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 .
The application has been transferred to Examiner Angelica McKinney.
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Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Invention 1 (Fig. 2) in the reply filed on July 11, 2025 is acknowledged.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1 and 8-9 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The close prior art, Dodds et al. (US-PAT No. 10,638,248), teaches of an audio system is configured to modified audio experience that reduces the degradation of a target audio experience presented to a user by the audio system. The modified audio experience may perform active noise cancelling, ambient sound masking, and/or neutral sound masking to compensate for the sound waves received from non-target audio sources. The close prior art failed to teach a speaker control method and device for determining a first speaker based on the user perception-prohibited area, and determining a reverse cancelling sound wave corresponding to the target audio signal; generating a first control parameter based on a characteristic attribute of the reverse cancelling sound wave; and controlling the first speaker to output the reverse cancelling sound wave based on the first control parameter, as claimed in claims 1 and 8. Therefore the prior art does not meet the requirements of the claimed invention as recited in the broadest claim respectively since there is no suggestion to render obviousness in combination or individually to teach the limitations as claimed. For the above reason, independent claims 1 and 8 are allowed.
The dependent claims 2-7 are in condition for allowance except for the following formal matters stated in the “Claim Objections” section.
Claim Objections
Claims 2-7 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 2 recites "obtaining a user perception-prohibited area corresponding to the target audio signal" and it should be obtaining the user perception-prohibited area corresponding to the target audio signal.
Claim 3 recites "obtaining a user perception-allowed area corresponding to the target audio signal" and it should be obtaining the user perception-allowed area corresponding to the target audio signal.
Claim 4 recites "generating a second control parameter according to the audio output event" and it should be generating the second control parameter according to the audio output event.
Claim 5 recites "obtaining a user perception-prohibited area corresponding to the target audio signal" and it should be obtaining the user perception-prohibited area corresponding to the target audio signal.
Claim 5 recites "obtaining the user perception-prohibited area corresponding to the target audio signal" and it should be obtaining the user perception-prohibited area corresponding to the target audio signal.
Claim 6 recites "determining a reverse cancelling sound wave corresponding to the target audio signal" and it should be determining the reverse cancelling sound wave corresponding to the target audio signal.
Claim 7 recites "controlling the first speaker to output the reverse cancelling sound wave based on the first control parameter" and it should be determining the reverse cancelling sound wave corresponding to the target audio signal.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim does not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) of the “computer-readable storage medium” encompasses signals per se. The specification discloses that “The computer readable storage medium may be the memory in the embodiment shown in FIG. 5 (Para. [0117], Lines 1-6). Further, the computer-readable storage medium may also be a USB flash disk, a read-only memory (ROM), a random-access memory (RAM), a disk, a CD-ROM or other mediums that can store the program code (Para. [0118], Lines 1-8). Although the computer-readable storage medium includes statutory embodiments, nothing in the specification specifically excludes signals per se from falling within computer-readable storage medium. Therefore, a claim whose BRI covers both statutory and non-statutory embodiments embraces subject matter that is not eligible for patent protection and therefore is directed to non-statutory subject matter. See MPEP 2106.03(II). It is suggested that claim 10 be amended to recite a “non-transitory” computer readable medium to overcome this rejection. Accordingly, Claim 10 fails to recite statutory subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Katagiri US-PG-PUB No. 2017/0289677, Sound Pick-Up Apparatus And Method, Fig. 3 shows a sound pick-up apparatus configured to acquire, on the basis of the noise-reduced signal, a first non-target area sound having directionality formed in a direction other than a target area direction, and a target area direction sound having directionality formed in the target area direction.
Katagiri US-PG-PUB No. 2022/0272443, Sound Pick-Up Apparatus, Storage Medium, And Pick-Up Method, Fig. 11B shows an input signal of a microphone located at a farthest position from the non-target area sound includes smallest non-target area sound. In this case, all the microphones collect the target area sound of the same sound volume. Therefore, an input signal having the smallest average target area sound amplitude spectrum has a highest SN ratio among all the microphones. Therefore, in the first configuration example, it is possible to achieve advantageous effects of reducing the non-target area sound mixed with the target area sound and reducing the distortion of the target area sound even in the case where the non-target area sound is located near the target area.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANGELICA M MCKINNEY whose telephone number is (571)270-3321. The examiner can normally be reached 7AM-3PM EST M-F.
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/ANGELICA M MCKINNEY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2694
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