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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 07/03/2023 is being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claims 15-20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claims are directed to a computer program product. The broadest reasonable interpretation of this term encompasses the program itself and any means by which the program is embodied or distributed. Therefore, the claim encompasses both a computer program per se and a transitory propagating signal. Neither of which fall into the statutory categories of invention under 35 USC 101.
The claims recite a computer-readable tangible storage medium that may typically be considered a computer-readable medium when a computer-readable medium is affirmatively recited so as to realize the computer program's functionality. In this case, the computer-readable storage medium covers non-transitory media and transitory propagating signals per se since the computer-readable storage medium may be considered tangible media (i.e. ROM or RAM) in light of the specification, and the data to be stored on the "storage medium" may also be transmitted as a signal in light of the specification.
The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim that is drawn to a computer readable medium (or a machine readable medium and other variations thereof) usually covers forms of non-transitory tangible media and transitory propagating signals per se in view of the ordinary and customary meaning of computer readable media (See MPEP 2111.01). Since the claims are directed to a computer-readable medium that covers signals per se, any claim drawn to a computer-readable medium to cover both transitory and non-transitory embodiments may be amended by adding the limitation "non- transitory" to the claim so as to narrow the claim to cover only statutory embodiments and avoid further rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101. This amendment would typically not raise the issue of new matter, even when the specification is silent, because the broadest reasonable interpretation relies on the ordinary and customary meaning, which includes signals per se.
Consequently, since the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claims covers a signal per se, and because the claims are given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification, Claims 15-20 are directed to nonstatutory functional descriptive material per se and are given very limited patentable weight (See MPEP 2106.01 Computer-Related Nonstatutory Subject Matter; see also Diamond v. Diehr, 209 USPQ 1,8 (1981); see also In reZletz, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989)).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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)(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) 1, 8, and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Kant et al (US Pub No. 2024/0071342).
Regarding claim 1, Kant teaches a computer-based method of blending musical phenotypes with user selections (Fig 4, process 400), the method comprising: receiving a corpus of songs selected by a user (Fig 4 & ¶ [0042], block 402 receive raw audio. Multiple raw audio inputs can be received) and one or more preferences of the user relating to musical interests (¶ [0037], user steering such as artist, style, and genre); converting, by discrete fast Fourier transforms (¶ [0060], compute fast Fourier transform to convert code sequences from time domain to frequency domain to generate Mel spectrogram), each song in the corpus into a spectrogram (¶ [0050], instrument sequences converted into Mel spectrograms); encoding each spectrogram into a chromosomal representation of integers (¶ [0060], image representation of the signal produced by the Mel spectrogram. Applicant’s specification ¶ [0038] defines chromosomal representation as a data representation of a spectrogram); creating, by a residual neural network, pools of chromosomal positions based on the chromosomal representation of integers (¶ [0047], predicted summed embeddings produced by a neural network); processing the pools of chromosomal positions into a gene representation (¶ [0049], code sequence generated from sequence of summed predicted embeddings); and translating the gene representation into a phenotype expression based on the one or more preferences of the user and an environment of the user (¶ [0047], sequence of predicted summed embeddings further produced based on user steering).
Regarding claim 8, Kant teaches a computer system (Fig 1, device 100), the computer system comprising: one or more processors (Fig 1, processors 110), one or more computer-readable memories (Fig 1, memory 150), one or more computer-readable tangible storage medium (Fig 1, program memory 160), and program instructions stored on at least one of the one or more computer-readable tangible storage medium for execution by at least one of the one or more processors via at least one of the one or more computer-readable memories (¶ [0078], instructions stored on computer-readable storage media), wherein the computer system is capable of performing a method (Fig 4, process 400) comprising: receiving a corpus of songs selected by a user (Fig 4 & ¶ [0042], block 402 receive raw audio. Multiple raw audio inputs can be received) and one or more preferences of the user relating to musical interests (¶ [0037], user steering such as artist, style, and genre); converting, by discrete fast Fourier transforms (¶ [0060], compute fast Fourier transform to convert code sequences from time domain to frequency domain to generate Mel spectrogram), each song in the corpus into a spectrogram (¶ [0050], instrument sequences converted into Mel spectrograms); encoding each spectrogram into a chromosomal representation of integers (¶ [0060], image representation of the signal produced by the Mel spectrogram. Applicant’s specification ¶ [0038] defines chromosomal representation as a data representation of a spectrogram); creating, by a residual neural network, pools of chromosomal positions based on the chromosomal representation of integers (¶ [0047], predicted summed embeddings produced by a neural network); processing the pools of chromosomal positions into a gene representation (¶ [0049], code sequence generated from sequence of summed predicted embeddings); and translating the gene representation into a phenotype expression based on the one or more preferences of the user and an environment of the user (¶ [0047], sequence of predicted summed embeddings further produced based on user steering).
Regarding claim 15, Kant teaches a computer program product (Fig 1, device 100), the computer program product comprising: one or more computer-readable tangible storage medium (Fig 1, program memory 160) and program instructions stored on at least one of the one or more computer-readable tangible storage medium, the program instructions executable by a processor (¶ [0078], instructions stored on computer-readable storage media) capable of performing a method (Fig 4, process 400), the method comprising: receiving a corpus of songs selected by a user (Fig 4 & ¶ [0042], block 402 receive raw audio. Multiple raw audio inputs can be received) and one or more preferences of the user relating to musical interests (¶ [0037], user steering such as artist, style, and genre); converting, by discrete fast Fourier transforms (¶ [0060], compute fast Fourier transform to convert code sequences from time domain to frequency domain to generate Mel spectrogram), each song in the corpus into a spectrogram (¶ [0050], instrument sequences converted into Mel spectrograms); encoding each spectrogram into a chromosomal representation of integers (¶ [0060], image representation of the signal produced by the Mel spectrogram. Applicant’s specification ¶ [0038] defines chromosomal representation as a data representation of a spectrogram); creating, by a residual neural network, pools of chromosomal positions based on the chromosomal representation of integers (¶ [0047], predicted summed embeddings produced by a neural network); processing the pools of chromosomal positions into a gene representation (¶ [0049], code sequence generated from sequence of summed predicted embeddings); and translating the gene representation into a phenotype expression based on the one or more preferences of the user and an environment of the user (¶ [0047], sequence of predicted summed embeddings further produced based on user steering).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 2-7, and 9-14 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Kolen et al (US Patent No. 10657934) teaches systems and methods for enhancements to musical composition applications.
Kurek et al (US Patent No. 11830463) teaches an automated original track generation engine.
Venti (US Patent No. 12347409) teaches systems and methods for converting music into segmented digital assets for dynamic uses.
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/T.M.L./Examiner, Art Unit 2694
/CAROLYN R EDWARDS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2692
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