DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 1, 3, 6-10, and 14-17 are hereby under examination.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 1/26/2026 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites “provide the acoustic stimulus signal to the user to treat hearing loss or tinnitus”. However, it is unclear how the apparatus which includes a processor and a memory can provide acoustic stimulus signal to the user, as there should be an additional component in the apparatus that converts the program instructions executable by the processor into a signal perceived by a human user.
Claims 3, 6-10, and 14-17 are rejected based upon their dependencies on the rejected claims.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see 7-12, filed 1/26/2026, with respect to 101 rejections and 103 rejections have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 101 rejections and 103 rejections have been withdrawn. However, the claims are not amended to fully address all the 112b rejections made in the office action dated 9/25/2025. As such, the 112b rejection is maintained.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 1 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: the closest art of record is US20090149916A1 (Kwak, Sangyeop), previously cited and hereto referred as Kwak.
As to claim 1, Kwak teaches An auditory therapy frequency spectrum analysis apparatus comprising: a processor; and a memory connected to the processor (Kwak, Fig. 2, memory 208, controller 230), wherein the memory stores program instructions executable by the processor to divide an audible frequency band into an n number of frequency bands with a 1/k octave resolution (Kwak, [0052], “Preferably, the hearing diagnosis section 100 provides an acoustic signal of a frequency band with 1/k (is positive integer of above 2) octave resolution”), receive a hearing threshold of a user for each of the n number of frequency bands, calculate a hearing threshold representative value for each of the n number of frequency bands (Kwak, [0066], “the response information may be stored as the hearing threshold of the frequency band related to corresponding acoustic signal”), and determine an acoustic stimulus signal for the user according to the determined group (Kwak, [0107], “In steps S504 and S506, type and output order of the acoustic signal are determined”), provide the acoustic stimulus signal to the user to treat hearing loss or tinnitus (Kwak, [0056], “The stimulating treatment section 104 outputs the acoustic signal with a preset intensity to the frequency band of the damaged hair cell region which is determined by the stimulation region detecting section 102”), wherein the user is assigned to one of the plurality of groups according to a first threshold corresponding to a lower limit of the hearing threshold representative value for each of the n number of frequency bands and a second threshold corresponding to an upper limit of the hearing threshold representative value for each of the n number of frequency bands (Kwak, [0125], “As shown in FIG. 7, right ear of the subject has a mild to moderate hearing loss in a frequency region of 3000 Hz to 7000 Hz.”; the examiner notes, mild to moderate is interpreted as the plurality group after comparison of the hearing loss for the thresholds associated with mild hearing and moderate hearing loss), wherein each of the plurality of groups includes a plurality of frequency bands and a plurality of hearing threshold representative values corresponding to the plurality of frequency bands within the group (Kwak, [0124], “Particularly, FIG. 7 shows result generated by examining hearing ability in the range of 2000 Hz to 8000 Hz with 1/24 octave resolution using the hearing diagnosis section 100.”), wherein the plurality of hearing threshold representative values within each of the plurality of groups are sorted in descending order (Kwak, [0081], “the stimulation order determining section 214 may determine the output order so that the acoustic signal is outputted in sequence from the frequency band corresponding to the most damaged hair cell region”).
However, Kwak does not teach that the acoustic stimulus signal is determined by comparing a difference in ratio between the plurality of hearing threshold representative values within the assigned group and a preset value of 1.3, along with other claimed steps or elements.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ELINA S JANG whose telephone number is (571)272-7019. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00 am - 6:00 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jennifer Robertson can be reached at (571) 272-5001. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ELINA SOHYUN JANG/Examiner, Art Unit 3791
/JENNIFER ROBERTSON/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3791
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