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 . This Office action is based on the communications filed December 21, 2023. Claims 1 – 20 are currently pending and considered below.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on December 21, 2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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)(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.
(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 – 5, 8 – 12, and 15 – 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Cassidy et al. (US 2018/0114536 A1), hereinafter Cassidy.
Claim 1: Cassidy discloses a computer-implemented method comprising: predicting, based on an artificial intelligence (AI) model (see at least, “Sensing circuitry 1110B can include a circuit to generate a statistical feature 1125-1, a circuit to generate statistical feature 1125-2 ... a circuit to generate statistical feature 1125-L, where each is coupled to distortion prediction computation 1127 that generates a predicted likelihood of distortion associated with the acoustic output from speaker 1130B. Distortion prediction computation 1127 can be realized as one or more computational circuits for
machine learning, statistical learning, predictive learning, or AI-based measure that can provide computation of the likelihood of distortion at loudspeaker output 1130B. Conventional circuits for such learning and AI techniques can be used. These circuits may include various types of memory
devices and one or more processors, DSPs, ASICs and other computational devices. The predicted likelihood of distortion can be output from sensing circuitry 1110B to a dynamic gain cell,” Cassidy [0065], see also Cassidy [0048] – [0050]), a look-ahead level to adjust one or more levels for an audio stream in real-time (see at least, “The preprocessing function can manage look-ahead buffers used for the protected gain applied to the signal in the next stage of the process,” Cassidy [0079], “Parameters of the notch filters such as notch frequencies can be configured offline with the dynamic control of the depths of the notches performed in real time. With respect to signal processing, by real time is meant completing some signal/data processing within a time that is sufficient to keep up with an external process, such as generating an acoustic output from serial processing of an input audio signal,” Cassidy [0039]); and providing level adjustments without user parametrization while improving sound quality for the audio stream (see at least, “Parameters of the notch filters such as notch frequencies can be configured offline with the dynamic control of the depths of the notches performed in real time,” Cassidy [0039], “Dynamic multi-feature distortion sensing and adaptive, multi-band distortion reduction can have application in the improvement of sound quality produced by a loudspeaker. Distortion-triggering spectral components of the signal for the audio output can be reduced or removed such that the number of components removed can be kept to a minimum,” Cassidy [0034], “Dynamic gain cell 315 can be coupled to receive the statistics from sensing circuitry 310 and coupled to multi-notch filter 305 to operatively modify depth of multinotch filter 305. Speaker 330 can be arranged to receive the filtered signal to generate the acoustic output. Dynamic gain cell 315 can be arranged to provide a gain to adjust the depth of the multi-notch filter based on a subsequent statistic based on the bandpass-energy-based statistic above and the total energy, where the bandpass-energy-based statistic and measured
total energy are provided by sensing circuitry 310,” Cassidy [0051]).
Claim 2: Cassidy discloses the method of claim 1, wherein adjusting the one or more levels for the audio stream controls a dynamic range of the audio stream, and produces zero-latency (see at least, “Parameters of the notch filters such as notch frequencies can be configured offline with the dynamic control of the depths of the notches performed in real time. With respect to signal processing, by real time is meant completing some signal/data processing within a time that is sufficient to keep up with an external process, such as generating an acoustic output from serial processing of an input audio signal,” Cassidy [0039]).
Claim 3: Cassidy discloses the method of claim 1, wherein at least one level of the one or more levels for the audio stream is determined based on mean energy per frame (see at least, “Because energy within a single band does not activate the distortion, the estimated amount of distortion activating energy can be calculated as an aggregate statistic such as the arithmetic or geometric mean of the energy across all bands,” Cassidy [0061], “Statistic 1126 can include one or more statistics from a group of statistics including a median, a mean, an arithmetic mean, a geometric mean, a maximum of the energy, a minimum of the energy, and energy of a nth largest energy among all band-pass energies computed with n being a selected positive integer,” Cassidy [0063], “sets of audio features computed from successive frames or blocks,” Cassidy [0050]).
Claim 4: Cassidy discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the audio stream is limited based on its energy on a per sample basis (see at least, “In order to compensate for the
increased harmonic energy,” Cassidy [0074], “Harmonics generation 1452 of the main process monitors the signal and computes how much headroom is available. This can be performed by finding the maximum values of both Land R channels on a block-per-block basis. These maxima are stored in a statistics history buffer of a selected length, and they can be averaged to give an average maximum per channel over a history of buffers of the selected length,” Cassidy [0077], “Lowpass filter 1453 serves to limit the highest frequency of harmonic content injected, and the generated harmonics can optionally be processed by additional filter, gain filter 1454, with low-pass gain characteristics. This can be performed in order to shape the generated harmonics, and give more emphasis to the lower harmonics,” Cassidy [0078]).
Claim 5: Cassidy discloses the method of claim 2, wherein the dynamic range of the audio stream is controlled independently in parallel frequency bands (see at least, “The bank of notch or band-reject filters can be arranged in cascade or in parallel,” Cassidy [0033], “Multi-notch filters such as multi-notch filter 305 of FIG. 4 and multi-notch filter 405 of FIG. 4 can be implemented as a series of independent IIR notch filter bands. Each notch band can be implemented using a linear combination of the signal and an all-pass filter set to the cutoff frequency and Q of the band. Using this method, the filter coefficients can be determined statically at initialization using the cutoff frequency and bandwidth parameters, and the time-varying depth of the notch can be adjusted efficiently such that the notch depth may move up and down in real-time as shown by the bidirectional arrow in FIG. 10,” Cassidy [0059]).
Claims 8 – 12 are directed to a non-transitory processor-readable medium that includes a program that when executed by a processor performs the method substantially similar in scope to claims 1 – 5, respectively, and therefore are rejected for the same reasons (see also at least, “According to various embodiments, there is provided a first example non-transitory computer-readable medium that stores computer instructions, that when executed by one or more processors, cause a system to perform the operations of: receiving a signal from an audio signal source at a speaker; receiving the signal at sensing
circuitry; generating statistics on the signal in the sensing circuitry; modifying the signal based on the generated statistics and directing the modified signal to the speaker; and generating, from the speaker, an acoustic output based on the received modified signal,” Cassidy [0144], “Optionally, in accordance with the preceding first example non-transitory computer-readable medium that stores computer instructions, other implementations can provide operations associated with executing any of the
preceding examples in accordance with the first example method and/or first example system,” Cassidy [0145]).
Claims 15 – 19 are directed to an apparatus comprising: a memory storing instructions; and at least one processor executes the instructions including a process configured to perform the method substantially similar in scope to claims 1 – 5, respectively, and therefore are rejected for the same reasons (see also at least, “The present invention relates generally to apparatus and methods of processing of audio signals,” Cassidy [0002], “The process actions of a method, process, or algorithm described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein can be embodied directly in hardware, in a software module executed by a processor, or in any combination of the two. The software module can be contained in computer-readable media that can be accessed by a computing device. The computer-readable media can include both volatile and nonvolatile media, which are either removable, non-removable, or some combination thereof. The computer-readable media is used to store information such as computer-readable or computer-executable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data. By way of example, and not limitation, computer readable media may comprise computer storage media and communication media,” Cassidy [0243]).
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) 6 – 7, 13 – 14, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cassidy in view of Yoshino et al. (JP 2014175838 A), with English citations provided from the corresponding machine translation, hereinafter Yoshino.
Claim 6: Cassidy discloses the method of claim 1, but does not disclose further comprising: determining an optimal frame size for the audio stream based on signal analysis applied to the audio stream. However, Cassidy is concerned with finding the “most optimal” parameters (see at least, Cassidy [0056]). Yoshino discloses in regards to a similar “dynamic range compression unit that adjusts the signal level to a fixed level when the signal level of the audio signal amplified by the audio signal processing unit exceeds the second threshold,” Yoshino [0015] further determines an optimal frame size for the audio stream based on signal analysis applied to the audio stream (see at least, “Moreover, FIG. 5 is a graph which shows the time transition of an input signal and gain. In the figure, the X axis indicates time, the Y axis indicates gain, and the Z axis indicates frequency. As shown in the figure, the audio signal processing unit 12 of the present embodiment fluctuates the gain (thick line in the figure) according to the change of the input signal (dotted line in the figure). That is, control can be performed so as to obtain a large gain only when the signal level of the low frequency band component of the input signal exceeds the threshold. For this reason, amplification can be performed with a large gain only at a moment that is necessary in time (for example, when “x⟩ γ”, such as a moment when a bass drum sound is emitted). That is, it is possible to amplify only a large low frequency band component such as a bass drum while preventing an adverse effect of unnecessarily amplifying an unintended low frequency band component and giving an excessive bass feeling. As a result, it becomes possible to operate so as to select and amplify bass drum sounds temporally,” Yoshino [0035], “Further, in the above embodiment, the threshold “γ” for switching amplification processing and the threshold “β” for adjusting the dynamic range have been described as fixed values, but may be variable values. For example, the music (sound signal) input from the sound source 2 may be analyzed, and these thresholds may be varied based on the analysis result. As an analysis result, for example, an average level of music, genre, tempo (BPM (beats per minute)) or the like can be considered,” Yoshino [0050], “Further, the selection of amplification processing is not limited to every unit time (several tens of msec to several hundreds of msec), and may be performed in beat units of the audio signal input from the sound source 2, in bar units of music, or in music units. In these cases, amplification processing may be selected according to
the average signal level, the maximum signal level, and the minimum signal level in each period,” Yoshino [0052]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the aforementioned features of Yoshino in the invention of Cassidy thereby allowing for the advantage that the “amplification can be performed with a large gain only at a moment that is necessary in time (for example, when “x⟩ γ”,” while “preventing an adverse effect of unnecessarily amplifying an unintended low frequency band component and giving an excessive bass feeling,” Yoshino [0035].
Claim 7: Cassidy and Yoshino disclose the method of claim 6, wherein the signal analysis includes determining a beat rate for the audio stream (see at least, “Further, in the above embodiment, the threshold “γ” for switching amplification processing and the threshold “β” for adjusting the dynamic range have been described as fixed values, but may be variable values. For example, the music (sound signal) input from the sound source 2 may be analyzed, and these thresholds may be varied based on the analysis result. As an analysis result, for example, an average level of music, genre, tempo (BPM (beats per minute)) or the like can be considered. Further, instead of performing the music analysis by the audio device 1, the music analysis result may be acquired from the outside,” Yoshino [0050]).
Claims 13 – 14 are substantially similar in scope to claims 6 – 7, respectively, and therefore are rejected for the same reasons.
Claim 20 is substantially similar in scope to claim 7 respectfully and therefore is rejected for the same reasons.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSEPH SAUNDERS whose telephone number is (571)270-1063. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday, 9:00 a.m. - 4 p.m., EST.
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/JOSEPH SAUNDERS JR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2692
/CAROLYN R EDWARDS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2692