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 .
Response to Amendment
In response to the non-final office action dated 02/11/2026, applicant has amended claims 1, 3, 4, 9, 10, 12, 16, and 17. Claim 18 has been added. Claims 1-18 are currently pending in the application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 6, 8-11, 13, and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Peters, G. et al (“Online Music Search by Tapping”, Ambient Intelligence in Everyday Life, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3864, 2006, hereinafter Peters) and further in view of Cheluvaraja et al (US Pub No. 2015/0254338, hereinafter Cheluvaraja).
Regarding claim 1, Peters teaches a method for controlling an audio device (Abstract, query by tapping for content-based music retrieval), the method comprising: receiving an input representing at least one acoustic or haptic pattern (Section 4 lines 6-7, “user taps the rhythm of a song’s melody”); determining an audio file containing the pattern (Section 4 first paragraph, input is sent to application server for analysis and database search), wherein determining the audio file further comprises classifying the audio file from a plurality of found audio files (Fig 2 & ¶ [0044], audio signal classifier 216 determines one or more classification groups from a plurality of classification groups associated with various types of audio signals) using data from sensors attached to or comprised in a client system (Section 4.1 lines 1-2, tap a rhythm using space bar on a keyboard, standard keyboards use mechanical switches which detect a physical change when pressed); and controlling the audio device to indicate, play back, or store the audio file (Section 4 lines 9-10, “the search results are displayed in the browser”).
Peters does not explicitly teach the use of classification.
Cheluvaraja teaches audio file classification in a query system (¶ [0012], audio fingerprint detection used for recognizing and classifying audio files into different types. Extracted fingerprints are archived in a database which is compared against an incoming unknown audio stream then compared and classified depending on the extent of the match).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the classification taught by Cheluvaraja with the method taught by Peters. Doing so allows for efficient search by narrowing search criteria, scalable content management through tagging and organization, and an enhanced user experience through accurate and fast search processing.
Regarding claim 2, Peters in view of Cheluvaraja teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the pattern comprises a rhythm (See Peters section 4 lines 6-7, “user taps the rhythm of a song’s melody”).
Regarding claim 6, Peters in view of Cheluvaraja teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a second input representing a melody (Section 4 lines 6-7, “user taps the rhythm of a song’s melody”).
Regarding claim 8, Peters in view of Cheluvaraja teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising storing the input in a storage device (Section 4.2 line 9, MIDI file generated based on user tapping).
Regarding claim 9, Peters in view of Cheluvaraja teaches the method of claim 1, wherein determining an audio file comprises searching an audio file associated with the pattern and/or a melody in a database (Section 4 lines 9-10, input is sent to application server for analysis).
Regarding claim 10, Peters in view of Cheluvaraja teaches the method of claim 9, wherein classifying the found audio files associated with the pattern is based on an association of the audio files with the pattern, melody, metadata related to the audio files, and/or usage statistics (Section 4.2 lines 10-15, Midi library used to parse and analyze MIDI files. Strings are generated representing the rhythm which are then compared to the library for string matching).
Regarding claim 11, Peters in view of Cheluvaraja teaches the method of claim 1, wherein determining an audio file comprises composing an audio file associated with the pattern (Section 4.2 line 9, MIDI file generated based on user tapping).
Regarding claim 13, Peters in view of Cheluvaraja teaches the method of claim 6, wherein the audio file is further associated with the melody (Section 4 lines 6-7, “user taps the rhythm of a song’s melody”).
Regarding claim 15, Peters in view of Cheluvaraja teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising storing the audio file in a memory, wherein the memory is comprised in the audio device and/or a network-accessible server (Section 4.2 line 9, MIDI file generated based on user tapping).
Claim(s) 3-5, 7, 12, and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Peters, G. et al (“Online Music Search by Tapping”, Ambient Intelligence in Everyday Life, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3864, 2006, hereinafter Peters) and Cheluvaraja et al (US Pub No. 2015/0254338, hereinafter Cheluvaraja) as applied to claims above, and further in view of Barvesten et al (US Pub No. 2019/0337389, hereinafter Barvesten).
Regarding claim 3, Peters in view of Cheluvaraja teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the step of receiving an input is performed by at least one sensor, preferably comprising one or more of an audio sensor, an accelerometer, a force gauge, and/or a touch sensor (See Peters section 4.1 lines 1-2, space bar of keyboard (touch sensor)).
Peters in view of Cheluvaraja does not explicitly teach a sensor located in a vehicle.
Barvesten teaches a mobile device having input sensors located in a vehicle (See Barvesten Fig 1, system 100 including a vehicle media playback system 114 and mobile computing device 118).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the vehicle system taught by Barvesten with the method taught by Peters in view of Cheluvaraja. Peters (section 4.1) states that their web application is accessible to a user via a website. Barvesten (¶ [0002-0004]) highlights the convenience and flexibility of combining a mobile device with a vehicles built in media system allowing for personalization and ease of use for the user.
Regarding claim 4, Peters in view of Cheluvaraja and Barvesten teaches the method of claim 3.
Peters in view of Cheluvaraja does not explicitly teach wherein the sensor is arranged in a vehicle.
Barvesten teaches a mobile device having input sensors located in a vehicle (See Barvesten Fig 1, system 100 including a vehicle media playback system 114 and mobile computing device 118).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the vehicle system taught by Barvesten with the method taught by Peters in view of Cheluvaraja and Barvesten. Peters (section 4.1) states that their web application is accessible to a user via a website. Barvesten (¶ [0002-0004]) highlights the convenience and flexibility of combining a mobile device with a vehicles built in media system allowing for personalization and ease of use for the user.
Regarding claim 5, Peters in view of Cheluvaraja and Barvesten teaches the method of claim 3.
Peters in view of Cheluvaraja does not explicitly teach wherein the sensor is attached to or comprised in reachable distance to a seated driver and/or passenger of the vehicle, preferably one or more of a steering wheel, a dashboard, an armrest, a seat, a seat belt, or a door of the vehicle.
Barvesten teaches a mobile device comprising a sensor in reachable distance to a seated driver (See Barvesten Fig 1, system 100 including a vehicle media playback system 114 and mobile computing device 118).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the vehicle system taught by Barvesten with the method taught by Peters in view of Cheluvaraja and Barvesten. Peters (section 4.1) states that their web application is accessible to a user via a website. Barvesten (¶ [0002-0004]) highlights the convenience and flexibility of combining a mobile device with a vehicles built in media system allowing for personalization and ease of use for the user.
Regarding claim 7, Peters in view of Cheluvaraja teaches the method of claim 1.
Peters in view of Cheluvaraja does not explicitly teach applying a noise or disturbance filter to the input.
Barvesten teaches an input ambient noise filter (See Barvesten ¶ [0084], ambient noise filter).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the filter taught by Barvesten with the method taught by Peters in view of Cheluvaraja. Input noise/disturbance filters are well known in the art and provide several benefits including the preservation of input integrity and input quality providing an enhanced user experience.
Regarding claim 12, Peters in view of Cheluvaraja teaches the method of claim 10 , wherein classifying the found audio file and/or composing an audio file is further based on a program selected by a user, and/or one or more sensor inputs generated by sensors (Section 4.3 lines 12-14, user feedback indicating whether the song is guessed correctly).
Peters in view of Cheluvaraja does not explicitly teach wherein the sensor is arranged in a vehicle.
Barvesten teaches a mobile device having input sensors located in a vehicle (See Barvesten Fig 1, system 100 including a vehicle media playback system 114 and mobile computing device 118).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the mobile device taught by Barvesten with the method taught by Peters in view of Cheluvaraja. Peters (section 4.1) states that their web application is accessible to a user via a website. Barvesten (¶ [0002-0004]) highlights the convenience and flexibility of combining a mobile device with a vehicles built in media system allowing for personalization and ease of use for the user.
Regarding claim 14, Peters in view of Cheluvaraja and Barvesten teaches the method of claim 3, wherein the step of determining an audio file is executed by a network-accessible server (Section 4.2 lines 10-15, server analysis).
Claim(s) 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Peters, G. et al (“Online Music Search by Tapping”, Ambient Intelligence in Everyday Life, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3864, 2006, hereinafter Peters) and Cheluvaraja et al (US Pub No. 2015/0254338, hereinafter Cheluvaraja) as applied to claims above, and further in view of Park et al (US Pub No. 2011/0078568, hereinafter Park).
Regarding claim 16, Peters in view of Cheluvaraja teaches the method of claim 1.
Peters in view of Cheluvaraja does not explicitly teach receiving a control input comprising a second pattern, searching an instruction stored in a control database, wherein the instruction is associated with the second pattern, and executing the instruction in response to finding the instruction.
Park teaches setting control inputs based on gestures (See Park Fig 7, touch gesture setting).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the gesture control settings by Park with the method taught by Peters in view of Cheluvaraja. As stated in Park (Abstract) touch gesture control allows for accelerated input which provides users faster more streamlined accessibility.
Claim(s) 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Peters, G. et al (“Online Music Search by Tapping”, Ambient Intelligence in Everyday Life, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3864, 2006, hereinafter Peters) and further in view of Barvesten et al (US Pub No. 2019/0337389, hereinafter Barvesten).
Regarding claim 17, Peters teaches a system for controlling an audio device, the system comprising a processor (Section 4.1, processor required to perform these functions) configured to receive an input representing at least one acoustic or haptic pattern (Section 4 lines 6-7, “user taps the rhythm of a song’s melody”) via at least one sensor configured to receive an acoustic or haptic pattern comprising one or more of an audio sensor, an accelerometer, a force gauge, and/or a touch sensor (Section 4.1 lines 1-2, tap a rhythm using space bar on a keyboard, standard keyboards use mechanical switches which detect a physical change when pressed (touch sensor)), determine an audio file containing the pattern (Section 4 first paragraph, input is sent to application server for analysis and database search), and control the audio device to indicate, play back, or store the audio file (Section 4 lines 9-10, “the search results are displayed in the browser”).
Peters does not explicitly teach a sensor located in a vehicle.
Barvesten teaches a mobile device having input sensors located in a vehicle (See Barvesten Fig 1, system 100 including a vehicle media playback system 114 and mobile computing device 118).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the vehicle system taught by Barvesten with the method taught by Peters. Peters (section 4.1) states that their web application is accessible to a user via a website. Barvesten (¶ [0002-0004]) highlights the convenience and flexibility of combining a mobile device with a vehicles built in media system allowing for personalization and ease of use for the user.
Claim(s) 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Peters, G. et al (“Online Music Search by Tapping”, Ambient Intelligence in Everyday Life, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3864, 2006, hereinafter Peters) and further in view of Park et al (US Pub No. 2011/0078568, hereinafter Park).
Regarding claim 18, Peters teaches a method for controlling an audio device (Abstract, query by tapping for content-based music retrieval), the method comprising: receiving an input representing at least one acoustic or haptic pattern (Section 4 lines 6-7, “user taps the rhythm of a song’s melody”); determining an audio file containing the pattern (Section 4 first paragraph, input is sent to application server for analysis and database search); controlling the audio device to indicate, play back, or store the audio file (Section 4 lines 9-10, “the search results are displayed in the browser”).
Peters does not explicitly teach receiving a control input comprising a second pattern, searching an instruction stored in a control database, wherein the instruction is associated with the second pattern, and executing the instruction in response to finding the instruction.
Park teaches setting control inputs based on gestures (See Park Fig 7, touch gesture setting).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have incorporated the gesture control settings by Park with the method taught by Peters. As stated in Park (Abstract) touch gesture control allows for accelerated input which provides users faster more streamlined accessibility.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see page 1 “Rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112”, filed 05/08/2026, with respect to claims 3-5 and 14 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 112 rejection of 02/11/2026 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-6 and 8-17 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Applicant's arguments filed 05/08/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Regarding claim 7, (applicant arguments/remarks page 4) applicant argues that noise/disturbance filters would not apply to the touch sensor taught by Peters. To this the examiner disagrees. While Peters primarily discusses inputs from a keyboard, they also state in section 4.1 that the application is web-based meaning it is accessible via mobile devices which use touchscreen keyboards rather than mechanical. Touchscreen keyboards are known to be susceptible to electrostatic interference which can cause false touches or baseline shifts which would in fact benefit from noise/disturbance filters.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Kemp (US Pub No. 2007/0131094) teaches music information retrieval using a 3D search algorithm.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
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/T.M.L./Examiner, Art Unit 2694
/FAN S TSANG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2694
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