DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the filing of 4/23/26. Claims 1-18, 21 are pending and have been considered below.
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 .
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 21 is allowed.
Claims 2-9 are 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 an examiner's statement of reasons for allowance. The prior art of record fails to disclose before generating haptic feedback, using an audio sample to determine whether to trigger the haptic feedback in the future, and storing haptic record representing the audio sample, in combination with other limitations recited within the claimed context. The claims present a combination of limitations that differ from the cited art, and there is no reasonable combination of references that would teach it.
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(s) 1, 10-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Doy (20190311590) in view of Lacroix (20150355713.)
Claim 1, 17-18: Doy discloses a computer-implemented method for generating haptic feedback to accompany an audio signal, the method comprising:
detecting a predetermined audio signal in the first audio channel (par. 54, receive the audio signal A.sub.IN and to determine whether the audio signal A.sub.IN comprises a haptic trigger based on an indication of a rate of change of an amplitude of the audio signal A.sub.IN. A haptic trigger may be considered a part of the audio signal which has a certain characteristic indicating that it is suitable for output in conjunction with a haptic signal); and
in response to detecting the predetermined audio signal, triggering a haptic feedback signal in a haptic feedback channel, wherein the haptic feedback channel (Fig. 4B: 414 haptic triggers over the Hout in Fig. 5: 502 to 208 to 201 haptic transducer; par. 81-84) is synchronized (par. 86, a fast reacting decision stage, which may therefore provide a haptic signal quickly, thereby maintaining synchronization with the audio signal) with the first audio channel (Fig. 4B: 408.)
However, Doy does not explicitly disclose:
determining that a first of multiple audio channels comprises sound effects.
Lacroix discloses a similar method for producing haptic effects from audio signals, including:
determining that a first of multiple audio channels comprises sound effects (Fig. 20; par. 91-93, The source audio signal includes multiple audio signals, where the audio signals can be contained within multiple tracks or channels. At least one of the multiple audio signals can be an LFE audio signal, where the LFE audio signal is contained within an LFE track or LFE channel. Par. 93, LFE audio signal is extracted from the source audio signal. Par. 94, At 2007, the LFE audio signal is converted into a haptic signal.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Doy with Lacroix so as to provide haptically enabled mobile devices, and experience has shown that content viewing is sufficiently enhanced, and viewers like it, if there is a haptic content component in addition to the audio and video content components (Lacroix par. 6.)
Claim 10: Doy and Lacroix disclose the method according to claim 1, wherein the haptic feedback signal comprises an audio signal (Doy par. 54, A haptic trigger may be considered a part of the audio signal which has a certain characteristic indicating that it is suitable for output in conjunction with a haptic signal.)
Claim 11: Doy and Lacroix disclose the method according to claim 1, further comprising determining the haptic feedback signal based on the predetermined audio signal (Doy par. 54, receive the audio signal A.sub.IN and to determine whether the audio signal A.sub.IN comprises a haptic trigger based on an indication of a rate of change of an amplitude of the audio signal A.sub.IN.)
Claim 12: Doy and Lacroix disclose the method according to claim 11, wherein determining the haptic feedback signal comprises selecting the haptic feedback signal from a plurality of predetermined haptic feedback signals based on the predetermined audio signal (Doy Fig. 4a-4b 402, 404, 406; par. 64-66, a first weighted sum representation 402 of a rectified version 401 of the audio signal; a second weighted sum representation 404 of the rectified version 401 of the audio signal.)
Claim 13: Doy and Lacroix disclose the method according to claim 1, wherein: detecting the predetermined audio signal comprises detecting the predetermined audio signal with at least one of a range of amplitudes (Doy Fig. 4a: 400; par. 54, an indication of a rate of change of an amplitude of the audio signal), durations, or occurrence frequencies; and the method further comprises adjusting a characteristic of the haptic feedback signal based on the at least one amplitude, duration, or occurrence frequency of the predetermined audio signal (Doy par. 55, if the rate of change of the amplitude of the audio signal is above a first threshold value, such rate of change may indicate that an audio event is occurring in the audio signal A.sub.IN that may warrant a haptic event.)
Claim 14: Doy and Lacroix disclose the method according to claim 1, further comprising: obtaining haptic feedback capability information from a device configured to receive the haptic feedback channel; and triggering the haptic feedback signal based on the haptic feedback capability information (Doy par. 58, the first type of haptic signal may comprise buzzes or Piece Wise Linear Envelope (PWLE) type waveforms, which are examples of simple and efficient methods of storing a haptics waveform; par. 59, a haptic signal of the second type may comprise a ‘more aggressive or ‘click’ style waveform, stored in the device (or memory) as a wave file consisting of discrete sampled data.)
Claim 15: Doy and Lacroix disclose a method of generating audio-visual media with feedback, the method comprising: generating base audio-visual media comprising an audio signal and a video signal; and performing the method according claim 1 to generate haptic feedback to accompany the base audio-visual media (Doy par. 20, The media playback may comprise video data.)
Claim 16: Doy and Lacroix disclose the method according to claim 15, further comprising: detecting a predetermined video signal in one or more monitored video channels; and in response to detecting the predetermined video signal, triggering a haptic feedback signal in a haptic feedback channel, wherein the haptic feedback channel is synchronized with the one or more monitored video channels (Doy par. 94, the audio signal may be played along with some video data, for example for a gaming application; the gaming content is for a military based game, the criteria may be adjusted to differentiate between gunshots represented by “on-screen” images (for example a muzzle flash) in the video data and “off-screen” gunshots not represented by images in the video data. The criteria utilized to generate the haptics signal may therefore be adjusted to produce different haptic signals for these two scenarios.)
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-18, 21 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Eagleman (20210208684) haptic feedback.
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 ANDREY BELOUSOV whose telephone number is (571) 270-1695 and Andrew.belousov@uspto.gov email. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Friday EST.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Adam Queler, can be reached at telephone number 571-272-4140. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Andrey Belousov/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2172
6/29/26
Prosecution Insights