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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Invention I, claims 1 – 10 in the reply filed on 12/31/2025 is acknowledged. Claims 11 – 17 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected Invention II, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 3 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 3 and 8 each recites the limitation "the selected crossover points". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in each of the claims.
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.
Claims 1 – 4 and 6 – 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230336911 (Orth) in view of US 20150350786 (Capp) (of record).
Regarding claims 1 and 6, Orth teaches “A method, comprising:
receiving an input audio signal (Par. 0057: FIG. 3A models the supply of an audio signal from a source to a subwoofer D1 and a main speaker D2);
determining a baseline frequency (Par. 0057: the natural high pass characteristics of the subwoofer 222 are modelled by a 4th order Butterworth filter 255 (fc = 20 Hz). in other words, the lower cutoff frequency for the subwoofer is determined to be 20 Hz which also represents “a baseline frequency”);
determining crossover points for drivers of a multiway speaker system, wherein each of the crossover points comprises a multiple of the third harmonic of the baseline frequency (since there are two speakers, or drivers, D1 subwoofer and D2 main speaker, representing “a multiway speaker system”, there is a single crossover point between the speakers, which is not forbidden by the claim language. Paragraph 0066: There are eighteen different settings for the crossover frequency which include such frequencies as 60 Hz and 120 Hz, each representing “a multiple of the third harmonic of the baseline frequency” fc = 20 Hz.)…”
“…transmitting the audio signal components to the drivers based on the determined signal delays (paragraph 0064: In system 200, delay is used to compensate for delay error, and delay issues are optionally addressed in the improved AVR (e.g., 215). As may be seen from FIG 3A, and from paragraph 0057, an audio signal from a source is supplied to a subwoofer D1 (one of “the drivers”) and a main speaker D2 (another one of “the drivers”) via various digital signal processing stages.); and
generating a composite audio signal comprising the audio signal components, by the drivers (paragraph 0059: FIG. 3B shows the sound pressure level (“SPL”) graph (upper graph) (“a composite audio signal”) corresponding the set-up illustrated in FIG. 3A.).”
Although Orth teaches in paragraph 0064 that delay is used to compensate for delay error, and delay issues are optionally addressed in the improved AVR (e.g., 215), Orth does not explicitly teach “determining signal delays for audio signal components to transmit to the drivers.”
In this respect, Capp teaches “determining signal delays for audio signal components to transmit to the drivers (FIG 5 and paragraphs 0059 – 0066: applying a sequence of all-pass filters to the low frequency path to equalise the group delay response of the loudspeaker to a frequency sufficiently beyond the crossover frequency of the woofer signal path. The full group delay equalisation is now achieved by delaying the signal in additional signal paths, which correspond to the mid-range and tweeter feeds. Delay is introduced within memory buffers of a DSP system. As shown by the flow diagram of FIG. 5, the buffers implement a pure delay 9 which corresponds to the equalised low-frequency system group delay. Although illustrated as correction between a woofer and mid-range section, an equivalent embodiment would correct between a woofer system and a one-way or multi-way upper frequency reproducer. This method can also be applied to flatten the group delay of a midrange-tweeter system which in turn can be combined with a woofer using the same method.).”
Therefore, since Orth does not disclose how specifically the delay issues are addressed, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Capp method of equalizing delays between different speakers, in the system of Orth simply to fill in where Orth is silent and since, according to the Supreme Court, “[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
Regarding claims 2 and 7, Orth teaches “wherein the baseline frequency is determined based, at least in part, on a cutoff frequency of one of the drivers (Par. 0057: the natural high pass characteristics of the subwoofer 222 are modelled by a 4th order Butterworth filter 255 (fc = 20 Hz). in other words, the lower cutoff frequency for the subwoofer is determined to be 20 Hz which also represents “a baseline frequency”).”
Regarding claims 3 and 8, Orth in combination with Capp teaches “wherein the signal delays are determined based, at least in part, on the selected crossover points to align signal outputs from the drivers (Capp, paragraph 0061: a series of all-pass filters are applied to equalise or the low-frequency path using positive group delays to a target uniform delay level and accomplished in such a way as to provide an appropriate phase at the cross-over frequency. Then an equivalent delay is inserted into the remaining audio paths. Therefore, this delay is also indirectly based on the cross-over frequency).”
Regarding claims 4 and 9, Orth teaches “wherein the determining of the crossover points is performed manually (par. 0008: user accessible controls such as a cutoff frequency dial, which in this case corresponds to the claimed “crossover points” (see par. 0048: high frequency cutoff frequency, sometimes called the crossover frequency). Paragraph 0026: the subwoofer cross-over frequency may be a value which can be user selected. Paragraph 0050: inputs from the user are the crossover frequency. Paragraph 0057: a user has selected a crossover frequency of 80 Hz which is applied by the AVR 215).”
Claims 5 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230336911 (Orth) in view of US 20150350786 (Capp) as applied to claims 1 and 6 above, and further in view of US 20220167087 (Laaksonen) (of record).
Regarding claims 5 and 10, Orth does not teach “wherein the determining of the crossover points is performed automatically.”
Laaksonen teaches “wherein the determining of the crossover points is performed automatically (paragraph 0008: automatically changing a cross-over frequency of the first one of the audio output channels and a second one of the audio output channels.).”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the application to utilize disclosed by Laaksonen automatic changing of a crossover frequency, in the system of Orth. Doing so would have allowed to better optimize performance of the system by routing audio signals below a cross-over frequency to a transducer optimised for lower frequency audio output and routing audio signals above the cross-over frequency to a different transducer optimised for higher frequency audio output (see Laaksonen, paragraph 0003).
Conclusion
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/GENNADIY TSVEY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648