DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to communications filed 5/23/2024:
Claims 1-20 are pending
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 .
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
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Claims 1-20 are provisionally rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of copending Application No. 18672835 in view of Xu et al (US20230419943, hereinafter “Xu”). For example:
Regarding claim 1, 18672835 teaches a system (claim 1, a system) comprising:
a plurality of user audio devices in a casino (claim 1, a plurality of player audio devices in a casino);
a processor circuit (claim 1, a processor circuit); and
a memory comprising machine-readable instructions that, when executed by the processor circuit (claim 1, a memory comprising machine-readable instructions that, when executed by the processor circuit), cause the processor circuit to:
18672835 fails to explicitly teach provide, to a user and via one of the plurality of user audio devices, an option message that identifies a plurality of sound types that are dynamically selectable by the user; and
responsive to the option message, receive, from the user and via the one of the plurality of user audio devices, a sound selection input that causes the user audio device to modify a sound setting of one of the plurality of sound types to provide a personalized audio output.
Xu teaches provide, to a user and via one of the plurality of user audio devices, an option message that identifies a plurality of sound types that are dynamically selectable by the user (Fig. 6A, plurality of sounds recognized by the system and shown as an option to the user for configuration); and
responsive to the option message, receive, from the user and via the one of the plurality of user audio devices, a sound selection input that causes the user audio device to modify a sound setting of one of the plurality of sound types to provide a personalized audio output (¶93, Fig. 6, once user selection is acquired, the noisy signals can be muted/cancelled).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the wireless audio system (as taught by 18672835) with the selective noise cancelling technique (as taught by Xu). The rationale to do so is to combine prior art elements according to known methods to yield the predictable result of allowing a user to dynamically choose which sound source to cancel in a given environment with a simplified UI (Xu, ¶10).
This is a provisional nonstatutory double patenting rejection.
The remaining independent and/or dependent claims can be rejected using one or more claims of the copending application in view of Xu (whether alone or in combination).
Claim Objections
Claim 15 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 15 recites “…not proximate one the plurality of sound types.” It appears to be missing one or more words.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 19 contains the trademark/trade name Bluetooth. Where a trademark or trade name is used in a claim as a limitation to identify or describe a particular material or product, the claim does not comply with the requirements of 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph. See Ex parte Simpson, 218 USPQ 1020 (Bd. App. 1982). The claim scope is uncertain since the trademark or trade name cannot be used properly to identify any particular material or product. A trademark or trade name is used to identify a source of goods, and not the goods themselves. Thus, a trademark or trade name does not identify or describe the goods associated with the trademark or trade name. In the present case, the trademark/trade name is used to identify/describe short range wireless connectivity and, accordingly, the identification/description is indefinite.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 5-9, 11, and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Xu et al (US20230419943, hereinafter “Xu”).
Regarding claim 1, Xu teaches a system (abstract, system) comprising:
a plurality of user audio devices in a casino (Fig. 3, a user device (can be plural, ¶118) being used in a noisy environment (e.g. casino));
a processor circuit (¶14, processor); and
a memory (¶66, memory with computing instructions) comprising machine-readable instructions that, when executed by the processor circuit, cause the processor circuit to:
provide, to a user and via one of the plurality of user audio devices, an option message that identifies a plurality of sound types that are dynamically selectable by the user (Fig. 6A, plurality of sounds recognized by the system and shown as an option to the user for configuration); and
responsive to the option message, receive, from the user and via the one of the plurality of user audio devices, a sound selection input that causes the user audio device to modify a sound setting of one of the plurality of sound types to provide a personalized audio output (¶93, Fig. 6, once user selection is acquired, the noisy signals can be muted/cancelled).
Regarding claim 5, Xu teaches wherein the processor circuit is further caused to provide, to the user, an audio toggle switch to toggle an output device from one of the plurality of user audio devices (Fig. 6B, toggle switch allows user to dynamically select output).
Regarding claim 6, Xu teaches wherein the processor circuit is further caused to store user preference data corresponding to audio source specific user preferences, and
wherein user preference data is upgradable based on additional inputs received from the user (¶106, user input can be stored and modified as needed).
Regarding claim 7, Xu teaches wherein a first portion of the plurality of sound types comprises a desired sound type for the user and a second portion of the plurality of sound types comprises an undesirable sound type (¶52, Fig. 6A, system recognizes a plurality type of sounds and displays them for the user to choose whether they are desired or undesired).
Regarding claim 8, Xu teaches wherein the first portion of the plurality of sound types comprises a first source of sounds and the second portion of the plurality of sound types comprises a second source of sounds (¶52, Fig. 5A, 5B, the system recognizes a plurality of sound types from a plurality of sound sources).
Regarding claim 9, Xu teaches wherein the processor circuit is further caused to store sound selection input data corresponding to a modified sound setting of the plurality of sound types (¶94, user sound source selection is stored and user modification is also stored (e.g. designation for cancellation)).
Regarding claim 11, Xu teaches wherein modifying the sound setting of one of the plurality of sound types is performed dynamically based on changes in environmental characteristics in the absence of additional sound selection inputs (¶46, sound modifications are done without user intervention past the initial setup).
Regarding claim 18, Xu teaches wherein the processor circuit is further caused to generate a sound corresponding to one of the plurality of sound types and receive the selection input to modify the sound setting for future gaming sessions to provide the personalized audio output (¶91, user modifications are stored in memory and can be used in later sessions).
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) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu et al (US20230419943, hereinafter “Xu”) in view of Asada et al (US20210006927, hereinafter “Asada”).
Regarding claim 2, Xu fails to explicitly teach wherein the processor circuit is further caused to perform a casino-specific sound routing operation using a casino-specific sound routing component that dynamically routes casino-specific sounds to adjust specific sound origins.
Asada teaches wherein the processor circuit is further caused to perform a casino-specific sound routing operation using a casino-specific sound routing component that dynamically routes casino-specific sounds to adjust specific sound origins (¶95, using sound image localization techniques, it is possible to localize a sound image at any location).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the technique of sound object recognition (as taught by Xu) with the sound image localization technique (as taught by Asada). The rationale to do so is to combine prior art elements according to known methods to yield the predictable result of allowing a user to dynamically adjust a sound image as desired (Asada, ¶99).
Claim(s) 3-4, 10, and 12-17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu et al (US20230419943, hereinafter “Xu”) in view of Cardoso et al (US20210407490, hereinafter “Cardoso”).
Regarding claim 3, Xu fails to explicitly teach wherein the processor circuit is further caused to perform an active noise cancellation (ANC) operation to receive user sound data to adjust specific sound origins, and wherein the user sound data that is received is used to personalize a casino-specific ANC profile, and to generate an ANC noise signal.
Cardoso teaches wherein the processor circuit is further caused to perform an active noise cancellation (ANC) operation to receive user sound data to adjust specific sound origins, and wherein the user sound data that is received is used to personalize a casino-specific ANC profile (¶18, private room/environments can be generated as a different profile with different noise cancelling parameters), and to generate an ANC noise signal (Fig. 3B, ¶43-45, plurality of noise objects are identified in the user’s environment and noise cancellation is output in accordance with a noise profile associated with the environment wherein the noise profiles can be updated).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the technique of sound object recognition (as taught by Xu) with the storing noise cancellation parameters as a profile (as taught by Cardoso). The rationale to do so is to combine prior art elements according to known methods to yield the predictable result of improving user interactions while cancelling noisy signals in accordance with a user’s environment (Cardoso, ¶18).
Regarding claim 4, Xu in view of Cardoso teaches wherein the processor circuit is further caused to send a casino-specific sound routing component and an ANC noise signal to ones of the plurality of user audio devices (Cardoso, ¶46, the noise signal profiles can be pushed to one of a plurality of users wherein the noise profiles comprise of parameters to adjust the ANC noise signal).
Regarding claim 10, Xu in view of Cardoso teaches wherein the processor circuit is further caused to:
generate a user profile that comprises values corresponding to the plurality of sound types;
store the user profile in association with the user; and
retrieve data corresponding to the user profile to update the user profile (Cardoso, ¶44, a predefined noise profile can be obtained and modified according to user feedback (thereby becoming “a modified/user profile”); Xu, ¶94, sound source information can be stored in memory for later recall).
Regarding claim 12, Xu in view of Cardoso teaches wherein the processor circuit is further caused to use data corresponding to the plurality of sound types and the sound selection input to train an artificial intelligence audio-based model (Cardoso, ¶37, an AI model can be trained to recognize noisy signals).
Regarding claim 13, Xu in view of Cardoso teaches wherein the data corresponding to the plurality of sound types and the sound selection input to train the artificial intelligence audio-based model cause the processor circuit to perform an active noise cancellation (ANC) operation corresponding to the plurality of sound types of casino voices (Cardoso, ¶37, AI is used to classify the different sounds in the given environment (¶39, casino is considered a type of environment)).
Regarding claim 14, Xu in view of Cardoso teaches wherein the data corresponding to the plurality of sound types and the sound selection input to train the artificial intelligence audio-based model cause the processor circuit to perform an active noise cancellation (ANC) operation corresponding to the plurality of sound types of casino audio sounds (Cardoso, ¶37, AI is used to classify the different sounds in the given environment (¶39, casino is considered a type of environment)).
Regarding claim 15, Xu in view of Cardoso teaches wherein the processor circuit is further caused to use data corresponding to the plurality of sound types and the sound selection input to train the artificial intelligence audio-based model while the user is not proximate one the plurality of sound types (Cardoso, ¶39, other users can send in sound samples to help the classification model).
Regarding claim 16, Xu in view of Cardoso teaches wherein receiving the sound selection input comprises receiving a separate volume for each of the plurality of sound types (Xu, Fig. 6A, providing a user interface with different sound sources listed; Cardoso, ¶43, sound sources can be identified and softened by a percentage (i.e. acts as a volume control for each sound source) – the combination of teachings from Xu and Cardoso results in a UI with sound source identification and a form of UI control that allows a user to change an amount of cancelling provided to each identified sound source).
Regarding claim 17, Xu in view of Cardoso teaches wherein the sound setting is performed on each of the plurality of sound types and a plurality of audio channels comprising a plurality of origins in the casino (Xu, Fig. 6A, providing a user interface with different sound sources listed; Cardoso, ¶43, sound sources can be identified and softened by a percentage (i.e. acts as a volume control for each sound source) – the combination of teachings from Xu and Cardoso results in a UI with sound source identification and a form of UI control that allows a user to change an amount of cancelling provided to each identified sound source).
Claim(s) 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu et al (US20230419943, hereinafter “Xu”) in view of Cardoso et al (US20210407490, hereinafter “Cardoso”) in further view of in view of Asada et al (US20210006927, hereinafter “Asada”).
Regarding claim 19, Xu in view of Cardoso teaches a method (Xu, abstract, method) comprising:
connecting a casino wide Bluetooth based audio system with a plurality of wearable wireless audio devices (Cardoso, Fig. 1, wireless connection with a plurality of user devices; Xu, ¶50, wireless technology can be Bluetooth);
performing an active noise cancelling operation that comprises receiving user sound data (Xu, ¶9, noise cancelling is applied with assistance from microphone capturing one or more noisy signals in the environment); generating a noise cancelling signal (Xu, ¶9, outputting anti-noise signal); and sending the noise cancelling signal to a respective one of the plurality of wearable wireless audio devices (Xu, Fig. 3, sending noise cancelling signal to the user’s audio output device),
performing an artificial intelligence training operation on the noise canceling signal to generate an artificial intelligence audio-based model (Cardoso, ¶37, AI techniques being applied to generate a sound classification system),
wherein the method further comprises: saving the casino-specific sounds (Xu, ¶91, user is able to input a label for a detected sound and to save it to memory for later use) and the artificial intelligence model audio-based model responsive to one of the plurality of wearable wireless audio devices disconnecting from the casino wide Bluetooth based audio system (Cardoso, Fig. 3A, a user is able to connect/disconnect their wireless devices to a host device); and restoring the casino-specific sounds and the noise cancelling signal responsive to the one of the plurality of wearable wireless audio devices reconnecting to the casino wide Bluetooth based audio system (Cardoso, Fig. 3A, user is able to disconnect/reconnect to a host device to receive a noise profile (generated with assistance from trained AI model) comprising noise cancelling parameters).
Xu in view of Cardoso fails to explicitly teach performing a casino-specific sound routing operation that adjusts casino audio channels and that route casino-specific sounds based on the casino-specific sound routing operation;
Asada teaches performing a casino-specific sound routing operation that adjusts casino audio channels and that route casino-specific sounds based on the casino-specific sound routing operation (¶120, channel specific filtering techniques can be performed to adjust a sound image such that it is possible to localize a sound image at any location);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the technique of sound object recognition (as taught by Xu in view of Cardoso) with the sound image localization technique (as taught by Asada). The rationale to do so is to combine prior art elements according to known methods to yield the predictable result of allowing a user to dynamically adjust a sound image as desired (Asada, ¶99).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 20 is allowed.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Refer to PTO-892, Notice of References Cited for a listing of analogous art.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to QIN ZHU whose telephone number is (571)270-1304. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 6AM-4PM EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Duc Nguyen can be reached on 571-272-7503. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/QIN ZHU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2691