Patexia seeks prior art for US Patent 7,478,084 (US ‘084) - “Remote-directed management of media content.” The patent allegedly describes a portable media player that can play media content for a user from content stored on the player itself or by accessing content stored in a location external to the player.

Media devices, such as the portable media player described, have to deal with media collections that can be stored in multiple storage mediums, often with different storage sizes. While media devices used to be able to rely on a persistent connection between these different storage mediums, newer portable devices have to contend with not always being able to reliably connect to a larger storage device containing an entire media collection.

In light of this limitation, the invention described allows a user to select a media file(s) for playback on a media player. In response, the media player determines if it has the selected media file(s). If it doesn’t, the player queues up the necessary actions to download the file(s) when it connects to the appropriate storage medium that does contain the file(s).

Figure 1. Action diagram of the portable media player

Questions

1. Was the source filed or published before November 16th, 2001? (Qualified/Disqualified)
2. ​Does the source describe a portable media player with a processor and a local storage component for storing media files? (15 points)
3. Does the source describe the portable media player having a user interface for the user to select one or more content file(s) to be played? (10 points)
4. ​Can the portable media player’s processor determine if the selected content file(s) are missing from the local storage component? (20 points)
5. Can the processor determine the necessary tasks needed to download the content file(s) found missing from the local storage component? (20 points)
6. ​Can the processor store the sequence of tasks in question 5 as a request in a local database? (10 points)
7. Can the portable media player connect to an external content source? (10 points)
8. ​Can the portable media player execute the tasks stored in question 6 to download from the external content source in question 7 the missing content file(s) determined in question 4? (15 points)