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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 21-23,25-37,39,40 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being fully met by Cohen et al (USPGP 2009/0164034).
Regarding Claims 21,36,40, Cohen discloses a method, comprising:
determining, by a computing system 102, multiple musical attributes (metadata of tracks stored in database 330, paras. 0031-0055, 0119-0126) for a musical composition;
selecting 214, by the computing system based on the multiple musical attributes, a first set of one or more tracks 330C from a database of stored tracks;
generating (beats generated and recorded, para. 0128), by the computing system based on the multiple musical attributes, second one or more tracks 330B corresponding to one or more instruments based on the determined musical attributes (metadata indicating tempo, genre, etc); and
combining (Fig. 8A), by the computing system, the first set of one or more tracks 330C and the second set of one or more tracks 330B to generate output music content, wherein the combining includes layering tracks such that they overlap in time (mixed, 812) within the output music content.
Regarding Claims 22,37 Cohen discloses the generating is performed 1028a while generating the output music content 1028b based on the multiple musical attributes (selected by user).
Regarding Claim 23, Cohen discloses that at least a portion of the first set of one or more tracks 330C were previously generated by the computing system and stored in the database.
Regarding Claim 25, Cohen discloses at least a portion of the first set of one or more tracks were submitted by an artist (uploaded by artist, para. 0128).
Regarding Claim 26, Cohen discloses determining the multiple musical attributes (metadata, tags) is based on user input (“user supplied information” para. 0126).
Regarding Claims 27,39, Cohen discloses adjusting, by the computing system, a track of the first set of one or more tracks to align with an attribute of the multiple musical attributes (compensating for latency, Figs. 11,14; compensating for volume, Fig. 11).
Regarding Claim 28, Cohen discloses at least one of the second one or more tracks is a single-instrument loop (beat is a percussion instrument).
Regarding Claim 29, Cohen teaches a scenario where at least one of the second one or more tracks is new music content 806a; and at most 50% of the output music content is derived from pre-existing content 806b (Fig. 8A).
Regarding Claim 30, Cohen discloses the computing system is a server 200, the method further comprising the server streaming the generated output music content to another device for audio output (para. 0068).
Regarding Claim 31, Cohen discloses the computing system is a mobile device (para. 0055).
Regarding Claim 32, Cohen discloses the generating and the combining are performed by different computing devices of the computing system that are connected via a network (Fig. 14).
Regarding Claim 33, Cohen discloses analyzing multiple existing tracks and assigning music attributes to the existing tracks based on the analyzing, wherein the first set of one or more tracks includes at least one of the analyzed existing tracks (beat data and genre data is automatically tagged, paras. 0125, 0126).
Regarding Claim 34, Cohen discloses the generating is based on at least tempo and length 330c (Fig.3B) attributes.
Regarding Claim 35, Cohen discloses the second one or more tracks include at least first and second tracks corresponding to different musical instruments (vocal and beats or rhythms read on different instruments. Also “multimedia content” having genres such as “pop, Latin, jazz” means these tracks inherently have different musical instruments specific to the genre, para. 0188).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 24,38 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cohen in view of Soroka et al (USPGP 20100299151).
Regarding Claims 24,38 Cohen (applied here in a similar manner as to claims 21 and 36 above) discloses all features claimed, but does not explicitly teach decomposing, by the computing system, one or more existing music compositions to generate at least a portion of the first set of one or more tracks.
Soroka discloses a media format where songs have been decomposed, by a computing system, to generate at least a portion of the first set of one or more tracks for each instrument in a song 100 (Fig. 1).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to adapt the teachings of Cohen with those of Soroka so as to allow the user of Cohen a wider variety of kinds of tracks in creating music, as is known in the art to be desirable.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. The references cited show related teachings in the art.
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JEFFREY . DONELS
Examiner
Art Unit 2837
/JEFFREY DONELS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2837