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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1, 3-7, 9-10, 12-16 and 18-21 are pending. Claims 1, 9, and 10 are independent.
This Application was published as US 20240304201.
Apparent priority: 20 August 2021.
Applicant’s amendments and arguments are considered but are either unpersuasive or moot in view of the new grounds of rejection that, if presented, were necessitated by the amendments to the Claims.
This action is Final.
Response to Arguments
35 USC 103
Applicant's arguments have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In response to applicant's arguments against the references individually, one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986). Applicant argues (pg. 12) that Cho discloses a system wherein the user’s voice would be output from a speaker and received again by the microphone, and further output from another speaker. One of ordinary skill in the art would understand that this is a description of auditory feedback, which is well-known and multiple solutions exist to avoid feedback, and would have been understood by one of ordinary skill in the art applying the system of Cho. Examiner agrees that Cho does not disclose the specific system claimed for echo cancellation.
In regards to arguments against Li (pg. 14), Applicant argues that Li discloses a general cancellation scheme rather than a scheme which performs directional cancellation for a specific loudspeaker. However, Li discloses cancellation which would be used for every loudspeaker, which reads on the claims under the broadest reasonable interpretation. Li discloses cancellation on a loudspeaker in a sound region to which the target source belongs and discloses echo paths, but does not explicitly disclose that the cancellation is based on a distance between the loudspeaker and the auditory organ.
Whinnery discloses tracking the position of the ears as an audio zone for reducing sound. For example, [0049-50] disclose that the position can be calculated as x, y, z coordinates to track the head. [0002] discloses that cancelation is performed by providing an acoustic field which is 180 degrees out of phase. One of ordinary skill in the art would understand that providing an out-of-phase echo cancellation signal to a 3-dimensional point would require calculating the distance to the point. As detailed below, it would have been obvious to combine the references and use the zone taught by Whinnery to perform the echo cancellation taught by Li. Therefore, the rejection is maintained.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1, 3-7, 9-10, 12-16 and 18-21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cho et al. (US 20180262834 A1) in view of Li et al. (US 20200219493 A1) and Whinnery (U.S. 20160329040).
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Regarding claim 1, Cho discloses: An audio-based processing method, including:
extracting a target acoustic source signal from a mixed audio signal collected through a microphone array; ("the voice information output from the speaker may be voice information 1440 (“Where would you like to go?”), with the name of the listener removed, since the listener has been selected based on the name information." [0387]; “received through a microphone, either of the vehicle or the terminal." [0386]) – the content without the listener name is a target acoustic source signal that is extracted from the full user speech)
recognizing text content corresponding to the target acoustic source signal from the target acoustic source signal; ("the controller may extract name information (“Section Chief Kim”) from voice information 1430 (“Section Chief Kim, where would you like to go?”)" [0386]; “[0074] The controller 180 may also include sub-modules to enable its performance and/or execution involving voice and natural speech language processing, such as …, a speech-to-text (STT) processing module, a natural language processing module, …. Each of these sub-modules may also have access to one or more systems … including … automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems. …” )
determining a target loudspeaker based on the text content; ("Subsequent to selecting the listener, the controller outputs the voice information of the talker from a speaker closest to a position (right rear seat) at which the listener is sitting." [0387]; “[0387] Subsequent to selecting the listener, the controller outputs the voice information of the talker from a speaker closest to a position (right rear seat) at which the listener is sitting. Here, since the controller selects a listener based on name information extracted from voice information, and then outputs the voice information from the speaker, the voice information output from the speaker may be voice information 1440 (“Where would you like to go?”), with the name of the listener removed, since the listener has been selected based on the name information.”)
controlling the target loudspeaker to play a speech corresponding to the target acoustic source signal; and ("Subsequent to selecting the listener, the controller outputs the voice information of the talker from a speaker closest to a position (right rear seat) at which the listener is sitting." [0387])
generating a cancellation signal for canceling out the target acoustic source signal based on a position of the target loudspeaker, a position of a loudspeaker in a sound region to which the target acoustic source signal belongs, and a volume of speech for playback through the target loudspeaker; and (not explicitly disclosed by Cho)
performing echo cancellation for the target acoustic source signal on the loudspeaker in the sound region to which the target acoustic source signal belongs based on the cancellation signal, (Figure 3 shows that in a crowded environment, the system switches to text: “It’s noise because there are a lot of people. Switched to text mode. 350.” – Cho does not explicitly disclose echo cancellation)
wherein the generating a cancellation signal for canceling out the target acoustic source signal based on a position of the target loudspeaker, a position of a loudspeaker in a sound region to which the target acoustic source signal belongs, and a volume of speech for playback through the target loudspeaker; and performing echo cancellation for the target acoustic source signal on the loudspeaker in the sound region to which the target acoustic source signal belongs based on the cancellation signal, includes:
acquiring a position of an auditory organ in a space of a person from whom the target acoustic source signal is generated;
calculating a distance between the loudspeaker in the sound region to which the target acoustic source signal belongs and the auditory organ based on the position of the auditory organ in the space of the person from whom the target acoustic source signal is generated and the position of the loudspeaker in the sound region to which the target acoustic source signal belongs;
generating the cancellation signal for canceling out the target acoustic source signal based on the distance, the position of the target loudspeaker, and the volume of the speech; and performing the echo cancellation for the target acoustic source signal on the loudspeaker in the sound region to which the target acoustic source signal belongs based on the cancellation signal. (not explicitly disclosed by Cho)
Cho does not explicitly disclose a mixed audio signal, a microphone array, or echo cancellation based on an auditory organ location and based on the distance between the speaker and the auditory organ.
Li discloses: extracting a target acoustic source signal from a mixed audio signal ("The output signals of the microphones 1402 are continuously processed through the front-end system 1400, which process the microphone output signals so that the processed microphone signals from the front-end system 1400 are substantially free of echo from audio sources, noise and interference speech from outside the respective zone even though audio (e.g., media) may be playing via speakers in the acoustic environment (e.g., vehicle speakers) and multiple talkers may be present in the acoustic environment." [0124])
collected through a microphone array; ("In vehicles with four occupants, there are four or more microphones (e.g., the number of microphones will be equal or be greater than the number of talkers) or in the alternative, may be less when the systems use one or more beamforming microphone arrays that steer the pickup patterns of each of the talking occupants, and in some instances, further reject unwanted noise and echo." [0057])
generating a cancellation signal (“[0050]…processing the captured one or more microphone signals in response to the estimated plurality of echo paths by subtracting the echo contributions …” – the echo contributions which are subtracted read on a cancellation signal) for canceling out the target acoustic source signal (“[0036] In some embodiments, the echo contributions are estimated via impulse responses from each of a plurality of speakers in the acoustic environment to each of the plurality of microphones in the acoustic environment and reference signals.” – this would include the target speaker) based on a position of the target loudspeaker, ([0035] In some embodiments, removing echo caused by audio transducers in the acoustic environment from each of the microphone signals comprises: estimating a plurality of echo paths from each of the plurality of audio transducers to each of the plurality of microphones in the acoustic environment, each microphone being located in and associated with a zone in the plurality of zones of the acoustic environment; and removing echo contributions from each of the plurality of echo paths from the microphone signals.)a position of a loudspeaker (“[0035] … to each of the plurality of microphones…”) in a sound region to which the target acoustic source signal belongs, (“[0035]… each microphone being located in and associated with a zone in the plurality of zones of the acoustic environment…”) and a volume of speech for playback through the target loudspeaker; and ([0036] In some embodiments, the echo contributions are estimated via impulse responses from each of a plurality of speakers in the acoustic environment to each of the plurality of microphones in the acoustic environment and reference signals.” – the impulse response from the loudspeaker would include the volume of speech for playback)
performing echo cancellation for the target acoustic source signal (see Fig. 3 – the target acoustic source signal would be the selected mic.) on the loudspeaker in the sound region to which the target acoustic source signal belongs (“[0068]… The target speech in the target zone may be mixed with interference speech from other zones and echo from audio sources (e.g., media sources such as music, video, etc.) playing into the vehicle cabin…” – this would include sound playing on the loudspeaker in the sound region to which the source signal belongs) based on the cancellation signal (discussed above).
wherein the generating a cancellation signal for canceling out the target acoustic source signal based on a position of the target loudspeaker, a position of a loudspeaker in a sound region to which the target acoustic source signal belongs, and a volume of speech for playback through the target loudspeaker; and performing echo cancellation for the target acoustic source signal on the loudspeaker in the sound region to which the target acoustic source signal belongs based on the cancellation signal, includes: (mapped above)
acquiring a position of an auditory organ in a space of a person from whom the target acoustic source signal is generated; (not explicitly disclosed)
calculating a distance between the loudspeaker in the sound region to which the target acoustic source signal belongs and the auditory organ based on the position of the auditory organ in the space of the person from whom the target acoustic source signal is generated and the position of the loudspeaker in the sound region to which the target acoustic source signal belongs; (“[0035] In some embodiments, removing echo caused by audio transducers in the acoustic environment from each of the microphone signals comprises: estimating a plurality of echo paths from each of the plurality of audio transducers to each of the plurality of microphones in the acoustic environment, each microphone being located in and associated with a zone in the plurality of zones of the acoustic environment; and removing echo contributions from each of the plurality of echo paths from the microphone signals.” – an echo path would include distance.)
generating the cancellation signal for canceling out the target acoustic source signal based on the distance, the position of the target loudspeaker, and the volume of the speech; and (“[0037] In some embodiments, generating the processed microphone signal for each zone in the plurality of zones of the acoustic environment further includes: removing feedback caused by audio transducers in the acoustic environment from each of the microphone signals.”)
performing the echo cancellation for the target acoustic source signal on the loudspeaker in the sound region to which the target acoustic source signal belongs based on the cancellation signal. (“[0035] …and removing echo contributions from each of the plurality of echo paths from the microphone signals.”)
Cho and Li are considered analogous art to the claimed invention because they disclose audio processing systems for vehicles. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the communication system of Cho with a microphone array, extracting the speaker from a mixed signal, and to perform echo cancellation. Using a microphone array would have been beneficial in order to reject unwanted noise and echo (Li [0057]). Extracting the speaker from a mixed signal would have been beneficial so multiple passengers could speak at the same time without interference (Li [0063]). Performing echo cancellation would have been beneficial so that the user’s voice is free of echo (Li [0018]).
Neither Cho nor Li teach locating the position of the auditory organ of the person who is speaking, or that the cancelation signal is specifically based on a distance between the auditory organ and the loudspeaker.
Whinnery teaches:
acquiring a position of an auditory organ in a space of a person from whom the target acoustic source signal is generated; and (Whinnery is directed to active noise reduction and cancellation. See [0002] and Abstract. To do so, the position of head and ears of the user are tracked. “[0012] …. Therefore, by dynamically tracking the location of a user's ear, for example, the reduction of sound at that location may be made greater (it is quieter) and the quiet experience does not change when the user changes the position (or pose) of their head.”
performing echo cancellation … based on the position of the auditory organ in the space of the person from whom the target acoustic source signal is generated ….( Whinnery Figure 5 showing the “update noise reduction zone 530” based on “receive motion tracking data 515.”)
and generating the cancellation signal for canceling out the target acoustic source signal based on the distance, the position of the target loudspeaker, and the volume of the speech; and (“[0039] System 200 may proceed to block 320 where it may calculate an appropriate signal which may be used for noise reduction. Block 320 may occur in both controller 210 and the active noise reduction controller 225. Controller 210 may analyze motion and noise distribution data to notify active noise reduction controller 225 what kind of modifications to the noise area may be made. For example, notification of where the head has shifted to, which may include 3D point clouds may be analyzed and provided to active noise reduction controller 225.” – analyzing 3D point clouds would include distances between the positions.)
Cho/ Li and Whinnery are considered analogous art to the claimed invention because they discuss echo cancellation and sound processing systems for handsfree systems including those that are commonly used in vehicles. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the sound processing system of the combination to track the position of the ear of the speaker and taking that position into account for echo cancellation and noise reduction in order to reduce the return of the voice of a speaker back to himself. Doing so would have been beneficial in order to provide a moveable zone if the user moves his or her head.
Regarding claim 3, Cho does not teach the additional limitations of claim 3. Cho teaches detecting which seat each user is in (Fig. 14B-C), but not specifically detecting if there is a person in each seat of the vehicle.
Li discloses: The audio-based processing method according to claim 1, wherein the extracting the target acoustic source signal from the mixed audio signal collected through the microphone array includes:
detecting whether there is a person sitting in each of seats in a vehicle; and ("The zone activity detector may in addition use information such as seat detectors, voice activity detection and signal-to-noise ratios, to determine the most active zone." [0145]) Figure 7, 1612, and Figure 8, 1706.
performing voice separation on the target audio signal based on a sound region to which a microphone corresponding to a seat occupied by a person belongs, and extracting the target acoustic source signal based on a voice separation result, ("At operation 1704, a single wake word detector 2202 runs on a composite of the processed microphone signal for each zone in the plurality of zones of the acoustic environment to monitor for and detect a wake word to initiate an ASR session via the ASR system in a respective zone. The composite of the processed microphone signal may be an average or sum of the processed microphone signals of each zone." [0146] – the decomposition of the composite of processed microphone signal is performing voice separation. The wake word detector is extracting the target acoustic source signal.) See Figure 2, “signal separator 702.”
wherein the microphone array includes microphones located at all seats in the vehicle. (“For example, in a vehicle with three occupants, such as the vehicle 200 shown in FIG. 1, (a driver, a co-driver that is hidden, and a single rear-seat passenger) there will be three or more microphones 302 A through C placed such that each of the microphones 302 A through C ideally capture only a single and different talker.” [0057])
Rationale for combination as provided for Claim 1. Li was cited for teaching the “extracting” limitation of Claim 1 which refers to the steps of isolating the speaker’s voice, collected through a microphone array, and Claim 3 provides further details regarding the same step which are combined under the same rationale.
Regarding claim 4, Cho in view of Li discloses: The audio-based processing method according to claim 1. Cho further discloses: wherein the determining the target loudspeaker based on the text content includes:
extracting a keyword from the text content; ("the controller may extract name information (“Section Chief Kim”) from voice information 1430 (“Section Chief Kim, where would you like to go?”) received through a microphone, either of the vehicle or the terminal." [0386])
matching the keyword in the text content with a plurality of preset keywords; and ("The controller and/or learning data unit 130 may combine a plurality of pieces of name information included in the profile information to predict a title for a specific person to be called. For example, referring to profile information 1410 in FIG. 14A, the controller and/or learning data unit 130 may predict that a person corresponding to the person information is to be called “Kim Cheol-Soo,”, “Cheol-Soo,” “Section Chief Kim,” or “Section Chief Kim Cheol-Soo,” using predicted name variations or combinations with the person's title." [0383])
determining the target loudspeaker based on a matching result. ("Subsequent to selecting the listener, the controller outputs the voice information of the talker from a speaker closest to a position (right rear seat) at which the listener is sitting." [0387])
Regarding claim 5, Cho in view of Li discloses: The audio-based processing method according to claim 4. Cho further discloses: wherein the matching the keyword in the text content with the plurality of preset keywords and determining the target loudspeaker based on a matching result includes:
establishing a correspondence relationship between at least two loudspeakers and the plurality of preset keywords, wherein the at least two loudspeakers include a loudspeaker corresponding to the sound region to which the target acoustic source signal belongs; ("Fig. 14B-C show loudspeaker 1310d corresponds to Section Chief Kim, and loudspeaker 1310c corresponds to Senior Associate Gap-Dol." Fig. 14B, Fig. 14C)
matching each keyword of the plurality of preset keywords with the keyword in the text content to obtain a matching result between the at least two loudspeakers and the text content; ("Next, referring to FIG. 14C, the controller extracts name information (“Gap-Dol”) from voice information 1450 (“Senior Associate Gap-Dol, have you got meeting materials?”) received from the microphone." [0388] – This is a second (plurality of) keyword. See claim 4 for the first keyword “Section Chief Kim” which is matched with the right rear seat speaker.)
and determining the target loudspeaker based on the matching result and the correspondence relationship. ("Subsequent to selecting the listener, the controller outputs 1460 the voice information of the talker from the speaker 1310 c closest to the position (left rear seat) at which the listener is sitting." [0389])
Regarding claim 6, Cho in view of Li discloses: The audio-based processing method according to claim 5. Cho further discloses: wherein the establishing the correspondence relationship between the at least two loudspeakers and the plurality of preset keywords includes:
establishing a first matching relationship between at least two target seats and the plurality of preset keywords, and/or establishing a second matching relationship between persons in the at least two target seats and the plurality of keywords, wherein the at least two target seats are in one-to-one correspondence to the at least two loudspeakers; and (See Fig. 14B-C – As discussed in claim 5, there is a matching relationship between persons in 2 target seats, 2 target keywords, and 2 target speakers)
establishing the correspondence relationship between the at least two loudspeakers and the plurality of preset keywords based on the first matching relationship and/or the second matching relationship. (See Fig. 14B-C – As discussed in claim 5, the loudspeakers are selected based on the relationship between the passenger and the keyword.)
Regarding claim 7, Cho in view of Li discloses: The audio-based processing method according to claim 1. Cho further discloses: further including:
when target-type audio is played through a specified loudspeaker, performing noise reduction for a remaining loudspeaker other than the specified loudspeaker based on a position of the specified loudspeaker, a position of the remaining loudspeaker, and a volume of target audio. ("the microphone 122 may include assorted noise removing algorithms to remove noise generated in the course of receiving the external audio signal." [0100])
when target-type audio is played through a specified loudspeaker, performing noise reduction for a remaining loudspeaker other than the specified loudspeaker based on a position of the specified loudspeaker, a position of the remaining loudspeaker, and a volume of target audio. (Cho does not explicitly disclose noise reduction for a remaining loudspeaker based on positions of the target loudspeaker, remaining loudspeaker, and volume.)
Li discloses: when target-type audio is played through a specified loudspeaker, performing noise reduction for a remaining loudspeaker other than the specified loudspeaker based on a position of the specified loudspeaker, a position of the remaining loudspeaker, and a volume of target audio. (“A channel analysis and acoustic modelling module 1408 analyzes the signal and noise level of each audio channel. The channel analysis and acoustic modelling module 1408 learns the acoustic interrelation between different audio channels for speech originating in each zone of the vehicle. For each audio channel, interference from undesired sources are cancelled through an interference cancellation process performed by a ZIC module 1410 followed by an interference suppression process performed by a zone interference suppression module 1412.” [0070]; the acoustic interrelation between zones is based on the position of each loudspeaker, including target and remaining loudspeaker. Echo cancelation is related to the “volume of speech for playback” in the sense that the noise/echo level has to remain below the volume of output audio such that if the volume is intended to be low, more of the noise/echo needs to be removed. The relationship is thus implied. Noise cancellation uses the volume of the target audio because noise from each zone is cancelled in the other zones so that there can be multiple talkers: "The output signals of the microphones 1402 are continuously processed through the front-end system 1400, which process the microphone output signals so that the processed microphone signals from the front-end system 1400 are substantially free of echo from audio sources, noise and interference speech from outside the respective zone even though audio (e.g., media) may be playing via speakers in the acoustic environment (e.g., vehicle speakers) and multiple talkers may be present in the acoustic environment." [0124] The target audio is clearly cancelled in the other zones.) See also: “[0136] At operation 1620, any audio (e.g., media) in the first occupant's zone may be ducked by decreasing the volume of one or more speakers in the first occupant's zone. …The audio in other zones may continue to play via speakers in the other zones while audio in first occupant's zone is ducked (e.g., volume reduced/muted) with the volume in the other zones being either unchanged or a lower volume.”
Cho and Li are considered analogous art to the claimed invention because they discuss sound processing systems for vehicles. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the sound processing system of Cho in view of Li with the further teaching of Li to reduce noise in any remaining zones. Doing so would have been beneficial to allow for multiple talkers at the same time. (Li [0124])
Claim 9 is a computer readable storage medium claim with limitations corresponding to the limitations of Claim 1 and is rejected under similar rationale. Additionally, “a computer program” and “a non-transitory computer readable storage medium” of the Claim are taught by Cho. (“The memory 170 may store a plurality of application programs (or applications) executed in the terminal 100” [0085])
Claim 10 is an apparatus claim with limitations corresponding to the limitations of Claim 1 and is rejected under similar rationale. Additionally, “a processor” and “a memory” of the Claim are taught by Cho (Fig. 1A: CONTROLLER 180, MEMORY 170; [0131] discloses that the controller may be a processor.)
Claim 12 is an apparatus claim with limitations corresponding to the limitations of Claim 3 and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 13 is an apparatus claim with limitations corresponding to the limitations of Claim 4 and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 14 is an apparatus claim with limitations corresponding to the limitations of Claim 5 and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 15 is an apparatus claim with limitations corresponding to the limitations of Claim 6 and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 16 is an apparatus claim with limitations corresponding to the limitations of Claim 7 and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 18 is a computer readable storage medium claim with limitations corresponding to the limitations of Claim 3 and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 19 is a computer readable storage medium claim with limitations corresponding to the limitations of Claim 4 and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 20 is a computer readable storage medium claim with limitations corresponding to the limitations of Claim 5 and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 21 is a computer readable storage medium claim with limitations corresponding to the limitations of Claim 7 and is rejected under similar rationale.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JON C MEIS whose telephone number is (703)756-1566. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday, 8:30 am - 5:30 pm EST.
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/JON CHRISTOPHER MEIS/Examiner, Art Unit 2654
/HAI PHAN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2654
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