DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to the correspondence filed by the applicant on 6/2/2026.
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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 6/2/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s argument, pages 5-6, filed 5/6/2026, with respect to the rejection of claims 1 and 11 under 103 have been fully considered and are moot upon a further consideration and a new ground(s) of rejection made under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over GHANNAM (US 2019/0047500 A1) in further view of MEISTER (US 2021/0020024 A1). Please see the rejection below for more details.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 5, 7, and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over by GHANNAM (US 2019/0047500 A1) in further view of MEISTER (US 2021/0020024 A1).
REGARDING CLAIM 1, GHANNAM discloses a system for sound-activated remote control of vehicle functions for a vehicle having a remote-control system, the remote-control system has a key fob and at least one vehicle control module, the system for remote control of vehicle functions comprising:
a smart sound sensor module at the vehicle (GHANNAM Par 15 – “Some vehicles include sensors (e.g., pressure sensors, accelerometers) that are located throughout a body of the vehicle to detect whether the vehicle has been involved in a collision. In such vehicles, the sensors detect vibrations of the body of the vehicle to determine whether the vehicle is involved in a collision.”) having a sound-induced vibration sensing element and a processor for detecting surface vibration of the surface to which the sound-vibration sensing element is attached (GHANNAM Par 16 – “The vehicle system includes a vibration sensor (e.g., a piezoelectric accelerometer) that is coupled to the window to monitor vibrations of the window. When the vibration sensor is coupled to the window, the window functions as a diaphragm of a microphone that vibrates when sound waves (e.g., high-pressure sound waves) travel through the window. The vibration detects the sound waves by detecting the vibrations of the window that are caused by the sound waves.”) and processing a set of sound events (GHANNAM Par 16 – “The restrain control module filters the signals, processes the signals, examines the signals in time and frequency domains, and compares the signals to criteria that correspond to sound wave sources.”);
a sound event in a set of sound events, each sound event in the set of sound events is correlated with a code recognized by the at least one vehicle control module (GHANNAM Par 57 – “At block 614, the collision detector 138 of the restraint control module 110 determines whether the front accelerometer 120 detects that a collision event (e.g., a head-on collision, a rear-end collision) has occurred. For example, the collision detector 138 compares the frequencies of the window vibrations detected by the vibration sensor 134 to the frequencies of the vehicle body vibrations detected by the front accelerometer 120 to determine whether the front accelerometer 120 has detected a collision event.”; Par 58 – “At block 618, the collision detector 138 of the restraint control module 110 determines whether one or more of the side accelerometers 122 and/or the side pressure sensors 126 detect that a collision event (e.g., a side collision) has occurred. For example, the collision detector 138 compares the frequencies of the window vibrations detected by the vibration sensor 134 to the frequencies of the vehicle body vibrations detected by one or more of the side accelerometers 122 and/or the side pressure sensors 126 to determine whether one or more of the side accelerometers 122 and/or the side pressure sensors 126 has detected a collision event.”); and
[an RF transmitter] a communication module on the smart sound sensor module (GHANNAM Fig. 5 – “Communication module 106 Vehicle Data Bus 504”; Par 19 – “The communication module 106 of the illustrated example includes wired or wireless network interfaces to enable communication with external networks.”) for transmitting the code from the smart sound sensor module to the remote-control system, wherein the at least one vehicle control module activates a function on the vehicle that is associated with the code (GHANNAM Par 57 – “In response to the collision detector 138 determining that the front accelerometer 120 has detected a collision event, the method 600 proceeds to block 616 at which the restraint control module 110 sends signal(s) to deploy airbag(s) (e.g., the airbag 112, the airbag 116) of the vehicle 100 for a front and/or rear impact.”; Par 58 – “In response to the collision detector 138 determining that one or more of the side accelerometers 122 and/or the side pressure sensors 126 has detected a collision event, the method 600 proceeds to block 620 at which the restraint control module 110 sends signal(s) to deploy airbag(s) (e.g., the airbag 112, the airbag 116) of the vehicle 100 for a side impact.”).
GHANNAM does not explicitly teach the [square-bracketed] limitations. In other words, GHANNAM teaches wireless communication with external networks, but does not explicitly teach wireless communication within the vehicle.
MEISTER discloses a method/system for analyzing sensed data inside a vehicle comprising both wired and wireless communication within the vehicle (MEISTER Par 16 – “The sensors 106, 108, a scene estimator 110, a virtual assistant 112, and an actuator 114 are communicatively coupled to one another via a plurality of communication buses 116, which may be wireless or wired.”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method/system of GHANNAM to include a wireless communication within a vehicle, as taught by MEISTER.
One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to include a wireless communication within a vehicle, in order to provide more flexible communication among the components.
REGARDING CLAIM 5, GHANNAM in view of MEISTER discloses the system of claim 1, wherein at least one sound event is initiated by an event external to the vehicle, not initiated by a user, and is selected from the group consisting of: breaking glass, knocking, and impact noise (GHANNAM Par 24 – “The restraint control module 110 determines which, if any, of the airbags (e.g., the airbag 112, the airbag 116) to deploy upon identifying a collision type, an angle of impact, a severity of impact, and/or any other characteristic of the collision event.”; Par 16 – “The vehicle system includes a vibration sensor (e.g., a piezoelectric accelerometer) that is coupled to the window to monitor vibrations of the window. When the vibration sensor is coupled to the window, the window functions as a diaphragm of a microphone that vibrates when sound waves (e.g., high-pressure sound waves) travel through the window. The vibration detects the sound waves by detecting the vibrations of the window that are caused by the sound waves.”).
REGARDING CLAIM 7, GHANNAM in view of MEISTER discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the smart sound sensor module is installed on an outer surface of the vehicle (GHANNAM Par 30 – “For example, the vibration sensor 134 is rigidly mounted to an interior surface of the windshield 132. In other examples, the vibration sensor 134 is rigidly mounted to an exterior surface of the windshield 132 and/or is embedded within the windshield 132.”).
REGARDING CLAIM 11, GHANNAM discloses a method for sound-activated remote control of vehicle functions for a vehicle having a remote-control system, the remote-control system has a key fob and at least one vehicle control module, the method for sound-activated remote control of vehicle functions comprises the steps of:
detecting, at a sound sensor on a smart sound sensor module mounted at the vehicle (GHANNAM Par 15 – “Some vehicles include sensors (e.g., pressure sensors, accelerometers) that are located throughout a body of the vehicle to detect whether the vehicle has been involved in a collision. In such vehicles, the sensors detect vibrations of the body of the vehicle to determine whether the vehicle is involved in a collision.”), sound-induced vibrations of a surface that the smart sound sensor module is attached caused by a sound event (GHANNAM Par 16 – “The vehicle system includes a vibration sensor (e.g., a piezoelectric accelerometer) that is coupled to the window to monitor vibrations of the window. When the vibration sensor is coupled to the window, the window functions as a diaphragm of a microphone that vibrates when sound waves (e.g., high-pressure sound waves) travel through the window. The vibration detects the sound waves by detecting the vibrations of the window that are caused by the sound waves. … The restrain control module filters the signals, processes the signals, examines the signals in time and frequency domains, and compares the signals to criteria that correspond to sound wave sources.”);
correlating, at a processor on the smart sound sensor module (GHANNAM Par 55 – “For example, the collision detector 138 detects that a non-collision event has occurred upon comparing the frequencies of the window vibrations and/or the vehicle body vibrations to a threshold frequency for the predetermined period of time.”), the sound event with a code recognized by the at least one vehicle control module (GHANNAM Par 57 – “At block 614, the collision detector 138 of the restraint control module 110 determines whether the front accelerometer 120 detects that a collision event (e.g., a head-on collision, a rear-end collision) has occurred. For example, the collision detector 138 compares the frequencies of the window vibrations detected by the vibration sensor 134 to the frequencies of the vehicle body vibrations detected by the front accelerometer 120 to determine whether the front accelerometer 120 has detected a collision event.”; Par 58 – “At block 618, the collision detector 138 of the restraint control module 110 determines whether one or more of the side accelerometers 122 and/or the side pressure sensors 126 detect that a collision event (e.g., a side collision) has occurred. For example, the collision detector 138 compares the frequencies of the window vibrations detected by the vibration sensor 134 to the frequencies of the vehicle body vibrations detected by one or more of the side accelerometers 122 and/or the side pressure sensors 126 to determine whether one or more of the side accelerometers 122 and/or the side pressure sensors 126 has detected a collision event.”); and
transmitting, from [an RF transmitter] a communication module on the smart sound sensor module (GHANNAM Fig. 5 – “Communication module 106 Vehicle Data Bus 504”; Par 19 – “The communication module 106 of the illustrated example includes wired or wireless network interfaces to enable communication with external networks.”), the code to the remote-control system, wherein the at least one vehicle control module activates a function on the vehicle that is associated with the code (GHANNAM Par 57 – “In response to the collision detector 138 determining that the front accelerometer 120 has detected a collision event, the method 600 proceeds to block 616 at which the restraint control module 110 sends signal(s) to deploy airbag(s) (e.g., the airbag 112, the airbag 116) of the vehicle 100 for a front and/or rear impact.”; Par 58 – “In response to the collision detector 138 determining that one or more of the side accelerometers 122 and/or the side pressure sensors 126 has detected a collision event, the method 600 proceeds to block 620 at which the restraint control module 110 sends signal(s) to deploy airbag(s) (e.g., the airbag 112, the airbag 116) of the vehicle 100 for a side impact.”).
GHANNAM does not explicitly teach the [square-bracketed] limitations. In other words, GHANNAM teaches wireless communication with external networks, but does not explicitly teach wireless communication within the vehicle.
MEISTER discloses a method/system for analyzing sensed data inside a vehicle comprising both wired and wireless communication within the vehicle (MEISTER Par 16 – “The sensors 106, 108, a scene estimator 110, a virtual assistant 112, and an actuator 114 are communicatively coupled to one another via a plurality of communication buses 116, which may be wireless or wired.”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method/system of GHANNAM to include a wireless communication within a vehicle, as taught by MEISTER.
One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to include a wireless communication within a vehicle, in order to provide more flexible communication among the components.
Claims 9, 15, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over GHANNAM in view of MEISTER, and in further view of FREUND (US 2023/0182686 A1).
REGARDING CLAIM 9, GHANNAM in view of MEISTER discloses the system of claim 1.
GHANNAM in view of MEISTER does not explicitly teach key fob comprising a microphone.
FREUND discloses a method/system for controlling a vehicle function based on sensed signals, wherein the key fob further comprises a microphone (FREUND Par 8 – “In another embodiment, the present invention may provide a speech recognition system housed within a vehicle key fob. The speech recognition system may include one or more microphones and a speech recognition library.”) and the smart sound sensor module further comprises a processor capable of performing voice recognition (FREUND Par 42 – “Next, in step 1110, a signal from the microphone is passed to the ASR system, which may be embedded in the fob, in the vehicle, or disposed in the cloud. For example, the microphone may convert the audible speed into an electronic signal. The electronic signal may be transmitted to an ASR system in the fob.”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method/system of GHANNAM in view of MEISTER to include a key fob comprising a microphone, as taught by FREUND.
One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to include a key fob comprising a microphone, in order to provide allow a user to verbally communicate with a vehicle so that controlling a vehicular function becomes more convenient.
REGARDING CLAIM 15, GHANNAM in view of MEISTER discloses the method as claimed in claim 11.
GHANNAM in view of MEISTER does not explicitly teach confirming the sound event originated from an authorized user.
FREUND discloses a method/system for controlling a vehicle function based on sensed signals, wherein the step of transmitting the code further comprises the step of confirming the sound event originated from an authorized user (FREUND Par 43 – “In a next step 1112, the system uses voice biometrics to confirm that the spoken command is from an authorized user. For example, a biometric system in the fob, in the vehicle, or at a remote location may determine and/or confirm that the voice spoken into the fob is the voice of a user who has permission to issue commands.”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method/system of GHANNAM in view of MEISTER to include confirming the sound originated from an authorized user, as taught by FREUND.
One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to include confirming the sound originated from an authorized user, in order to prevent executing an undesired function and to protect a vehicle from theft.
REGARDING CLAIM 17, GHANNAM in view of MEISTER and FREUND discloses the method as claimed in claim 15, wherein the step of confirming the sound event originated from the authorized user (FREUND Par 43 – “In a next step 1112, the system uses voice biometrics to confirm that the spoken command is from an authorized user. For example, a biometric system in the fob, in the vehicle, or at a remote location may determine and/or confirm that the voice spoken into the fob is the voice of a user who has permission to issue commands.”) further comprises detecting the key fob to be within a predetermined proximity of the vehicle (FREUND Fig. 11; Par 38 – “FIG. 11 is a flow chart of one embodiment of a method 1100 of the present invention for opening and/or closing a lift gate of a motor vehicle. In a first step 1102, a vehicle detects a fob in close proximity. For example, a user may press a pushbutton on his fob, which causes a wireless signal to be transmitted to the vehicle. By virtue of receiving the wireless signal, the vehicle may detect that a fob is nearby.”).
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over GHANNAM in view of MEISTER, and in further view of VISSER (US 20230036986 A1).
REGARDING CLAIM 10, GHANNAM in view of MEISTER discloses the system of claim 1.
GHANNAM in view of MEISTER does not explicitly teach updating the set of sound events.
VISSER discloses a method/system for sound event detection, wherein the set of sound events is updatable (VISSER Par 98 – “For example the audio event processing unit 134 may prioritize searching of sound event models that are more likely to occur in the particular environment, which may result in increased accuracy, reduced latency, or both. As another example, the audio event processing unit 134 may adjust weighting factors for one or more sound event models, based on the environment, to increase or reduce the likelihood that the sound 182 is determined to match those sound event models. In some implementations, the environmental information 146 can be sent to the device 120 and used to improve performance of the audio event processing unit 154 in a similar manner.”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method/system of GHANNAM in view of MEISTER to include updating sound events, as taught by VISSER.
One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to include updating sound events, in order to improve performance of the audio event processing by adapting the detection model to a particular environment so that the detection error rate would be reduced.
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over GHANNAM in view of MEISTER, and in further view of SHARIFI (US 2022/0139371 A1).
REGARDING CLAIM 14, GHANNAM in view of MEISTER discloses the method as claimed in claim 13, wherein detecting sound induced vibration further comprises detecting, [a key word, breaking glass, knocking], and impact noise (GHANNAM Par 24 – “The restraint control module 110 determines which, if any, of the airbags (e.g., the airbag 112, the airbag 116) to deploy upon identifying a collision type, an angle of impact, a severity of impact, and/or any other characteristic of the collision event.”; Par 16 – “The vehicle system includes a vibration sensor (e.g., a piezoelectric accelerometer) that is coupled to the window to monitor vibrations of the window. When the vibration sensor is coupled to the window, the window functions as a diaphragm of a microphone that vibrates when sound waves (e.g., high-pressure sound waves) travel through the window. The vibration detects the sound waves by detecting the vibrations of the window that are caused by the sound waves.”).
GHANNAM in view of MEISTER does not explicitly teach the [square-bracketed] limitations.
SHARIFI discloses the [square-bracketed] limitations. SHARIFI discloses a method/system for monitoring sound events, wherein detecting sound induced vibration further comprises detecting, a key word (SHARIFI Par 40 – “For example, the event processing engine 150 can process the audio data to determine whether the audio data captures a spoken utterance of a user that includes “Assistant”, “Hey assistant”, “Okay, assistant”, and/or any other word or phrase that invokes the automated assistant.”; Par 70 – “For example, the coreference resolver may be utilized to resolve the term “it” to “front door lock” in the natural language input “lock it”, based on “front door lock” being mentioned in a client device notification rendered immediately prior to receiving the natural language input “lock it”.”), [breaking glass, knocking, and impact noise] (SHARIFI Par 24 – “The acoustic event detected by the acoustic event model(s) can include, for example, detecting a hotword that invokes an automated assistant included in a spoken utterance using hotword detection model(s), detecting ambient noise in the ecosystem (and optionally while speech reception is active at a given one of the assistant devices) in the ecosystem using ambient noise detection model(s), detecting a particular sound (e.g., glass breaking, a dog barking, a cat meowing, a doorbell ringing, a smoke alarm sounding, a carbon monoxide detector sounding, a baby crying, knocking on a door, and/or other acoustic events) in the ecosystem using sound detection model(s), and/or other acoustic-related events that can be detected using respective acoustic event detection model(s).”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method/system of GHANNAM in view of MEISTER to include detecting sound events not initiated by a user, as taught by SHARIFI.
One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to include detecting sound events not initiated by a user, in order to prevent an emergency situation and notify a user regarding the potential emergency situation.
Claims 12 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over GHANNAM in view of MEISTER, and in further view of FREUND (US 2023/0182686 A1) and YAMAMOTO (US 20020038215 A1).
REGARDING CLAIM 12, GHANNAM in view of MEISTER discloses the method as claimed in claim 11.
GHANNAM in view of MEISTER does not explicitly teach a key fob having a microphone.
FREUND discloses a method/system for controlling a vehicle function based on sensed signals, wherein the key fob has a microphone (FREUND Par 8 – “In another embodiment, the present invention may provide a speech recognition system housed within a vehicle key fob. The speech recognition system may include one or more microphones and a speech recognition library.”) and the step of detecting the sound event further comprises the steps of detecting a voice command (FREUND Par 41 – “In step 1108, a microphone in the fob hears the command. For example, there may be a microphone on the fob that detects the audible speech from the user.”), [removing noise], and performing voice recognition (FREUND Par 44 – “In step 1114, the ASR system interprets the spoken command into a vehicle action. For example, the ASR system may interpret the spoken command as a command to open the rear gate.”).It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method/system of GHANNAM in view of MEISTER to include a key fob comprising a microphone, as taught by FREUND.
One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to include a key fob comprising a microphone, in order to provide allow a user to verbally communicate with a vehicle so that controlling a vehicular function becomes more convenient.
GHANNAM in view of MEISTER and FREUND does fails to teach the [square-bracketed] limitation.
YAMAMOTO discloses the [square-bracketed] limitation. YAMAMOTO discloses a method/system for speech recognition comprises the steps of detecting a voice command, [removing noise], and performing voice recognition (YAMAMOTO Fig. 3 – “Noise reducing process …. Speech Recognition”; Par 44 – “That is, the input speech signal is converted from an analog value to a digital value. A noise reducing process and then a sound analysis are applied to the converted speech signal. In the noise reducing process, a known method can be employed. In the sound analysis, the features of the speech are extracted. Thereafter, the speech recognition is performed by comparing these extracted features and a standard pattern. The recognition result is displayed on the monitor 6.”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method/system of GHANNAM in view of MEISTER and FREUND to include a noise removing process, as taught by YAMAMOTO.
One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to include a noise removing process, in order to improve speech recognition performance by providing clean signals.
REGARDING CLAIM 16, GHANNAM in view of MESITER, FREUND, and YAMAMOTO discloses the method as claimed in claim 12.
FREUND discloses a method/system for controlling a vehicle function based on sensed signals, wherein the step of transmitting the code further comprises the step of confirming the sound event originated from an authorized user (FREUND Par 43 – “In a next step 1112, the system uses voice biometrics to confirm that the spoken command is from an authorized user. For example, a biometric system in the fob, in the vehicle, or at a remote location may determine and/or confirm that the voice spoken into the fob is the voice of a user who has permission to issue commands.”), and wherein the step of confirming the sound event originated from the authorized user further comprises the step of performing voice recognition (FREUND Par 43 – “In a next step 1112, the system uses voice biometrics to confirm that the spoken command is from an authorized user. For example, a biometric system in the fob, in the vehicle, or at a remote location may determine and/or confirm that the voice spoken into the fob is the voice of a user who has permission to issue commands.”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method/system of GHANNAM in view of MEISTER to include confirming the sound originated from an authorized user, as taught by FREUND.
One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to include confirming the sound originated from an authorized user, in order to prevent executing an undesired function and to protect a vehicle from theft.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JONATHAN C KIM whose telephone number is (571)272-3327. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Friday 8:00 AM thru 4:00 PM EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Andrew C Flanders can be reached at 571-272-7516. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JONATHAN C KIM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2655
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