Appeal 2007-0635
Application 10/176,598
is not limited to using a popularity metric which ranks media files according to
how long they have been played. The claim calls for using popularity metrics that
are proportional to a total amount of playback time. In other words, the claim does
not limit ranking the media files by “a total amount of playback time.” The claim
only limits the ranking to one that is proportional to a total amount of playback
time. That means the claim encompasses instances of ranking media files which,
though a calculation of “a total amount of playback time” may not in fact have
been made or used to rank the media files, the result is nevertheless the same. That
is, claim 2 encompasses ranking the media files as though they had been based on
the total time they were played. Ward broadly covers just such instances.
There is no dispute that Ward ranks files by the number of times a media has
been played. For example, take four media files, A, B, C, and D where media files
A and D have each been played once to completion and media files B and C have
not been played. In accordance with Ward’s popularity metric, media files A and D
would be ranked in one group with media files B and C in another. In this
instance, the application of the Ward popularity metric amounts to an application
of a popularity metric that is based on how long a media file has been played. That
is to say, applying Ward’s popularity metric to a set of media files consisting of
media files that have played to completion or not played at all is proportional to a
popularity metric that is based on how long the media files have been played. In
this example, the resulting order of the media files from using either algorithm
would be the same.
To repeat, the Ward method applies a popularity metric which is
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