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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-4, 6-8, 10-13,15-17, and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Xia (US 20150319543 A1)
Regarding claims 1, 10 and 19, Xia (US 20150319543 A1) discloses a system, a non-transitory computer-readable medium and method comprising:
at least one memory that stores computer-executable instructions; and at least one processor configured to access the at least one memory and execute the computer-executable instructions (Xia, ¶ [0042]: “the processor is adapted to perform
instructions stored in memory”) to:
establish a connection to a connected device (Xia, Abstract: “A hearing assistance system”);
calculate a first SNR of a first sample of a first audio stream from the connected device (Xia, ¶ [0023]: “determining a first signal-to-noise ratio (SNR1) of the first audio signal”);
calculate a second SNR of a second sample of a second audio stream from a first device (Xia, ¶ [0023]: “a second signal-to-noise ratio (SNR2) of the second
audio signal.”);
compare a difference of the first SNR and the second SNR to a Delta SNR threshold (Xia, ¶ [0025]: “The difference between SNR1 and SNR2 is determined and compared to a specified margin.” (threshold)); and
determine whether to apply system-level (gain) preprocessing based on the comparison (Xia, claim 35: “determining the common gain value based on an outcome of the comparison.”; see also ¶ [0026]).
Regarding claims 2, 11 and 20, Xia discloses all the limitations of claims 1, 10 and 19 respectively.
Xia further discloses, wherein the first sample and the second sample are captured simultaneously (Xia, ¶ [0003]: first and second sample originating from a single source providing compressive gain and simultaneously preserving ILD (Inter-aural level differences) spatial cue.”).
Regarding claims 3 and 12, Xia discloses all the limitations of claims 1, and 10 respectively.
Xia further discloses, wherein the connected device is a universal serial bus (USB) or a Bluetooth® device (Xia, ¶ [0017]: “a wired or wireless communication link providing for communications” Bluetooth® is very old and well known in the art to be a wireless communication link).
Regarding claims 4 and 13, Xia discloses all the limitations of claims 1 and 10 respectively.
Xia further discloses, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to detect ambient noise level conditions (Xia, ¶ [0025]: “determined based on the distribution of the sound sources indicated by the detected acoustic scene (noise included)”).
Regarding claims 6 and 15, Xia discloses all the limitations of claims 1 and 10 respectively.
Xia further discloses, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to update a profile list associated with a noise reduction processing capability of the connected device (Xia, ¶ [0030]: “A binaural-noise-reduction method may be used to compute and compare (processing) the SNR at two ears”).
Regarding claims 7 and 16, Xia discloses all the limitations of claims 1 and 10 respectively.
Xia further discloses, wherein a processing capability of the connected device comprises a no processing capability, a good processing capability, or a low processing capability (Xia, Fig. 5, items 554r, 554L, 106)
Regarding claims 8 and 17, Xia discloses all the limitations of claims 7 and 16 respectively.
Xia further discloses, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:
determine that the connected device processing capability is good (Xia, ¶ [0038]: “Wireless communication circuit wirelessly communicates with left hearing aid via binaural link. Processing circuit includes second portions of control circuitry and processes the right audio signal. Receiver transmits the processed right
audio signal to the right ear of the listener.” Therefore, it can be considered that processing circuit is good); and determine no additional system level pre-processing is needed (Xia, see claim 23).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 9, 14 and 18 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FRIEDRICH FAHNERT whose telephone number is (571)270-7797. The examiner can normally be reached 7:00 am-4:00 pm.
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/CAROLYN R EDWARDS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2692
/FRIEDRICH FAHNERT/
Examiner
Art Unit 2692