DETAILED ACTION
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 1-4, 6-7 and 10 are allowed.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claim 8-9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Beavis US PG-Pub 2023/0259323 in combination with Anderson US PG-Pub 2024/0114286 in view of Vitali US PG-Pub 2015/0280648.
Regarding claim 8, Beavis teaches a sound collection apparatus that transmits an audio signal to an imaging apparatus, the sound collection apparatus comprising: a sound input interface that acquires input sound; and a transmitter that transmits a first audio signal and a second audio signal to the imaging apparatus (Fig. 9B & [0048] & [0055]: the microphone-101a is the sound input interface that will then transmit audio signal to the receiver-301 that is hot mounted to camera-801 giving wireless capability and to the camera-801 & Fig. 1: having multiple microphones-101a-101d that can send over microphone signal wirelessly to receiver-103).
Beavis failed to teach a first signal processor that performs first amplification conversion on the input sound acquired by the sound input interface as an input to generate a first audio signal; a second signal processor that performs second amplification conversion on the input sound acquired by the sound input interface as same as the input of the first signal processor to generate a second audio signal, the second amplification conversion being different from the first amplification conversion.
However, Anderson teaches a first signal processor that performs first amplification conversion on the input sound to generate a first audio signal; a second signal processor that performs second amplification conversion on the input sound to generate a second audio signal, the second amplification conversion being different from the first amplification conversion (Fig. 5 & [0028] & [0032] & [0037]: having two different microphones and applying two different gain to create a capture audio device with a wider dynamic range).
Beavis and Anderson are analogous art because they are both in the same field of endeavor, namely microphone devices. Therefore, 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, because combining different microphone signals will create an audio signal with a wider dynamic range than one single microphone, providing a better SNR.
The combination failed to teach acquired by the sound input interface as same as an input for the first signal processor.
However, Vitali teaches acquired by the sound input interface as same as an input for the first signal processor (Fig. 1B & [0049]: a single sound input interface-201 will have two different signal processing to provide a high gain channel-16 and low gain channel-14).
The combination and Vitali are analogous art because they are both in the same field of endeavor, namely microphone devices. Therefore, 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, because creating two channels out of one incoming signal is an alternate equivalent way to provide a dual channel microphone audio signal.
Regarding claim 9, see rejection of claim 8, where Beavis, Anderson and Vitali teaches the sound collection apparatus according to claim 8; and see rejection of claim 1 where Beavis and Anderson teaches the imaging apparatus that receives the first and second audio signals as input from the sound collection apparatus, and performs processing to combine the received first and second audio signals with each other, to generate the audio data of a sound collection result indicating the input sound in a predetermined data format.
Conclusion
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.
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/WILLIAM A JEREZ LORA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2695
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