DETAILED ACTION
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 Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 4/23/26have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant submits that Thompson is silent on, “playing soundscapes from the soundscape recording based on the 360-degree spatial audio, wherein the soundscapes provide different sounds in different parts of the space such that the user experiences different sounds in different parts of the space.” The examiner respectfully disagrees. See rejection below with respect to Thompson (¶0046) which discloses, “For example, in a forest soundscape, a bird sound object high up in a tree may be defined at one xyz position (e.g., as a point source), a waterfall sound object could be defined at another xyz position or range of positions (e.g., as an area source), and the wind blowing through the trees could be defined as a sound object at another xyz position or range of positions (e.g., another area source).” Different sounds (bird, waterfall, wind) in different parts of the space (xyz positions or range of positions).”
The newly amended limitation directed to mapping is taught by Allinson. See rejection below.
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 2 and 4-7 are objected to because of the following informalities:
In claim 1, it appears that “an space” should be “a space”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(d):
(d) REFERENCE IN DEPENDENT FORMS.—Subject to subsection (e), a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, fourth paragraph:
Subject to the following paragraph [i.e., the fifth paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112], a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
Claims 2, 9 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(d) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, 4th paragraph, as being of improper dependent form for failing to further limit the subject matter of the claim upon which it depends, or for failing to include all the limitations of the claim upon which it depends.
The limitations of claims 2, 9 and 16 are already present in parent claims 1, 8 and 15 following the most recent claim amendments filed 4/23/26. Therefore, they fail to further limit the subject matter of the claims upon which they depend.
Applicant may cancel the claim(s), amend the claim(s) to place the claim(s) in proper dependent form, rewrite the claim(s) in independent form, or present a sufficient showing that the dependent claim(s) complies with the statutory requirements.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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 factual inquiries 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, 2, 4-9, 11-16 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gupta et al. (US 2011/0160882 A1), hereinafter “Gupta,” in view of Thompson (US 2023/0132774 A1), and further in view of Allinson et al. (US 2024/0264795 A1), hereinafter “Allinson.”
As to claim 1, Gupta discloses a system (¶0001) comprising:
one or more processors (Fig. 1.); and
logic encoded in one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media for execution by the one or more processors (¶0098) and when executed operable to cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
receiving an environmental recording of a target environment (¶0038. “the encoded stream with embedded environmental parameters is provided to the environmental parameter based decoder 110.”),
wherein the environmental recording comprises a soundscape recording (¶0034, Fig. 1. “a system 100 for providing an immersive surround environment for enhanced content experience, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. In various embodiments of the present invention, enhanced content experience includes viewing, listening, feeling, touching or any other sensory experience related to the rendered content. The system of the invention uses environmental parameters to extend existing concepts of `surround` sound and vision to provide an immersive experience to users.” A soundscape is a sound or combination of sounds that forms an immersive environment. The sound use to form an immersive environment reads on the claim.);
transmitting the environmental recording to at least one home entertainment system (¶0038, Fig. 1. “The media and environmental parameter splitter 112 splits the media output from the environmental effects. The media output is provided to audio/visual equipment for rendering the stream. In an embodiment of the present invention, environmental effects from the media and environmental parameter splitter 112 is provided to the environmental effect playback system 114.”); and
enabling the at least one home entertainment system to present the environmental recording (¶0038, Fig. 1. “The system 100 controls the environment so that the viewer is fully involved in the audio-visual scene, experiences what is going on and becomes part of content happening.”); and
wherein the presentation of the environmental recording replicates the target environment in an immersive experience (¶0038, Fig. 1. “The system 100 controls the environment so that the viewer is fully involved in the audio-visual scene, experiences what is going on and becomes part of content happening.”).
Gupta does not expressly disclose wherein the soundscape recording comprises augmented reality (AR), wherein the AR comprises AR sounds that are native to the target environment, and
wherein the soundscape recording comprises 360-degree spatial audio; and
playing soundscapes from the soundscape recording based on the 360-degree spatial audio, wherein the soundscapes provide different sounds in different parts of the space such that the user experiences different sounds in different parts of the space.
Thompson discloses wherein the soundscape recording comprises augmented reality (AR), wherein the AR comprises AR sounds that are native to the target environment (Thompson, ¶0046 and ¶0049. “The object-based spatializer can be used in a… artificial reality system (such as, for example, an augmented or virtual reality system.).” “Each of plural (M) artificial sound objects can be defined within the soundscape. For example, in a forest soundscape, a bird sound object high up in a tree may be defined at one xyz position (e.g., as a point source), a waterfall sound object could be defined at another xyz position or range of positions (e.g., as an area source), and the wind blowing through the trees could be defined as a sound object at another xyz position or range of positions (e.g., another area source).”), and
wherein the soundscape recording comprises 360-degree spatial audio (Thompson, ¶0017 and ¶0048. “This enables a sound designer to precisely position sound sources in a soundscape, creating the illusion of realistic 3D sound.” “The resulting collection or library of sound files 109 can be stored (FIG. 1A block 208) and used to create and present one or more sound objects in a virtual 3D soundscape.”); and
playing soundscapes from the soundscape recording based on the 360-degree spatial audio, wherein the soundscapes provide different sounds in different parts of the space such that the user experiences different sounds in different parts of the space (Thompson, ¶0017 and ¶0046. “For example, in a forest soundscape, a bird sound object high up in a tree may be defined at one xyz position (e.g., as a point source), a waterfall sound object could be defined at another xyz position or range of positions (e.g., as an area source), and the wind blowing through the trees could be defined as a sound object at another xyz position or range of positions (e.g., another area source).”).
Gupta and Thompson are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor with respect to immersive audio.
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art for the soundscape to augmented reality, as taught by Thompson. The motivation would have been to simulate sound sources so we perceive them having realistic spatial locations in 3D space (Thompson, ¶0004).
Gupta in view of Thompson does not expressly disclose mapping out an space of a user.
Allinson discloses mapping out an space of a user (Allinson, ¶0017 and ¶0035. “To ensure proper scaling of the interactive audio and the interactive AR/RV imagery in the physical space (e.g., room) of the interactive environment, a mapping system may map coordinates (e.g., position, orientation, dimensions, etc.) of the guests, the interactive AR/VR imagery, and/or the interactive objects. In an embodiment, coordinates obtained by the controller may be mapped to coordinates associated with a physical space of the interactive environment, which may be used by the audio controller.”).
Gupta, Thompson and Allinson are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor with respect to immersive audio.
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use a mapping system, as taught by Allinson. The motivation would have been “To ensure proper scaling of the interactive audio and the interactive AR/RV imagery in the physical space.”
As to claim 2, Gupta in view of Thompson as modified by Allinson discloses wherein the soundscape recording comprises 360-degree spatial audio (Thompson, ¶0017 and ¶0048. “This enables a sound designer to precisely position sound sources in a soundscape, creating the illusion of realistic 3D sound.” “The resulting collection or library of sound files 109 can be stored (FIG. 1A block 208) and used to create and present one or more sound objects in a virtual 3D soundscape.”).
The motivation is the same as claim 1 above.
As to claim 4, Gupta in view of Thompson as modified by Allinson discloses wherein the environmental recording comprises one or more images (Gupta, ¶0013 and ¶0040, Fig. 1. “the media stream includes, but is not limited to, an image stream.”).
As to claim 5, Gupta in view of Thompson as modified by Allinson discloses wherein the environmental recording comprises metadata associated with the target environment (Gupta, ¶0047 and Figs. 1 and 5. Real time environmental parameters, such as temperature, wind velocity, humidity, light intensity, illumination details, encoded with the real time media.).
As to claim 6, Gupta in view of Thompson as modified by Allinson discloses extracting metadata from the environmental recording (Gupta, ¶0034, ¶0040 and ¶0066, Figs. 1 and 2. “The media decoder 202 decodes the encoded media stream to extract raw media data.” The content analyzer 204 extracts environmental parameters such as temperature, ambient light, humidity, wind velocity, thunders (such as ice, snow, fore, thunder, wind etc.) etc. from the raw media stream.”);
parsing the metadata into sound components and visual components (Gupta, ¶0034, ¶0040 and ¶0066, Figs. 1 and 2. “the environmental parameters are embedded at different granular levels of the color layout, structure, shape, region, texture, location, face, motion etc. of image/video stream and/or pitch, harmony, tempo, rhythm, loudness, lyrics analyzer for audio/speech stream and all of the above for audio video stream.”); and
transmitting the sound components and visual components to a plurality of media devices, wherein the plurality of media devices presents the sound components and visual components to replicate the target environment (Gupta, ¶0038 and ¶0070, Fig. 1. “The media and environmental parameter splitter 112 splits the media output from the environmental effects. The media output is provided to audio/visual equipment for rendering the stream. In an embodiment of the present invention, environmental effects from the media and environmental parameter splitter 112 is provided to the environmental effect playback system 114. Output from the environmental effects playback system 114 is presented to one or more output devices that control environmental conditions.”).
As to claim 7, Gupta in view of Thompson as modified by Allinson discloses causing lighting associated with the at least one home entertainment system to be displayed based on the soundscape recording (Gupta, ¶0034 and ¶0038. “The content analyzer 104 extracts environmental parameters such as… ambient light.” “The centralized system may activate lighting system to simulate white light that may signify moonlight.”).
Claims 8 and 15 are directed to substantially the same subject matter as claim 1 and are therefore rejected using the same motivation as claim 1 above.
Claims 9, 11-14, 16 and 18-20 are rejected under claims 8 and 15 using the same motivation as claims 2 and 4-7 above.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAMES K MOONEY whose telephone number is (571)272-2412. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM -5:00 PM EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Vivian Chin can be reached at 5712727848. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JAMES K MOONEY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2695
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