsh, would have been motivated to ensure a robust user experience. A known problem with playlists and saved content links is that the content can become unavailable over time (e.g., licensing expires). Marsh already teaches retrieving availability metadata. It would have been an obvious and predictable step to automatically use this metadata retrieval function to manage the user's saved content list. The motivation would be to prevent user frustration from "dead links" or expired content in their personal channel. Combining Marsh's concept of retrieving availability data with the user-centric state management taught by Herigstad would lead to a system that not only saves a link to content but also actively monitors its availability, which is precisely what claim 1 describes.

Analysis of Claim 6

Claim 6 focuses on a device that saves the state of a video being watched when the device is turned off and automatically re-selects that video for resumption when turned back on.

• Proposed Combination: US 8,438,610 B2 (Herigstad) applied to a standard internet-connected television (as established by JP 2001-285743).

• Reasoning:

  1. Herigstad ('610) is the primary reference, as it explicitly discloses the core functionality: designating media content, storing a "bookmark" or playback position (information to designate it again), and using that bookmark to resume playback upon re-selection.
  2. JP '743 and the general knowledge in the art establish that the concept of a television connected to the internet was well known before 2008. A "manually operable unit" to turn the device on and off is a fundamental and universal feature of any television set.

• Motivation to Combine: A PHOSITA would have found it entirely obvious to apply the bookmarking and resume functionality of Herigstad to a physical television set. The motivation is simple: providing a seamless user experience. When a user turns off a device, it is a common and expected behavior for the device to save its current state. DVD players remembered the last playback position, and it would be a predictable and logical step to implement the same convenience for streamed or on-demand content on a television. Linking the power-off action to saving the bookmark from Herigstad and the power-on action to recalling it is not an inventive leap, but rather a straightforward application of a known software feature (Herigstad's bookmarking) to a standard hardware operation (power cycling a TV).

Analysis of Claim 12

Claim 12 describes a device that allows a user who starts watching a scheduled program mid-stream to then access and display a part of the program that has already been broadcast.

• Proposed Combination: US 2003/0188313 A1 (Iwasaki) on its own or as applied to a modern internet-connected television.

• Reasoning:

  1. Iwasaki ('313) appears to teach every substantive element of claim 12. Iwasaki, filed in 2003, discloses a system where a user watching a broadcast program (provided in accordance with a program schedule table) can start viewing it from the current point (a first part). The system then provides the ability to access the full program from a network source, which inherently includes the portion that has already aired (a second part). The selector unit (channel changer), receiver unit (tuner/network interface), and display unit are all intrinsic to Iwasaki's described television system. The controller unit is the very component that Iwasaki describes to enable this "catch-up" or "start-over" functionality.

• Motivation to Combine: Given that Iwasaki discloses the claimed functionality, the motivation for a PHOSITA in 2008 to implement this system would be strong and clear. As on-demand services grew in popularity, users became accustomed to non-linear viewing. There was a clear market demand to bridge the gap between linear, scheduled broadcasts and on-demand viewing. Implementing a "start-over" feature for broadcast TV was a widely recognized goal to enhance the viewer experience and compete with VOD services. Iwasaki provides the technical blueprint for achieving this, and a PHOSITA would have found it obvious to implement this known solution to meet a known market need.