Prior art

The USPTO website (uspto.gov) provides a "Patent Public Search" tool for searching patents and patent application publications. I will use this tool to find information about US patent 8230101 and its citations.

Most Relevant Prior Art for US Patent 8230101

Based on the patent text and standard prior art analysis, here's an examination of the most relevant prior art cited in US patent 8230101, along with potential anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102.

US patent 8230101 cites Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-208204 (referred to as "Patent Document" in US8230101).

Full Citation: JP2004208204A - Hard disk recorder
Publication/Filing Date: Publication date: 2004-07-22; Priority date: 2002-12-26
Brief Description: This patent describes a hard disk recorder for recording television programs that automatically deletes contents corresponding to a predetermined condition from contents stored therein when the hard disk, despite its large capacity, has stored many amounts of contents data, resulting in insufficient capacity for storing a new television program.
Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102):

The patent 8230101 explicitly distinguishes itself from JP2004208204A. While JP2004208204A addresses the issue of insufficient storage capacity by deleting old content or transferring it to a storage medium like a DVD-R, it notes that "the hard disk recorder is difficult to play the transferred contents as required."

The core novelty of US8230101, as stated in its abstract and claims, is to "maintain the convenience of playback in a network player, while properly dealing with the large total size of held digital contents." This is achieved by presenting a unified list of both internal and network-stored content and enabling seamless stream-delivery from either location. The cited Japanese patent, according to the description in US8230101, does not teach the presentation of transferred content as if it were still on the primary device, nor does it facilitate easy playback of such transferred content through a network player.

Therefore, JP2004208204A potentially anticipates the basic concept of managing limited storage by moving content to another storage location. However, it does not appear to anticipate the following elements, which are central to the independent claims of US8230101:

• List information transmission means/unit/step (Claims 1, 6, 7, 12): This feature, which presents digital contents left in the internal storage device and digital contents transferred to the network storage device as the held digital contents of the internal storage device, and maintains the original tree structure, is not described in JP2004208204A.
• Search means/unit/step (Claims 1, 6, 7, 12): While a basic search for content might be implied in any recording device, the explicit search for content "where the held digital contents are currently stored" (i.e., whether on the internal or network storage) in response to a network player request, as a prelude to stream-delivery, is not present.
• Digital contents data transmission processing means/unit/step (Claims 1, 6, 7, 12): The ability to "stream-deliver" content directly or indirectly from the network storage device to the network player upon request, as if it were still on the server device, is a key differentiating factor not found in JP2004208204A.

The specific limitations regarding recoverable content (Claims 1 and 7) or user permission for unrecoverable content (Claims 6 and 12) are also unique to US8230101 and not present in JP2004208204A.