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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 11/20/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Regarding arguments on pages 7-8 of the Remarks, Examiner notes that Applicant has not shown why a human could not mentally perform the steps, merely stating that it cannot be done. However, a human using pen and paper can perform simple calculations. Since the claims do not specify the calculations performed for the losses, they therefore encompass calculations simple enough to be performed mentally.
Regarding arguments on pages 7 and 8-9 of the Remarks, Examiner notes that the concept of audio compression is itself abstract, as it would be considered a mathematical calculation. Further, Examiner notes that none of the limitations additional to those marked as abstract would incorporate the argued improvement. Acquiring data is mere extrasolution activity, while the claimed computer components are generic.
Regarding arguments on pages 9-10 of the Remarks, Examiner notes that the arguments directed to dependent claim 4 are persuasive, and the 101 rejection for claims 4-5 and 14-15 have been withdrawn. However, the other claims still lack the level of detail required to overcome the 101 rejection. Examiner also notes that the argued ordered combination is not reflected in the claims. For example, claim 1 does not teach quantization, decoding, or simultaneous loss calculations. While these limitations are taught in dependent claims, the claims do not teach them being performed in any specific order.
Regarding arguments on pages 10-11 of the Remarks, Examiner notes that the argued inventive concept is not in addition to the abstract ideas, but is contained within the abstract ideas and thus does not qualify as significantly more. Regarding the comparison to McRO, Examiner notes that the cited case includes the limitation of the rules actually being applied to perform animation, which would be a practical application or significantly more. However, the claims of the invention do not perform any practical step after the abstract steps of calculating the losses.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-3, 6-13, and 16-20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more. Using the subject matter eligibility test from page 74621 of the Federal Register Notice titled “2014 Interim Guidance on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility,” a two-step process is performed. Under step 1, the claims are analyzed to determine if the claim is directed to a process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter. In this case, claims 1-10 are directed to a method, which is a process, while claims 11-20 are directed to an apparatus, which is a machine or an article of manufacture. Step 2A (part 1 of the Mayo test), using the guidance from pages 50-57 of the Federal Register Vol. 84 No. 4 from Monday, January 7, 2019, requires applying a two-prong inquiry. In Prong One, examiners evaluate whether the claim recites a judicial exception, determining if the claim is directed to a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea. In this case, claim 1 recites calculating losses and applying a windowing function, which are mental processes or mathematical calculations. In Prong Two, examiners evaluate whether the judicial exception is integrated into a practical application that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception. In this case, acquiring frames and subframes is mere extrasolution activity, and does not integrate the abstract ideas into a practical application.
Step 2B (part 2 of the Mayo test) requires analyzing the claims to determine if they recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. In this case, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
Regarding claims 1 and 11, calculating losses and applying a windowing function are mental processes or mathematical calculations. For example, a human could calculate losses using a loss function and apply a simple windowing function using pen and paper, while the calculations could also be performed as a mathematical operation. Additional limitations of acquiring data is mere extrasolution activity, while elements such as processor and deep neural network are generic computing components, none of which integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or constitute significantly more.
Regarding claims 2 and 12, encoding a signal is a mental process or mathematical calculation, which are abstract ideas without integration into a practical application and without significantly more.
Regarding claims 3 and 13, quantizing a signal and decoding a signal are mental processes or mathematical calculations, which are abstract ideas without integration into a practical application and without significantly more.
Regarding claims 6, 8-10, 16, and 18-20, the limitations are further clarifications of the above abstract ideas.
Regarding claims 7 and 17, calculating a total loss is a mental process or a mathematical calculation, which are abstract ideas without integration into a practical application and without significantly more.
The limitations of the claims, taken alone, do not amount to significantly more than the above-identified judicial exception (the abstract idea). Looking at the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements individually. Applicable case law cited in the Federal Register includes, but is not limited to: Alice Corp., 134 S. Ct. at 2355-56, Digitech Image Tech., LLC v. Electronics for Imaging, Inc., 758 F.3d 1344 (Fed. Cir. 2014), Benson, 409 U.S. at 63.
See "Preliminary Examination Instructions in view of the Supreme Court Decision in Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, et al.," dated June 25, 2014, and the Federal Register notice titled "2014 Interim Guidance on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility" (79 FR 74618).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-20 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 101, set forth in this Office action.
Claims 4-5 and 14-15 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The closest prior art of Zhen (Zhen, K., Sung, J., Lee, M. S., Beack, S., & Kim, M. (2021). Scalable and efficient neural speech coding: A hybrid design. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing, 30, 12-25.) and Feng (US 12,299,896 B1) do not teach the limitations of the claims. Specifically, none of the cited prior art teaches the calculation of both global and local losses, and acquiring a multi-time scale loss based on the two losses, nor do they teach the losses being perceptual losses, in combination with the other limitations. Hence, none of the cited prior art, either alone or in combination thereof, teaches the combination of limitations found in the claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 12,266,375 B2 Abstract teaches encoding audio content by frames.
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 BRYAN S BLANKENAGEL whose telephone number is (571)270-0685. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00am-5:30pm.
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/BRYAN S BLANKENAGEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2658