Obviousness

Obviousness Analysis of US Patent 11611785 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

This analysis identifies combinations of prior art references that would render the independent claims of US Patent 11611785 (specifically Claim 1 and its corresponding machine-readable medium claim, Claim 11) obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) as of the patent's priority date of August 30, 2011.

Claimed Invention Overview (Claim 1)

Claim 1 describes a method for encoding source content into a plurality of alternative video streams and adaptively streaming them. Key steps include:

1. Identifying source video and a plurality of resolutions.
2. For each resolution, encoding portions multiple times with different target bitrates and evaluating the quality of each encoding.
3. Selecting resolution and target bitrate combinations for alternative streams based on the evaluated quality.
4. Uploading these encodings to a content distribution system.
5. Generating a top-level index describing the alternative streams.
6. Providing the index to playback devices capable of adaptive streaming.
7. Responding to requests for specific encodings.

Prior Art Combination and Motivation to Combine

Combination: US Patent 8,914,534 to Braness et al. ("Braness") in view of common knowledge in the art of video encoding, as acknowledged by US11611785 itself.

1. Braness et al. (US8914534B2)

• Disclosure: Braness et al. is explicitly cited in US11611785 and has a priority date of January 5, 2011, making it prior art. It discloses "Systems and Methods for Adaptive Bitrate Streaming of Media Stored in Matroska Container Files Using Hypertext Transfer Protocol" [cite: 1, "DETAILED DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION"]. Braness teaches the fundamental architecture and operation of an adaptive bitrate streaming system, including:

  • Storing source media on a media server as a top-level index file pointing to a number of "alternate streams" that contain video and audio data [cite: 1, "System Overview"].
  • Uploading the top-level index file and container files to an HTTP server [cite: 1, "System Overview"].
  • Playback devices using HTTP to request portions of the top-level index and container files via a network [cite: 1, "System Overview"].
  • Playback devices utilizing the top-level index to perform adaptive bitrate streaming in response to changes in streaming conditions, including switching between available streams [cite: 1, "System Overview"].
  • The need for alternative streams to encode media content at "different resolution and sample aspect ratio combinations and different maximum bitrates" to enable adaptive streaming [cite: 1, "System Overview"].

• Mapping to Claim 1: Braness directly teaches the overall adaptive streaming framework of Claim 1, including uploading encodings to servers (step 5), generating/providing a top-level index (steps 6, 7), and responding to playback device requests for specific encodings (step 8). It also implicitly teaches the need for "a plurality of resolutions for encoding of video content" (step 2) to facilitate adaptive bitrate switching.

2. Common Knowledge in the Art (as acknowledged by US11611785)

• Disclosure: The detailed disclosure of US11611785 itself contains admissions regarding the state of the art in video encoding at its priority date. It states: "Video data is typically encoded to achieve a target maximum bitrate. The quality of video encoded with a specific resolution, and frame rate typically does not improve appreciably beyond a specific maximum bitrate threshold. Beyond that threshold, increasing the resolution of the encoded video can increase video quality." [cite: 1, "DETAILED DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION"]. Furthermore, the patent explicitly acknowledges: "The bitrate threshold at which video quality does not appreciably improve can be determined through testing" or "subjective experimentation" [cite: 1, "Determining Target Maximum Bitrates"]. The patent also refers to "bitrate formulas that can be utilized to determine a optimal target maximum bitrate" [cite: 1, "Determining Target Maximum Bitrates"]. This demonstrates that the practice of encoding at various bitrates for a given resolution and evaluating quality to find an efficient or optimal bitrate was well-known in the art.

• Mapping to Claim 1: This common knowledge directly addresses the encoding and evaluation steps of Claim 1: "for each particular resolution of the plurality of resolutions: encoding at least a portion of the source video content multiple times using the particular resolution and multiple different target bitrates for the particular resolution; and evaluating quality for each of the multiple encodings" (Claim 1, step 3) and "selecting a plurality of resolution and target bitrate combinations for a plurality of alternative streams based on the evaluated quality of each of the multiple encodings" (Claim 1, step 4).

Motivation to Combine

A person having ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) in video encoding and streaming, aiming to implement an adaptive bitrate streaming system like that taught by Braness et al., would have been highly motivated to incorporate known video encoding optimization techniques. The very purpose of an adaptive bitrate streaming system is to deliver the best possible video quality given varying network conditions and playback device capabilities. To achieve this, the "alternative streams" within such a system must be efficiently encoded to represent distinct quality and bitrate tiers.

Given Braness et al.'s teaching of alternative streams encoded at "different resolutions and different maximum bitrates" [cite: 1, "System Overview"], and the common knowledge in the art (as admitted by US11611785) that for any specific resolution, there is an "optimal target maximum bitrate" that can be found "through testing" or "experimentation" without further appreciable quality gain [cite: 1, "DETAILED DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION", "Determining Target Maximum Bitrates"], a POSITA would find it obvious to apply this known optimization technique.

It would be a logical and desirable design choice for a POSITA building an adaptive streaming system to:

1. Determine the resolutions to offer for adaptive streaming (as implicitly required by Braness).
2. For each desired resolution, experimentally encode video content at multiple bitrates and evaluate their quality to identify the most efficient bitrate that delivers maximum quality without excessive data (as acknowledged by US11611785).
3. Select these "optimal" resolution and bitrate combinations to form the alternative streams for the adaptive streaming system, ensuring each stream is a high-quality, efficient representation at its respective resolution/bitrate point.

This combination of an existing adaptive streaming framework with conventional video encoding optimization methods directly yields the method steps recited in Claim 1, particularly those related to encoding multiple times at different bitrates, evaluating quality, and selecting combinations based on that evaluation. Therefore, Claim 1 (and consequently Claim 11) would have been obvious to a POSITA at the time of the invention.