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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) was submitted on 07/17/2024, 03/12/2025, and 08/06/2025. The submissions are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Drawings
New corrected drawings in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in this application because reference microphone 143 is missing from Fig. 15. Applicant is advised to employ the services of a competent patent draftsperson outside the Office, as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office no longer prepares new drawings. The corrected drawings are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. The requirement for corrected drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities: “the FF module 11” in para [0140]. According to Fig. 15, it should be “the FF module 111”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-5, 8-16, and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sato et al. (US 20230254630 A1) in view of Li et al. (US 11962968 B2).
Regarding claim 1: Sato teaches a headset with an active noise cancellation function (Fig. 25A-B, Fig. 26A-B, and Fig. 28A-B: Active Noise Cancellation Headphone 56), wherein the headset comprises:
active noise cancellation (ANC) module including at least one circuit, a plurality of speakers, a plurality of power drive circuits, and at least one reference microphone (Fig. 28A-B: DSP 300f reads on the claimed ANC module; Speakers 1401, 1402, and 1403; Power drive circuits 1301, 1302, and 1303; and Reference Microphones 1001, 1002, and 1003), wherein
an output end of any one of the plurality of power drive circuits is connected to at least one of the plurality of speakers, and the active noise cancellation module is connected between the at least one reference microphone and input ends of the plurality of power drive circuits (Fig. 28A-B: DSP 300f reads on the claimed ANC module; Speakers 1401, 1402, and 1403; Power drive circuits 1301, 1302, and 1303; and Reference Microphones 1001, 1002, and 1003);
the at least one reference microphone is configured to collect at least one first ambient noise signal (para [0002] and [0104]);
the active noise cancellation module is configured to obtain at least one phase-inverted noise signal based on the at least one first ambient noise signal (para [0156]-[0166]);
the active noise cancellation module is further configured to perform audio mixing on M audio signals and the at least one phase-inverted noise signal to obtain at least one mixed audio signal, wherein M is any positive integer, and the M audio signals come from an electronic device connected to the headset (Fig. 25A-B, Fig. 26A-B, and Fig. 28A-B: Object Sound Source 710 having Sound Objects/Signals 6001, 6002, and 6003; DSP 300f mixing Sound Objects/Signals with the phase-inverted noise signal via Adder 314; also see para [0315]-[0316]).
the plurality of power drive circuits is configured to perform power amplification on the at least one mixed audio signal based on respective output powers to obtain at least one power- amplified mixed audio signal (Fig. 28A-B: Power drive circuits 1301, 1302, and 1303); and
the plurality of speakers is configured to play the at least one power-amplified mixed audio signal (Fig. 28A-B: output signals of Power drive circuits 1301, 1302, and 1303 played by Speakers 1401, 1402, and 1403).
Sato does not explicitly teach the M audio signals are the downlink audio signals.
Li teaches a headset with an active noise cancellation (ANC) function having an ANC module (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2: Noise Cancellation Headset 200 with Noise Cancellation Processing Circuit 240), wherein the active noise cancellation module is further configured to perform audio mixing on M audio signals and the at least one phase-inverted noise signal to obtain at least one mixed audio signal (Fig. 1: Played downlink audio signal; and col. 1: lines 66-67 and col. 3: lines 62-67 and lines 1-11).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify Sato in view of Li for the benefit of providing a common way to obtain audio signals to play back to user who wear the headset.
Regarding claim 2: Sato in view of Li teaches the headset according to claim 1, wherein a quantity of the at least one phase- inverted noise signal is one; and
the active noise cancellation module is configured to separately perform audio mixing on the M audio signals and one phase-inverted noise signal to obtain M mixed audio signals (Sato’s Fig. 28A-B: each of sound objects/signals mixed with the phase-inverted noise signal via Adder 314 and para [0315]-[0316]; and Li’s Fig. 12: Target inverse phase noise mixing with downlink audio signal and col. 32: lines 40-43).
Regarding claim 3: Sato in view of Li teaches the headset according to claim 2, wherein the active noise cancellation module comprises a first audio mixing circuit, a second audio mixing circuit, and at least one feed-forward (FF) module (Sato’s Fig. 28B: FFNC Filter 320b, FBNC Filter 320c, and Adder 314; and Li’s Fig. 12: First audio mixing circuit combining First Inverse phase noise with Second Inverse phase noise; and Second audio mixing circuit combining Target inverse phase noise with downlink audio signal);
the at least one FF module is configured to obtain at least one feed-forward phase-inverted noise signal based on the at least one first ambient noise signal (Li’s Fig. 12: Ambient noise signal collected by Reference microphone feeding to Feed-forward Filter to produce First inverse phase noise);
the first audio mixing circuit is configured to perform audio mixing on the at least one feed- forward phase-inverted noise signal to obtain the phase-inverted noise signal (Li’s Fig. 12: First audio mixing circuit combining First Inverse phase noise with Second Inverse phase noise to produce Target inverse phase noise); and
the second audio mixing circuit is configured to separately perform audio mixing on the M downlink audio signals and the phase-inverted noise signal to obtain the M mixed audio signals (Li’s Fig. 2: Second audio mixing circuit combining Target inverse phase noise with downlink audio signal to produce Mixed audio signal to output via speaker).
Regarding claim 4: Sato in view of Li teaches the headset according to claim 3, wherein the headset further comprises an error microphone; the active noise cancellation module further comprises a third audio mixing circuit, M secondary path estimation (SPE) modules, and at least one feedback (FB) module; input ends of the M SPE modules are configured to receive the M downlink audio signals, output ends of the M SPE modules are separately connected to an input end of the third audio mixing circuit, an output end of the third audio mixing circuit is connected to an input end of the at least one FB module, and an output end of the at least one FB module is connected to the first audio mixing circuit (Li’s Fig. 12: Compensation Filter which reads on the claimed SPE module, receiving and filtering downlink audio signal; Third Mixing circuit/Adder mixing the output of the Compensation Filter and the audio signal collected by an Error microphone; output of the Mixing circuit/Adder is inputted to Feed-forward filter in combination with Feedback filter coefficient);
the error microphone is configured to collect the mixed audio signal played by the plurality of speakers and a second ambient noise signal;
the M SPE modules and the third audio mixing circuit are configured to obtain a feedback noise signal based on the mixed audio signal played by the plurality of speakers and the second ambient noise signal that are collected by the error microphone, and the M downlink audio signals (Li’s Fig. 12: Compensation Filter receiving and filtering downlink audio signal; Third Mixing circuit/Adder mixing the output of the Compensation Filter and the audio signal collected by an Error microphone;
the at least one FB module is configured to obtain at least one feedback phase-inverted noise signal based on the feedback noise signal (Li’s Fig. 12: Second inverse phase noise); and
the first audio mixing circuit is configured to perform audio mixing on the at least one feed- forward phase-inverted noise signal and the at least one feedback phase-inverted noise signal to obtain the phase-inverted noise signal (Li’s Fig. 12: First audio mixing circuit combining First Inverse phase noise with Second Inverse phase noise to produce Target inverse phase noise).
Regarding claim 5: Sato in view of Li teaches the headset according to claim 1, wherein a quantity of the at least one phase- inverted noise signal is M, and when M is greater than 1, the active noise cancellation module is configured to respectively perform audio mixing on the M downlink audio signals and corresponding phase-inverted noise signals to obtain M mixed audio signals (Sato’s Fig. 25A-B, Fig. 26A-B, and Fig. 28A-B: Object Sound Source 710 having Sound Objects/Signals 6001, 6002, and 6003).
Regarding claim 8: Sato in view of Li teaches the headset according to claim 3, wherein, when the active noise cancellation module comprises a plurality of FF modules, filters comprised in the plurality of FF modules have different frequency characteristics (Sato’s Fig. 9-11: Each FFNC filter with a specific frequency characteristic in according to each of corresponding driver frequency characteristic that the inverse phase noise signal is supplied to; and also see para [0189]-[0196]).
Regarding claim 9: Sato in view of Li teaches the headset according to claim 4, wherein, when the active noise cancellation module comprises a plurality of FB modules, filters comprised in the plurality of FB modules have different frequency characteristics (Sato’s Fig. 9-11: Each FFNC filter with a specific frequency characteristic in according to the corresponding driver frequency characteristic that the inverse phase noise signal is supplied to; and also see para [0189]-[0196]).
Regarding claim 10: Sato in view of Li teaches the headset according to claim 8, wherein the different frequency characteristics comprise different frequency ranges, or a same frequency range but different amplitude-frequency characteristics or phase-frequency characteristics corresponding to at least one frequency band range (Sato’s Fig. 10: Three different frequency bands ranging from low frequency band wf, mid frequency band mid, and high frequency band tw).
Regarding claim 11: Sato in view of Li teaches the headset according to claim 1, further comprising a main control unit (MCU) configured to determine a parameter used by the active noise cancellation module (Sato’s 26A-B and 28A-B: Control Unit 310 and DSP 300f and para [0131]; and Li’s Fig. 11: Main Control Unit 1120 and Memory 1170; and Li’s Fig. 12: Main Control Unit and Memory (Noise cancellation parameter library)).
Regarding claim 12: Sato in view of Li teaches the headset according to claim 11, wherein the MCU is configured to: when acoustic environment information, ambient noise, or noise cancellation requirement information of a user changes, determine, from a plurality of groups of parameters based on the acoustic environment information, the ambient noise, and/or the noise cancellation requirement information of the user, the parameter used by the active noise cancellation module; and the acoustic environment information indicates an acoustic environment formed by an ear canal of the user and the headset (Fig. 11 and Fig. 12: Memory (Noise cancellation parameter library)).
Regarding claims 13-14: the headset discussed in claims 1-2 above also supports these corresponding method claims.
Regarding claim 15: Sato in view of Li teaches the method according to claim 14, further comprising:
obtaining the mixed audio signal played by the plurality of speakers and a second ambient noise signal that are collected by an error microphone (Li’s Fig. 12: Sound collected by Error microphone is the combination of leaked noise inside earcup and sound of the mixed audio signal played by the speaker);
obtaining a feedback noise signal based on the mixed audio signal played by the plurality of speakers and the second ambient noise signal that are collected by the error microphone, and the M downlink audio signals (Li’s Fig. 12: Feedback noise signal is the mixing product of the audio signal collected by the error microphone and the output the downlink audio signal after filtered by the Compensation Filter); and
obtaining at least one feedback phase-inverted noise signal based on the feedback noise signal (Li’s Fig. 12: Feedback Filter filtering the feedback noise signal to produce Second inverse phase noise); wherein
the performing audio mixing on the at least one feed-forward phase-inverted noise signal to obtain one phase-inverted noise signal comprises:
performing audio mixing on the at least one feed-forward phase-inverted noise signal and the at least one feedback phase-inverted noise signal to obtain the phase-inverted noise signal (Li’s Fig. 12: First inverse phase noise mixed with Second inverse phase noise to produce Target inverse phase noise).
Regarding claims 16 and 19: the headset discussed in claims 5 and 12 above also supports these corresponding method claims.
Regarding claim 20: the headset discussed in claim 1 above also supports this corresponding audio system claim (also see Sato’s Fig. 41A: portable terminal device 900 and para [0425]; and Li’s Fig. 9: Mobile phone).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-7 and 17-18 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID L TON whose telephone number is (571)270-7839. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8:00 AM - 6:00 PM (EST).
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/DAVID L TON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2695