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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The IDS dated 9-5-2025 has been considered and placed in the application file.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 11-14 and 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claims 11, Further claim 11 recites A method of using a wearable audio device, comprising:
receiving input from at least one audio sensor of a wearable audio device;
detecting, using the at least one audio sensor, audio from a user of the wearable audio device; and
performing an action in response to determining that i) a volume level of the audio from the user of the wearable audio device is below a threshold and ii) the audio indicates a desired performance of the action.
The limitation of “receiving…”, “detecting…”, and “performing …” , as drafted, is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind. For example, a person receiving an audio where he listens to it. Further, seeing if the audio is Somone whispering and giving a command.
If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim only recites additional elements that are computer “wearable audio device” (paragraphs 43 & 36) recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component, and “audio sensor” where its pre-solution activity of receiving an input. Accordingly, this additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims are directed to an abstract idea.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element of using the computer components amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. The claims are not patent eligible.
Claims 12 additionally recite the method of claim 11, wherein the audio from the user is a whisper. However, this limitation does not prevent a human from performing the steps mentally as described above. Further, the person listing to the audio to see if it’s a whisper. Thus, these claims are directed towards a mental process. Similar to above, no additional limitations are provided that provide a practical application, or amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the claims are not patent eligible.
Claims 13 additionally recite the method of claim 11, wherein the threshold is at most 50 dB. However, this limitation does not prevent a human from performing the steps mentally as described above. Further, the person listing to the audio to see if it’s a whisper. Thus, these claims are directed towards a mental process. Similar to above, no additional limitations are provided that provide a practical application, or amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the claims are not patent eligible.
Claims 14 additionally recites the method of claim 11, wherein one or more audio sensors of the at least one audio sensor is a microphone. However, these limitations encompass a person receiving an audio where he listens to it. Further, seeing if the audio is Somone whispering and giving a command. Thus, the claim is directed towards a mental process. In particular, the claim only recites additional elements that are computer components “audio sensor” where its pre-solution activity of receiving an input. Accordingly, this additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims are directed to an abstract idea.
Claims 17 additionally recites the method of claim 11, further comprising extracting the user’s audio from other audio sensed. However, these limitations encompass a person listening to the audio and doing voice identification. Thus, the claim is directed towards a mental process. Similar to above, no additional limitations are provided that provide a practical application, or amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Claims 18 additionally recites the method of claim 11, wherein the determination triggers the performance of the action. However, these limitations encompass a person listening to the audio and doing the command that it mentions. Thus, the claim is directed towards a mental process. Similar to above, no additional limitations are provided that provide a practical application, or amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Claims 19 additionally recites the method of claim 11, wherein determining that the volume level of the audio from the user of the wearable audio device is below the threshold comprises determining that the characteristics of the audio is whisper speech. However, these limitations encompass a person listening to the audio determining if it’s a whisper. Thus, the claim is directed towards a mental process. Similar to above, no additional limitations are provided that provide a practical application, or amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
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 is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis 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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-4, 8-14, and 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Rekimoto, Jun. "DualVoice: speech interaction that discriminates between normal and whispered voice input." Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. 2022.
Claim 1 and 11
Regarding Claim 1 and 11 , Rekimoto teach
1. A wearable audio device, comprising:
a housing;
(Fig 11 shows the headset being used in a normal and whispered voice.
Page 3 left col introduction “If one can discriminate between normal voice (for normal conversation) and whisper voice for computer inputs, efective interaction for wearable, mobile, and virtual-environment computing may be possible.”
Page 1 left col section Abstract "The method can be used in a wide range of situations where speech recognition is already available, ranging from text input to mobile/wearable computing. ")
at least one audio sensor disposed in or on the housing; and
(Page 9 right column section Combination with Silent Speech " A microphone can be placed inside such masks for picking up whisper voice, making it possible to achieve an efect almost equivalent to silent speech.")
at least one processor configured to:
(Page 10 right col section 9 conclusion “Furthermore, this study designed two neural networks, one for distinguishing whisper speech from normal speech and the other for recognizing whisper speech and implemented a prototype speechbased text input system using these neural networks and evaluated its usability.”
It would be inherent to have a processor to achieve this)
receive input from the at least one audio sensor;
(Fig 9 shows the input going through a whisper or normal voice classifier
Page 9 left col section 6 IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS "The GUI system manages the thread that receives the microphone input and splits it into packets containing 1,600 samples (100ms) of sound. These packets are sent via TCP/IP to the whisper discriminator, which discriminates each packet as containing whispers, normal voice, or silence. Then, depending on the result of the discrimination, the speech packet is then sent to either the whisper recognizer or the normal speech recognizer. ")
detect, using the at least one audio sensor, audio from a user of the wearable audio device; and
(page 6 right col section 4.2 Whisper Voice Classification and page 7 left col section 4.2 Whisper Voice Classification "The whisper voice classification part distinguishes whispers from normal voice input by a fixed-length (e.g., 100 ms) audio signal, whereas the feature extractor based on convolutional neural networks obtained from wav2vec 2.0 converts the acoustic signal into 512-dimensional features every 20 ms (Figure 5 (right)).")
perform an action in response to determining that i) a volume level of the audio from the user of the wearable audio device is below a threshold and ii) the audio indicates a desired performance of the action.
(Page 9 right col section Combination with Silent Speech "The sound pressure level of a typical conversation is approximately 60 dB; whereas, the sound pressure level of a whisper is in the range 30–40 dB. Thus, using a whisper voice as the speech command, the objectives of silent speech can be achieved. "
page 10 right col section 9 conclusion “This study proposed DualVoice, a speech input method for inputting non-text commands in a whispered voice and inputting text in a normal voice.”
Page 4 middle of the page "Figure 4: Examples of DualVoice interactions: (a) Correction of recognition errors: whispering “MENU” invokes a menu for possible recognition candidates. A user may select the required candidate by whispering the corresponding number. (b) Entering symbols by whispering “COMMA” and “DOUBLE QUOTE.” (c) Combining the spelled input by whispering “SPELL.” (d) Inputting Emoji by saying “smile” in a normal voice, followed by whispering “EMOTION.” ")
Claim 2 and 12
Regarding Claim 2 and 12 , Rekimoto teach
The wearable audio device of claim 1, wherein the volume level is below a normal speaking volume level of the user.
(Page 9 right col section Combination with Silent Speech "The sound pressure level of a typical conversation is approximately 60 dB; whereas, the sound pressure level of a whisper is in the range 30–40 dB. Thus, using a whisper voice as the speech command, the objectives of silent speech can be achieved. ")
Claim 3 and 13
Regarding Claim 3 and 13 , Rekimoto teach
The wearable audio device of claim 1, wherein the threshold is at most 50 dB.
(Page 9 right col section Combination with Silent Speech "The sound pressure level of a typical conversation is approximately 60 dB; whereas, the sound pressure level of a whisper is in the range 30–40 dB. Thus, using a whisper voice as the speech command, the objectives of silent speech can be achieved. ")
Claim 4 and 14
Regarding Claim 4 and 14 , Rekimoto teach
The wearable audio device of claim 1, wherein one or more audio sensors of the at least one audio sensor is a microphone.
(page 2 right col section introduction "Voice input requires no specialized input device other than a microphone and thus can be operated hands-free. ")
Claim 8 and 18
Regarding Claim 8 and 18 , Rekimoto teach
The wearable audio device of claim 1, wherein the determination triggers the performance of the action.
(page 4 middle of the page "Figure 4: Examples of DualVoice interactions: (a) Correction of recognition errors: whispering “MENU” invokes a menu for possible recognition candidates. A user may select the required candidate by whispering the corresponding number. (b) Entering symbols by whispering “COMMA” and “DOUBLE QUOTE.” (c) Combining the spelled input by whispering “SPELL.” (d) Inputting Emoji by saying “smile” in a normal voice, followed by whispering “EMOTION.” ")
Claim 9 and 19
Regarding Claim 9 and 19 , Rekimoto teach
The wearable audio device of claim 1, wherein the audio from the user is a whisper.
(page 10 right col section 9 conclusion “This study proposed DualVoice, a speech input method for inputting non-text commands in a whispered voice and inputting text in a normal voice.”")
Claim 10
Regarding Claim 10 , Rekimoto teach
The wearable audio device of claim 1, wherein determining that the volume level of the audio from the user of the wearable audio device is below the threshold comprises determining that the characteristics of the audio is whisper speech.
(Page 9 right col section Combination with Silent Speech "The sound pressure level of a typical conversation is approximately 60 dB; whereas, the sound pressure level of a whisper is in the range 30–40 dB. Thus, using a whisper voice as the speech command, the objectives of silent speech can be achieved. ")
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 5-6, 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Rekimoto, Jun. "DualVoice: speech interaction that discriminates between normal and whispered voice input." Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. 2022 in view of US Patent US 20250094211 A1, (SPITTLE; Gary.).
Claim 5 and 15
Regarding Claim 5 and 15, Rekimoto do not explicitly teach all of 5. The wearable audio device of claim 4, wherein the microphone is a feedback microphone disposed within the housing.
However, SPITTLE teaches
The wearable audio device of claim 4, wherein the microphone is a feedback microphone disposed within the housing.
(paragraph 932 "A feedback microphone may be placed in the ear pieces to capture the sounds being heard by the user (e.g., representative of residual sound that may need to be removed). In some embodiments, a feedback microphone may be located in the user's ear canal such that it captures sounds that have passed through to the user's ear. A signal processing filter is designed to use the signal captured from the feedback microphone and create cancellation signal with the aim of reducing any residual noise even further. This signal path also has a transfer function from the feedback microphone to the loudspeaker"
Paragraph 933 "The feedback microphone may be an internal microphone that measures the actual internal sound level for the binaural intelligent active noise control algorithm. The signals from the feedback microphone may be compared to the noise levels measured by the feedforward (e.g., external) microphone. The difference between the signals from the feedback microphone and the feedforward microphone may be used to determine the performance of the binaural intelligent active noise control algorithm. For example, a noise reduction metric can be used to indicate how much noise the binaural intelligent active noise control algorithm removes, and a playback reduction metric can be used to indicate how much content playback level has been reduced.")
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Rekimoto to incorporate the teachings of SPITTLE to provide a “The wearable audio device of claim 4, wherein the microphone is a feedback microphone disposed within the housing.” Doing so would Capture sounds that have passed through the users’ ears and can create a cancellation signal residuals noise, as recognized by SPITTLE. (Paragraph 932).
Claim 6 and 16
Regarding Claim 5 and 15, Rekimoto in view of SPITTLE, furthermore, SPITTLE teaches
The wearable audio device of claim 1, wherein the housing is acoustically coupled with an ear canal of the user to define an acoustic volume, and wherein one or more audio sensors of the at least one audio sensor is included in the acoustic volume.
(paragraph 932 "A feedback microphone may be placed in the ear pieces to capture the sounds being heard by the user (e.g., representative of residual sound that may need to be removed). In some embodiments, a feedback microphone may be located in the user's ear canal such that it captures sounds that have passed through to the user's ear. A signal processing filter is designed to use the signal captured from the feedback microphone and create cancellation signal with the aim of reducing any residual noise even further. This signal path also has a transfer function from the feedback microphone to the loudspeaker"
Paragraph 933 "The feedback microphone may be an internal microphone that measures the actual internal sound level for the binaural intelligent active noise control algorithm. The signals from the feedback microphone may be compared to the noise levels measured by the feedforward (e.g., external) microphone. The difference between the signals from the feedback microphone and the feedforward microphone may be used to determine the performance of the binaural intelligent active noise control algorithm. For example, a noise reduction metric can be used to indicate how much noise the binaural intelligent active noise control algorithm removes, and a playback reduction metric can be used to indicate how much content playback level has been reduced.")
See claim 5 and 15 for rationale.
Claims 7 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Rekimoto, Jun. "DualVoice: speech interaction that discriminates between normal and whispered voice input." Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. 2022 in view of US Patent US 20250349294 A1, (Marelus; Meier.).
Claim 7 and 17
Regarding Claim 7 and 17, Rekimoto do not explicitly teach all of 7. The wearable audio device of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to extract the user’s audio from other audio sensed.
However, Marelus teach
The wearable audio device of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to extract the user’s audio from other audio sensed.
(paragraph 237 "These can also, in combination with user voice identification modules, be combined so that the system is only listening to the voice of the pre-set user(s) or otherwise already-identified user(s) of the system, further reducing the amount of voice input it may have to analyze and determine whether or not it is addressed to the system.")
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Rekimoto to incorporate the teachings of Marelus to provide a “7. The wearable audio device of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to extract the user’s audio from other audio sensed.” Doing so would Reduce the amount of voice input it may have to analyze, as recognized by Marelus. (Paragraph 237).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALI M HASSAN whose telephone number is (571)272-5331. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8:00am - 4:00pm.
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/ALI M HASSAN/Examiner, Art Unit 2653
/Paras D Shah/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2653
02/10/2026