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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
This action is responsive to an amendment filed on 04/30/2026. Claims 1-3, 5-20 and 25 are pending. Claims 4 and 21 have been presently cancelled.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-3, 5-20 and 22-25 have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to any of the references being used in the current rejection.
Regarding claim 1, the applicant argues on page 8 that the rejections are respectfully traversed for the reasons detailed below. The independent claims are amended to incorporate the subject matter of claim 4 which is indicated as including allowable subject matter. This argument is not relevant. It is because, the applicant did not amend the independent claims to incorporate the subject matter of claim 4 which is indicated as including allowable subject matter. For example, the subject matter was “the model being trained based on a plurality of speaker response relationships for at least one of different room- reverb conditions and different microphone variations”. Instead, the applicant claims “the model being trained based on a plurality of speaker response relationships for at least one of different room- reverb conditions or different microphone variations”. In paragraphs 0022, 0039, 0043, 0045, 0052, 0053, 0226, 0288, Khoury teaches the model being trained based on a plurality of speaker response relationships for at least one of different room- reverb conditions (Note; since the claimed "or" is a selective "or" examiner considers only the claimed " different room- reverb conditions”).
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.
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-3, 19, 20 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WANG et al. (Foreign Pub. No. TWI682672 B) in view of Denton (US Pub. No. 2021/0157544) further in view of Khoury et al. (US Pub. No. 2021/0326421).
Regarding claims 1 and 25, with respect to Figures 1-2, WANG teaches a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processor (page 4, paragraph 6), are configured to cause the processor to:
receive a microphone signal from a microphone (page 2, first and second paragraphs under “Background-Art”);
receive a speaker signal from a speaker associated with the microphone (fig.1; page 2, first and second paragraphs under “Background-Art”);
generate a speaker response relationship based on the microphone signal and the
speaker signal (fig.1; page 2, first and second paragraphs under “Background-Art”); and
generate an enhanced audio signal by modifying an echo associated with the
microphone signal using an echo recognition and cancellation system [i.e., model] and the transfer function [i.e., speaker response relationship] (fig.1; page 2, first, second and third paragraphs under “Background-Art”).
However, WANG does not specifically teach the model being configured to differentiate between a first sound pattern and a second sound pattern. Denton teaches the smart glasses [i.e., model] being configured to differentiate between a first sound pattern and a second sound pattern (paragraphs 0021, 0162). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify WANG to incorporate the feature of the model being configured to differentiate between a first sound pattern and a second sound pattern in WANG’s invention as taught by Denton. The motivation for the modification is to do so in order to mitigate potentially harmful sounds and/or warn users accordingly.
Furthermore, WANG in view of Denton does not specifically teach the model being trained based on a plurality of speaker response relationships for at least one of different room- reverb conditions or different microphone variations. Khoury teaches the model being trained based on a plurality of speaker response relationships for at least one of different room- reverb conditions or different microphone variations (fig.4,9; paragraphs 0022, 0039, 0043, 0045, 0052, 0053, 0226, 0288) (Note; in paragraph 43, Khoury teaches, generate a model embedding (e.g., voiceprint) for a particular speaker based upon one or more embeddings extracted from utterances of that speaker. Whereas, in paragraph 22, Khoury teaches identifying, by the computer, a speaker identifier associated with a voiceprint for the inbound speaker in response to determining that a similarity score generated using the voiceprint satisfies a similarity threshold. Whereas, in paragraph 39, Khoury also teaches during a training phase (or re-ttraining phase), a server or other computing device executes a speech recognition engine (e.g., artificial intelligence and/or machine-learning programmatic software) that is trained to recognize and distinguish instances of speech using a plurality of training audio signals. (low SNR, high T60). Whereas, in paragraph 52, Khoury also teaches a speaker model enrolled with 1 utterance collected in clean conditions of relatively low noise (high SNR, low T60) will be more mature than a model enrolled with 1 utterance collected in noisy and relatively reverberant conditions (low SNR, high T60).). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify WANG in view of Denton to incorporate the feature of the model being trained based on a plurality of speaker response relationships for at least one of different room- reverb conditions or different microphone variations in WANG’s invention in view of Denton’s invention as taught by Khoury. The motivation for the modification is to do so in order to provide a better trained model such that it can provide voiceprint of better quality efficiently.
Regarding claim 2, WANG teaches wherein the instructions are further configured to cause the processor to output the enhanced audio signal representing the microphone signal (page 2, first paragraph under “Background-Art”; “By eliminating audio echo and, in some cases, electronic echo, noise is reduced to improve the quality of the audio detected by these microphone” and second paragraph under “Background-Art”).
Regarding claims 3 and 20, WANG teaches wherein the speaker response relationship is a loudspeaker-to-device-microphone transfer function (page 2, third and fourth paragraphs under “Background-Art”).
Claim 19 is rejected for the same reasons as discussed above with respect to claim 1. Furthermore, WANG teaches mobile phone.
However, WANG does not specifically teach a wearable device including a processor. Denton teaches a wearable device including a processor (abstract; paragraphs 0002, 0157, 0158). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify WANG to incorporate a wearable device including a processor in WANG’s invention as taught by Denton. The motivation for the modification is to do so in order to detect a possibly harmful amount of sound impinging on the wearer's ears, notify a user about it conveniently.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WANG et al. (Foreign Pub. No. TW I682672 B) in view of Denton (US Pub. No. 2021/0157544) further in view of Khoury et al. (US Pub. No. 2021/0326421) further in view of CHANG et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2022/0199095).
Regarding claim 10, WANG in view of Khoury does not specifically teach that the model is a machine learning model, and the machine learning model is trained to beamform and suppress echoes associated with speaker signals and suppress external noise. Denton teaches that the model is a machine learning model (paragraph 0144). Whereas CHANG teaches that the machine learning model is trained to beamform and suppress echoes associated with speaker signals and suppress external noise (paragraphs 0021, 0045, 0046). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify WANG in view of Khoury to incorporate the model being a machine learning model, and the machine learning model being trained to beamform and suppress echoes associated with speaker signals and suppress external noise in WANG’s invention in view of Khoury as taught by Denton and CHANG. The motivation for the modification is to do so in order’s invention to efficiently remove noise and background noise.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-9, 11-18 and 22-24 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
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MD S ELAHEE whose telephone number is (571)272-7536. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday thru Friday; 8:30AM to 5:00PM EST.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, FAN TSANG can be reached on 571-272-7547. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/MD S ELAHEE/
MD SHAFIUL ALAM ELAHEE
Primary Examiner,
Art Unit 2694
July 16, 2026
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