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 .
Response to Amendment
1. The amendment filed March 26, 2026 has been entered. Claims 1-14 are pending in the application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
2. In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
3. Claims 1, 3-6, and 9-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Merimaa et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2020/0236489 A1, hereinafter "Merimaa") in view of LaValle et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2014/0354515 A1, hereinafter "LaValle"), and further in view of Imamura et al. (Japanese Pub. No. JP 2011121514 A, hereinafter "Imamura").
Regarding Claim 1 , Merimaa teaches a method of audio processing (audio rendering method implemented by systems of Figs. 1A-3, Fig. 4, Para. [0071]), comprising:
receiving motion data representing motions of a head-mounted listening device (at 400, headset tracks motion of the user's head and transmits head tracking data to the rendering device, Para. [0071]);
predicting, by one or more processors, future motions of the head-mounted listening device (at 410, the rendering device analyzes the head tracking data to predict multiple potential positions, Para. [0071]); and
providing the predicted future motions of the head-mounted listening device to a processor for adjusting a sound field presented by the listening device such that the sound field follows predicted movements of the head-mounted listening device (as shown in Fig. 2C, HMD 200 has controller 204 provided with audio streams of predicted future motions and the controller 204 may adjust a sound field by selecting the audio stream that closely matches the actual position, Para. [0064]; see also Para. [0071]).
Merimaa fails to explicitly teach transforming the motion data into quaternion domain;
the predicting including creating angular acceleration data from the transformed motion data and applying one or more smoothing filters to the angular acceleration data, the predicted future motions including rotation angles around corresponding axes in the quaternion domain.
However, LaValle teaches transforming the motion data into quaternion domain (VR headset pitch, roll and yaw (three-dimensional orientation) movement can be expressed using quaternions, Para. [0064]);
the predicting including creating angular acceleration data from the transformed motion data (motion predictor and smother 415 accepts sensor data (i.e. motion, orientation, and position data) from VR headset 430, and differentiates over a series of angular velocity measurements to derive an angular acceleration and extrapolate into the future a predetermined time to predict a future movement, orientation, and position Paras. [0056], [0064], and [0071]), the predicted future motions including rotation angles around corresponding axes in the quaternion domain (the predicted future motions will include rotation angles based on three-dimensional orientation of VR headset expressed in quaternion, Para. [0064]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the audio processing (as taught by Merimaa) to include the quaternion domain, the predicting including creating angular acceleration data from the transformed motion data, and the predicted future motions including rotational angles in quaternion domain (as taught by LaValle). Doing so will enable manipulations of rotations with relatively few parameters while preserving geometry under algebraic operations, which is very useful for performing prediction in three-dimensional space (LaValle Para. [0064]).
Merimaa in view of LaValle fails to explicitly teach applying one or more smoothing filters to the angular acceleration data.
However, Imamura teaches applying one or more smoothing filters to the angular acceleration data (smoothing filter 14 is applied to angular acceleration data, Fig. 3, Abstract, Claims 1 and 2).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the audio processing (as taught by Merimaa in view of LaValle) to include the smoothing filter applied to the angular acceleration data (as taught by Imamura). Doing so will attenuate calculation noise (Imamura Para. [0035]).
Regarding Claim 3, Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura teach wherein the predicting comprises creating angular velocity data from the transformed motion data (LaValle, motion predictor and smother 415 may, for example, average angular velocity measurements over a short time frame to derive a prediction about the future movement, orientation, and position, Para. [0056]).
Regarding Claim 4, Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura teach wherein creating the angular velocity data comprises using previously created angular velocity data (LaValle, angular velocity can be determined using prior created angular velocity data, Para. [0082]) and transformed motion data corresponding to the angular velocity data (LaValle, motion predictor and smother 415 may, for example, average angular velocity measurements over a short time frame to derive a prediction about the future movement, orientation, and position, Para. [0056]; movement data can also be expressed in quaternions, Para. [0064]).
Regarding Claim 5, Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura teach wherein creating the angular acceleration data comprises using numerical differentiation on the created angular velocity data (LaValle, the motion predictor and smother 415 may differentiate over a series of angular velocity measurements to derive an angular acceleration, Para. [0056]).
Regarding Claim 6, Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura teach wherein the predicting comprises determining a sliding window average of angular velocity from a history of the created angular velocity data (LaValle, motion predictor and smother 415 may, for example, average angular velocity measurements over a short time frame (e.g., ten measurements over the last ten milliseconds), Para. [0056]).
Regarding Claim 9, Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura teach wherein the head-mounted listening device includes a plurality of earbuds wirelessly connected to a playing device (Merimaa, audio headset 108 has earbuds 110A, 110B connected wirelessly to playing device 100, Fig. 1A, Paras. [0036] and [0037]).
Regarding Claim 10, Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura teach wherein the predicting and providing steps are performed by one or more processors of a device providing the sound field to the head-mounted listening device (Merimaa, processors 104, Fig. 1B, Paras. [0039] and [0040]).
Regarding Claim 11, Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura teach wherein the receiving and transforming steps are further performed by one or more processors of the device providing the sound field to the head-mounted listening device (Merimaa, processors 104, Fig. 1B, Paras. [0039] and [0040]).
Regarding Claim 12, Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura teach wherein the receiving and transforming steps are performed by one or more processors of the head-mounted listening device (Merimaa, headset 108 has a processors 102 with may include at least one audio processing unit (APU), which may include any suitable audio processing circuitry, Fig. 1, Para. [0044]; the receiving and transforming steps can be performed by the headset processor 102).
Regarding Claim 13, Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura teach a system (Merimaa, Fig. 1B) comprising:
one or more processors (Merimaa, processors 104, 102, Fig. 1B); and
a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, upon execution by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the method of claim 1 (Merimaa, memory 130, Fig. 1B, Para. [0040]).
Regarding Claim 14, it is similarly rejected as Claim 13.
4. Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Merimaa et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2020/0236489 A1, hereinafter "Merimaa") in view of LaValle et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2014/0354515 A1, hereinafter "LaValle") in view of Imamura et al. (Japanese Pub. No. JP 2011121514 A, hereinafter "Imamura"), and further in view of Yan et al. (Chinese Pub. No. CN 111523076 A, hereinafter "Yan").
Regarding Claim 2, Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura fail to explicitly teach wherein the predicting comprises applying a Recursive Linear Smoothed Newton filter to the angular acceleration data.
However, Yan teaches wherein the predicting comprises applying a Recursive Linear Smoothed Newton filter to the angular acceleration data (applying iterative linear smoothed Newton method (RLSN) [Recursive Linear Smoothed Newton] predicting function on the calculated angular acceleration, Para. [0075]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the audio processing (as taught by Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura) to include the Recursive Linear Smoothed Newton filter (as taught by Yan). Doing so, the accuracy of calculating the angular acceleration is greatly improved and the distortion rate is greatly reduced (Yan Para. [0075]).
5. Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Merimaa et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2020/0236489 A1, hereinafter "Merimaa") in view of LaValle et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2014/0354515 A1, hereinafter "LaValle") in view of Imamura et al. (Japanese Pub. No. JP 2011121514 A, hereinafter "Imamura"), and further in view of Li et al. (Design and Implementation of Smart Multi-Touch Interface Using Special Purpose CORDIC Processor, hereinafter "Li").
Regarding Claim 7, Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura fail to explicitly teach wherein a size of the sliding window is determined by the angular acceleration data.
However, Li teaches wherein a size of the sliding window is determined by the angular acceleration data (size of the sliding window is determined using angular acceleration data, Pg. 517, Col. 1, Para. 4 thru Col. 2, Para. 1).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the audio processing (as taught by Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura) to include sliding window size determined by angular acceleration (as taught by Li). Doing so will improve the accuracy of predicting motion.
6. Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Merimaa et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2020/0236489 A1, hereinafter "Merimaa") in view of LaValle et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2014/0354515 A1, hereinafter "LaValle") in view of Imamura et al. (Japanese Pub. No. JP 2011121514 A, hereinafter "Imamura"), and further in view of Tanaka (U.S. Pub. No. 2017/0352160 A1).
Regarding Claim 8, Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura fail to teach wherein the angular acceleration data are integrated to create an angular velocity changing value.
However, Tanaka teaches wherein the angular acceleration data is integrated to create an angular velocity changing value (detected angular accelerations are integrated over time domain, Para. [0091]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the audio processing (as taught by Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura) to include the integration of angular acceleration (as taught by Tanaka). Doing so, rotational speed and position can be accurately tracked which improves precision in the identified direction of user's head (Tanaka Para. [0091]).
Response to Arguments
7. Applicant's arguments filed March 26, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding independent Claim 1, applicant argues (see applicant’s remark, pages 2-5), the third cited reference (Imamura) must remedy all of the admitted deficiencies of both Merimaa and LaValle. Imamura does not even pertain to head mounted listening devices or predictive head-tracked binaural audio rendering. Imamura does not address at all the described deficiency of LaValle according to which smoothing is disabled when the headset is turning. LaValle teaches away from applying any kind of smoothing when the headset is turning.
In response to the applicant’s argument above, Claim 1 has been rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura. Imamura remedies the deficiency of both Merimaa in view of LaValle and teaches “applying one or more smoothing filters to the angular acceleration data” (Fig. 3, Claims 1 and 2).
In response to applicant's argument that Imamura is nonanalogous art, it has been held that a prior art reference must either be in the field of the inventor’s endeavor or, if not, then be reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the inventor was concerned, in order to be relied upon as a basis for rejection of the claimed invention. See In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 24 USPQ2d 1443 (Fed. Cir. 1992). In this case, Imamura clearly remedies the problem of smoothing angular acceleration data using a smoothing filter.
In response to applicant’s argument of LaValle teaching away from applying smoothing to angular acceleration. The prior office action did not rely on LaValle for teaching smoothing of angular acceleration but instead LaValle is relied upon for its teachings of transforming the motion data into quaternion domain (Para. [0064]), the predicting including creating angular acceleration data from the transformed motion data (Paras. [0056], [0064], and [0071]), and the predicted future motions including rotation angles around corresponding axes in the quaternion domain (Para. [0064]).
The combination of the teachings of Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura renders independent Claim 1 obvious.
The rejection of Claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura is maintained.
Dependent Claims 3-6 and 9-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura.
The rejections of Claims 3-6 and 9-14 under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Merimaa in view of LaValle, and further in view of Imamura are maintained.
Dependent Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Merimaa in view of LaValle in view of Imamura, and further in view of Yan.
The rejection of Claim 2 under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Merimaa in view of LaValle in view of Imamura, and further in view of Yan is maintained.
Dependent Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Merimaa in view of LaValle in view of Imamura, and further in view of Li.
The rejection of Claim 7 under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Merimaa in view of LaValle in view of Imamura, and further in view of Li is maintained.
Conclusion
8. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Barak (U.S. Pub. No. 2021/0223858 A1) teaches the use of a filter to smoothing the constant angular acceleration estimate (Para. [0021]).
9. THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
10. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHIMEZIE E BEKEE whose telephone number is (571)272-0202. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7.30-5.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Duc Nguyen can be reached at 571-272-7503. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CHIMEZIE EZERIWE BEKEE/Examiner, Art Unit 2691
/DUC NGUYEN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2691
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