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 .
Examiner’s Comments
The examiner notes ‘audio signal’ as used throughout the claims, does not refer to a single signal, but rather to one of a stream of signals at multiple points of time and places. The examiner notes ‘device’ as characterized is not limited to a distinct device and can be read as interchangeable or any portion of any other device/element/component/collection thereof used in the same system, noting applicant’s characterization of device per claim 22 and 23. The examiner notes similar conventions and characterizations will be used when reading and mapping ‘audio signals’ and ‘devices’ from the prior art.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. Therefore, the second user using the first device per claim 26 must be shown or the feature(s) canceled from the claim(s). No new matter should be entered.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Objections
Claim 28 objected to because of the following informalities: the ‘and’ at the end should be deleted. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-6,24,28 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by Zahn et al (US 20230080905 A1).
As per claim 1, Zahn discloses a method comprising:
at a first device 20 (fig.1) having a processor analogous to that shown for device 14 as shown in the fig:
obtaining sensor data from one or more sensors in a physical environment (the wireless data from the network and also the user’s voice during communication with any of 14,20,24,28), the physical environment comprising an audio source (the users of any of the devices speaking are audio sources in physical environments) and a user of a second device (network 36 can be a LAN or personal area network, which means that each user, including the user of a second device are in the same physical environment);
determining that an attention of a user of a second device is directed towards the audio source within the physical environment (the devices and users can be in the same room/building/area per the Lan or personal area network) based on the sensor data (para. 50: HMD device 100 may determine that user 16 is gazing at the third avatar 358 corresponding to recipient Carlos in a manner that triggers the creation of a private communication session. For example, the gaze tracking system may determine that user 16 gazes) (where the creation of the private communication session requires signaling received at each device implementing the communication session, where any of said signaling is sensor data indicating that an attention of a user of a second device is directed towards the audio source); and
in accordance with determining that the attention of the user of the second device is directed towards the audio source, controlling provision of an audio signal from the audio source to the second device (the signaling used to provision the audio as communication occurs, where the audio sources are the voices of each of the participants of the private communication as picked up by their respective devices 14,20,24,28) ).
As per claim 24, the claim 1 rejection discloses A device comprising:
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium; and one or more processors coupled to the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, wherein the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprises program instructions that, when executed on the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising (the system of fig 1 requires processors software and memory to implement the cited functions):
obtaining sensor data from one or more sensors in a physical environment, the physical environment comprising an audio source (per claim 1 rejection);
determining that an attention of a user of a second device is directed towards the audio source based on the sensor data (per claim 1 rejection); and
in accordance with determining that the attention of the user of the second device is directed towards the audio source, controlling provision of an audio signal from the audio source to the second device (per claim 1 rejection).
As per claim 28, the claim 1,24 rejections discloses a method comprising:
at a first device having a processor and one or more sensors (per claim 1 rejection):
capturing audio content via the one or more sensors while the first device is used by a first user in a physical environment, the audio content corresponding to audio produced by the first user (the system of the claim1 rejection, with a first user communicating via audio picked up by a sensor/microphone);
determining, based on sensor data obtained via the one or more sensors, that the first user is exhibiting behavior directed towards the second user (gaze detection per claim 1 rejection);
determining, based on detecting that the first user is exhibiting the behavior directed towards the second user, an intention of the first user for the audio produced by the first user to be heard by a second user using a second device in the physical environment (the detection of the gaze and or performing the gaze detection or beginning the communication per claim 1 rejection); and
As per claim 2, the method of claim 1, wherein controlling the provision of audio signal from the audio source to the second device comprises determining to transmit the audio signal from the audio source to the second device based on the attention of the user of the second device being directed towards the audio source (the gaze tracking per the claim 1 rejection used to implement the communication session which comprises determining to transmit the audio signal from the audio source to the second device).
As per claim 3, the method of claim 2, wherein the audio signal is transmitted from the audio source to the second device via a low latency, wireless link (the wireless connections cited in para 10, as used for the network links in fig. 1, requires a low latency protocol in order to implement a communication session with real time audio conversation per para 42) .
As per claim 4, the method of claim 1, wherein the audio signal is transmitted from the audio source to multiple devices via a 1 to N network topology (para 42, group communication session comprises multiple 1-N topologies).
As per claim 5, the method of claim 1, wherein the audio signal is transmitted from the audio source to multiple devices via an N to N network topology comprising multiple devices that share audio information with one another selectively based on attention of users of the multiple devices (the selective communication network in view of the group communication as per fig. 1 and as per the claim 1 and 4 rejections).
As per claim 6, the method of claim 1, wherein controlling the provision of audio signal from the audio source to the second device comprises adjusting a volume of [[the]] an audible presentation of the audio signal from the audio source to the second device based on the attention of the user of the second device being directed towards the audio source (para. 16: the user 16 and the recipient/user of the first recipient computing device 20 may have a private audio conversation that is not heard by the recipients/users, which is an adjustment of the volume of that audio stream relative to the audio streams that are not in the private conversation)).
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.
Claim(s) 7,26,27, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zahn et al (US 20230080905 A1) as applied to claim 1 above.
As per claim 7, Zahn discloses the method of claim 1, but does not specify wherein controlling the provision of audio signal from the audio source to the second device comprises enabling noise cancellation at the second device based on the attention of the user of the second device being directed towards the audio source.
The examiner takes official notice it is well known in the art at the time of filing to enable noise cancellation upon commencing a communications session for the purpose of reducing noise in the session.
As per claim 26, Zahn discloses multiple users using multiple devices in the same area but does not specify the audio source is a second user of the first device.
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art that the users in the same local area could trade or share devices for the advantages inherent to sharing things, which would make the audio source in Zahn be from a second user of the first device.
As per claim 27, this is rejected per the claim 26 rejection, when the user’s have shared devices, the audio source is another user producing sound in the physical environment and the audio signal is generated based on the sound produced by the another user, wherein the sound is a voice of the another user captured by a device operated by the another user and sent as the audio signal to the second device for audio playback to the user (as the users have shared devices).
Claim(s) 8-23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zahn et al (US 20230080905 A1) as applied to claim 1 above and further in view of Krol et al (US 10952006 B1).
As per claim 8, Zahn discloses the method of claim 1, but does not specify wherein controlling provision of audio signal from the audio source to the second device comprises enabling a spatialized rendering of audio based on the audio signal based on a position of the audio source.
Krol teaches enabling a spatialized rendering of audio based on an audio signal based on a position of an audio source (para 69-75, the volume adjustment of the L R channels to give the sense of position). It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art to implement spatial audio for the communication session of Zahn for the purpose of giving a sense of position to the users.
As per claim 9, the method of claim 1 further comprising: detecting a change in the attention of the user of the second device; and in accordance with detecting the change in the attention of the user, changing provision of the audio signal from the audio source to the second device (the gaze detection as used in the system of fig. 1 works so that any of the sets of devices can be put into a private communication session based on gaze tracking analogous to that described in the claim 1 rejection, where one private conversation would end another/change provision).
As per claim 10, the method of claim 9, wherein: detecting the change in the attention of the user comprises detecting that the attention of the user of the second device is directed to an object in the physical environment separate from the audio source; and in accordance with detecting that the attention of the user of the second device is directed to the object, discontinuing or reducing noise cancelation provided via the second device (when the user changes gaze to a different device/object a private communication session is started with that new device, which, because it is private, excludes the previous device which was based on the previous gaze of the user, as such since the previous private session is ended the associated noise cancellation taught per the claim 8 rejection is ended.
As per claim 11, the method of claim 1, wherein determining that the attention of a user of the second device is directed towards the audio source comprises determining a location or movement of an object in the physical environment based one or more images of the sensor data (the user’s head gaze/object movement is tracked and sensed by both devices per the claim 1 rejection).
As per claim 12, the method of claim 1, wherein determining that the attention of a user of the second device is directed towards the audio source comprises determining, based on the sensor data, that the user is listening to the audio source and the audio source is a second user talking (the gaze is an indication and the audio source is the users talking per the claim 1 rejection).
As per claim 13, the method of claim 1, wherein determining that the attention of a user of the second device is directed towards the audio source comprises determining an intended recipient of audio of the audio source (via the gaze tracking per the claim 1 rejection).
As per claim 14, the intended recipient is determined based on volume of the audio source (the steps per the claim 1,13 rejection are recited based on the volume of the audio source being loud enough to be picked up by the sensor/microphone.
As per claim 15, the method of claim 1, wherein determining that the attention of a user of the second device is directed towards the audio source is based on: an image or depth sensor data of the physical environment captured by the device, second device (via the detected gaze tracking), or the audio source.
As per claim 16, the method of claim 1, wherein determining that the attention of a user of the second device is directed towards the audio source is based on: an image or depth sensor data of an eye of the user captured by the device, second device, or the audio source; an image or depth sensor data of a head of the user captured by the device, second device (via the detected gaze tracking), or the audio source; or physiological data of the user captured by the device.
As per claim 17, the method of claim 1, wherein determining that the attention of a user of the second device is directed towards the audio source comprises tracking eye position, gaze direction (per claim 1 rejection), or pupillary response of the user.
As per claim 18, the method of claim 1, wherein determining that the attention of a user of the second device is directed towards the audio source comprises tracking a head position or head movement of the user (the gaze tracking).
As per claim 19, the method of claim 1, wherein determining that the attention of a user of the second device is directed towards the audio source comprises:
determining a facial expression exhibited by the user; or detecting a movement of the user based on detecting a movement of the second device, wherein the second device is worn by the user (the gaze tracking via the hmd per Zahn).
As per claim 20, the method of claim 1 further comprising: determining that the user is having difficulty hearing the audio source based on the sensor data; and in accordance with determining that the user is having difficulty hearing the audio source, controlling provision of the audio signal from the audio source to the second device for audible presentation at the second device (per the gaze tracking per claim 1 rejection).
As per claim 21, the method of claim 1, further comprising providing an indication of who is listening to audio produced by the audio source (per gaze tracking).
As per claim 22, the method of claim 1, wherein the second device is the first device (per fig. 1 and the claim 1 rejection).
As per claim 23, The method of claim 1, wherein the second device and first device are different devices (per fig 1 and claim 1 rejection).
Response to Arguments
The submitted arguments have been considered but are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection.
Applicant's amendment necessitate d 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALEXANDER KRZYSTAN whose telephone number is 571-272-7498, and whose email address is alexander.krzystan@uspto.gov
The examiner can usually be reached on m-f 7:30-4:00 est.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone or email are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Fan Tsang can be reached on (571) 272-7547.
The fax phone numbers for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned are 571-273-8300 for regular communications and 571-273-8300 for After Final communications.
/ALEXANDER KRZYSTAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2653
Examiner Alexander Krzystan
February 26, 2026