Obviousness

Obviousness Analysis of US Patent 12,118,591

An analysis of US Patent 12,118,591 ("the '591 patent") and relevant prior art suggests that the claims of the '591 patent would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention. This conclusion is based on the combination of teachings from prior art references that disclose the key elements of the claimed invention, and the predictable nature of combining these known elements.

The independent claims of the '591 patent generally recite a method and system for receiving a plurality of media messages, storing them, selecting subsets of these messages for inclusion in different feeds based on expiration information, associating advertisement prompts with the messages in the feeds, and providing these feeds to a mobile application. The mobile application is configured to present the feeds, including the media messages and their associated advertisement prompts.

Several prior art references, when considered together, disclose all the limitations of the independent claims of the '591 patent. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of these references to achieve the claimed invention.

Combination of Prior Art:

A primary combination of references that renders the claims of the '591 patent obvious includes:

• US Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0149286 A1 ("the '286 application"): This reference discloses a "Mobile provider advertising and scheduling platform." It teaches a system for receiving scheduling information from providers, including their availability, and providing this information to consumers. This establishes the concept of receiving time-based information (analogous to the "expiration information" and "scheduled airtime" in the '591 patent) and making it available to users. The '286 application describes a platform that enables service providers to use their mobile devices for scheduling and advertising their services in real-time.

• US Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0259048 A1 ("the '9048 application"): This reference, titled "Advertisement insertion into media content for streaming," describes a system for inserting advertisements into a stream of media content. This reference teaches the association of advertisements with media content that is delivered to a user's device. The '9048 application details how different advertisements can be selected for the same advertisement opportunity, which aligns with the concept of associating "advertisement prompts" with media messages.

• General knowledge of feed-based content delivery (e.g., RSS feeds): At the time of the invention, the concept of content feeds, such as RSS, was well-established. These feeds allowed users to subscribe to and receive updated content from various sources. It was common for these feeds to contain various types of media and for applications to be able to parse and display the content from these feeds.

Motivation to Combine:

A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of the '286 application, the '9048 application, and the general knowledge of content feeds for several reasons. The '286 application provides a framework for scheduling and advertising services via a mobile platform. A skilled artisan, seeking to enhance such a platform, would naturally look to more sophisticated methods of advertising, as taught by the '9048 application. Integrating the advertisement insertion techniques of the '9048 application into the scheduling and content delivery system of the '286 application would be a predictable and logical step to monetize the platform more effectively.

Furthermore, structuring the delivery of the scheduled media messages and advertisements into distinct feeds would be a natural and obvious implementation choice. Content feeds were a standard and well-understood mechanism for delivering updated content to mobile applications. A person of ordinary skill would have recognized that using multiple feeds would allow for better organization and targeting of content and advertisements to different user segments or application contexts. The ability to switch between these feeds, as claimed in claim 10 of the '591 patent, would be a straightforward and expected feature for any application that consumes multiple content streams.

Mapping of Prior Art to Claims:

• Receiving and storing a plurality of media messages associated with expiration information (Claim 1): The '286 application teaches receiving and storing scheduling information, which includes availability information for time blocks. This is analogous to receiving media messages with expiration information.
• Selecting subsets of media messages for different feeds based on expiration information (Claim 1): The concept of creating different feeds for different content is a well-known principle in content syndication. A person of ordinary skill would find it obvious to apply this principle to the scheduled content from the '286 application, creating different feeds based on timing or other criteria.
• Associating an advertisement prompt with each media message (Claim 1): The '9048 application explicitly teaches the insertion of advertisements into media streams. Associating an advertisement prompt with each media message is a direct application of this teaching.
• Providing the feeds to a mobile application for presentation (Claim 1): This is a fundamental aspect of both the '286 application and the general concept of mobile content delivery via feeds.
• The second feed differing from the first feed (Claim 1): The use of multiple, distinct feeds for different content is a standard practice in content delivery and would be an obvious way to organize and present different sets of media messages.

The dependent claims of the '591 patent add further limitations, such as interaction with the advertisement prompt leading to additional content, sharing prompts, and bookmarking features. These are all well-known and common features in mobile applications and would have been considered obvious additions to the base system by a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention. They represent predictable variations and enhancements of the core functionality.

In conclusion, the combination of the '286 application, the '9048 application, and the general knowledge of content feeds would have rendered the claims of US Patent 12,118,591 obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine these references would have been to create a more robust and monetizable mobile media delivery platform, and the resulting combination would have contained all the elements of the claimed invention.