Introduction
1. This office action is in response to Applicant’s submission filed on 11/6/2025. Claims 1-3, 5-7, 11-15, 18, and 20-27 are pending in the application and have been examined.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
2. 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
3. The Amendment filed 11/6/2025 has been entered and fully considered. With regard to the objection to Claims 20-24, 26, and 27, that objection is withdrawn in view of the amended claims. With regard to the rejections under 35 USC 103, those rejections are maintained, as the arguments are not persuasive. With regard to the feature “the first portion is identified based, at least partially, on audio of interest comprised by the first portion,” page 17, lines 17-24 of Vilkamo describes that a first portion can be identified that includes directional sounds of the front region. Thus, the front region is “audio of interest” according to the reference. The phrase “audio of interest” is broad enough to encompass such an interpretation based on the teachings of the reference. Thus, Vilkamo renders obvious “the first portion is identified based, at least partially, on audio of interest comprised by the first portion” as now recited in the independent claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
4. 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 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.
5. Claims 1-3, 5-7, 11-15, 18, and 20-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as unpatentable over WPO Pat. App. Pub. No. 2021058858 (VILKAMO et al, hereinafter “Vil,” cited in IDS of 1/18/2024) in view of EP Pat. App. Pub. No. 3 745 744 (Vaananan et al., hereinafter “Vaan,” cited in the IDS of 1/18/2024).
With regard to Claim 1, Vil describes:
“An apparatus comprising:
at least one processor; (Page 6, lines 26-31) and
at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed with the at least one processor, (Page 6, lines 26-31) cause the apparatus at least to:
obtain at least one audio signal comprising two or more channels; (Page 18, lines 15-25)
process the at least one audio signal with program code to identify at least a first portion of the at least one audio signal wherein the first portion is identified based, at least partially, on audio of interest comprised by the first portion; (Page 17, lines 17-24, Page 18, lines 15-25)
process the first portion using a first process; (Page 29, lines 3-12 describes time delay process on first portion.)
process a second portion using a second process comprising spatial audio processing (Page 29, line13 to page 30, line 7 describes that special audio processing is performed on the second signal.) wherein the first process comprises no spatial audio processing or a low level of spatial audio processing compared to the second process (Page 29, lines 3-12 describes only that a time delay process performed on first portion.) and the second portion comprises a remainder of the at least one audio signal (Page 17, lines 17-24 describes that second portion is remainder.); and
enabling the processed first portion and second portion to played back using two or more loudspeakers. (Page 30, lines 3-7 describe that the sound is played back through headphones with two speakers.)
Vil may not explicitly describe “the first process comprises no spatial audio processing or a low level of spatial audio process compared to the second process.”
However, paragraph 49 of Van explicitly describes a system that performs special audio processing on a second portion of a signal and not on the first portion.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the spacial processing as described by Vaan into the invention of Vil to provide a partially extended audio signal, as described in paragraph 49 of Vaan.
With regard to Claim 2, page 3, lines 13-30 of Vil describes that the process can include cross-talk cancellation based stereo widening processing.
With regard to Claim 3, Vil does not explicitly describe this subject matter.
However, paragraph 7 of Vaan describes that the first process enables the first portion to be provided in a central position in a rendered sound scene.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the central position in the first portion as described by Vaan into the invention of Vil to avoid degrading the central portion, as described in paragraph 7 of Vaan.
With regard to Claim 5, Vil does not explicitly describe this subject matter.
However, paragraph 160 of Vaan describes that different equalization gains may be applied to the first and second channels.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the different equalization gains as described by Vaan into the invention of Vil to independently scale the signal with respect to each other, as described in paragraph 160 of Vaan.
With regard to Claim 6, Vil does not explicitly describe this subject matter.
However, paragraph 160 of Vaan describes that different equalization gains may be applied to the first and second channels. Thus, Vaan has identified the equalization gain as a result effective variable. Accordingly, it is an obvious matter of design choice to select such gains. See MPEP 2144.05(II)(B)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the different equalization gains as described by Vaan into the invention of Vil to independently scale the signal with respect to each other, as described in paragraph 160 of Vaan.
With regard to Claim 11, page 17, lines 7-10 of Vil describe that the device may identify at least the first portion and two or more second portions.
With regard to Claim 12, page 20, lines 8 to page 21, lines 2 of Vil describe that the device may include processing parameters that depend on azimuth angle. Thus, different signal portions at different azimuth angles will be subject to different processing. Therefore, Vil describes “the two or more second portions are processed using different spatial audio processes.”
With regard to Claim 13, Vil does not explicitly describe this subject matter.
However, paragraph 20 of Vaan describes widening of a sound signal.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the signal widening as described by Vaan into the invention of Vil to improve sound quality, as described in paragraph 1 of Vaan.
With respect to Claim 14, Vil does not explicitly describe this subject matter.
However, paragraph 7 of Vaan describes that “the audio of interest comprises at least one of: speech; or human vocal sounds.” Vaan describes that the voice is in the central portion, which is in the first portion.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the central position in the first portion as described by Vaan into the invention of Vil to avoid degrading the voice, as described in paragraph 7 of Vaan.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the signal widening as described by Vaan into the invention of Vil to improve sound quality, as described in paragraph 1 of Vaan.
With respect to Claim 15, page 17 line 24 of Vil describes “the remainder comprises at least one of: audio that is not the audio of interest; or ambient sounds.”
With respect to Claims 18, 20-22, and 24-27, system Claim 1 and method Claim 18 are related as a system programmed to perform the same method, with each claimed system function corresponding to each claimed method step. Accordingly, Claims 18 and 20-27 are similarly rejected under the same rationale as applied above with respect to Claims 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 12, 14, and 15.
6. Claim 7 and 23 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as unpatentable over Vil in view of Vaan and further in view of U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 20190005976 (Peleg et al., hereinafter “Peleg”).
Vil in view of Vaan does not explicitly describe the subject matter of Claim 7.
However, paragraph 61 of Peleg describes “the trained machine learning model is configured to at least one of:
separate, at least partially, the first portion of the at least one audio signal comprising the audio of interest from the remainder of the at least one audio signal.”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the trained model as described by Peleg into the invention of Vil in view of Vaan to efficiently separate voice from noise, as described in paragraph 61 of Peleg.
With respect to Claim 23, system Claim 1 and method Claim 18 are related as a system programmed to perform the same method, with each claimed system function corresponding to each claimed method step. Accordingly, Claim 23 is similarly rejected under the same rationale as applied above with respect to Claim 7.
Conclusion
7. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
U.S. Pat. No. 11,887,587 (Rennies-Hochmuthet al.) also describes a device that selects audio data of interest.
8. 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.
9. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to EDWARD TRACY whose telephone number is (571)272-8332. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9 AM- 5PM.
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/EDWARD TRACY JR./Examiner, Art Unit 2656
/BHAVESH M MEHTA/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2656