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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 08/06/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 08/06/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
With regards to applicant’s argument that Sheaffer et al does not disclose that the noise in the environment is due to an unexpected event, the examiner maintains. Background noises and other noise sources of Sheaffer et al (para 0076) are unexpected events that can cause audio anomalies and the Sheaffer et al system seeks to compensate for these anomalies.
With regards to applicant’s argument that the Sheaffer et al reference discloses an instruction to move closer or further from a microphone of the mobile device, the examiner maintains. Sheaffer et al discloses where an instruction/suggestion is given to move the audio input device close or further away from the sound source (claim 17), where the audio input device includes a microphone transducer (para 0006).
With regards to applicant’s argument that the Schuldt reference is not directed to a mobile device, the examiner disagrees. The Schuldt reference is utilized mainly to teach the concept of being able to determine anomalies caused by reverberation time by comparing the reverberation time with a reverberation time threshold (col. 6, lines 4-21).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-6, 11-15 are allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
Claim 1 is allowed for the reasons set forth in applicants arguments filed 12/11/2025 pages 7-8.
Claims 2-6, 11-15 depend on claim 1.
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.
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.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sheaffer et al, US Patent Pub. 20200105291 A1, in view of Schuldt et al, US Patent 11019219 B1. (The Sheaffer et al reference is cited in IDS filed 05/22/2024)
Re Claim 19, Sheaffer et al discloses one or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more computing devices, cause performance of a method of real-time monitoring of user-generated audio content for audio anomalies (paras 0058-0061: system able to detect multiple audio signals that may negatively affect the perceptual quality of microphone recorded audio signal interpreted as audio anomalies; abstract: system able to detect audio impairments), the method comprising: receiving, in real time, audio data generated by a mobile device (paras 0058-0061: system able to detect multiple audio signals that may negatively affect the perceptual quality of microphone recorded audio signal interpreted as audio anomalies; abstract: system able to detect audio impairments); detecting, in real time, from the audio data a start of an occurrence of a type of audio anomaly of multiple types of audio anomalies, wherein the type of audio anomaly is an environment anomaly (paras 0058-0061: system able to detect multiple audio signals that may negatively affect the perceptual quality of microphone recorded audio signal interpreted as audio anomalies; abstract: system able to detect audio impairments); but fails to explicitly disclose the detecting includes determining that at least one of a reverb time, direct-to-reverberant ratio or an estimated sound diffuseness level exceeds a threshold; and transmitting, in real time, an alert of the occurrence to the mobile device or another device, the alert bringing attention to or describing the occurrence of the type of audio anomaly, the alert including a recommendation to turn on a reverb suppression technique or move a microphone closer to a target speaker. Schuldt et al teaches the concept of being able to determine anomalies caused by reverberation time by comparing the reverberation time with a reverberation time threshold (Schuldt et al, col. 6, lines 4-21: reverb time is selected from the Markush language). Since Sheaffer et al teaches that its system aims to detect microphone anomalies that include reverberation (para 0004: reverberation obscuring) and suppress said detected reverberation (para 0076: canceled reverberation: wherein reverb suppression is selected from the Markush language) or recommending the moving the microphone closer or further away (claim 17; para 0006: audio input device can be a microphone), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the Sheaffer et al system to determine the reverb time by comparing to a reverb threshold and compensate for said reverb time as taught in Schuldt et al for the purpose of detecting and compensating for reverb time decays within the system.
Claim 21 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sheaffer et al, US Patent Pub. 20200105291 A1, in view of Bonner et al, US Patent 10045111 B1.
Re Claim 21, Sheaffer et al discloses one or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more computing devices, cause performance of a method of real-time monitoring of user-generated audio content for audio anomalies (paras 0058-0061: system able to detect multiple audio signals that may negatively affect the perceptual quality of microphone recorded audio signal interpreted as audio anomalies; abstract: system able to detect audio impairments), the method comprising: receiving, in real time, audio data generated by an earbud (paras 0058-0061: system able to detect multiple audio signals that may negatively affect the perceptual quality of microphone recorded audio signal interpreted as audio anomalies; abstract: system able to detect audio impairments); detecting, in real time, from the audio data a start of an occurrence of a type of audio anomaly of multiple types of audio anomalies (paras 0058-0061: system able to detect multiple audio signals that may negatively affect the perceptual quality of microphone recorded audio signal interpreted as audio anomalies; abstract: system able to detect audio impairments), and transmitting, in real time, an alert of the occurrence to the mobile device, the alert bringing attention to or describing the occurrence of the type of audio anomaly (para 0065: audio alerts such as warning tones can be communicated to an external wearable device coupled to the electronic device to alert the user of the detected audio impairment); but fails to disclose wherein the type of audio anomaly is a misplacement of the earbud, and the detecting includes determining that the earbud has dropped or is moving. However, Bonner et al discloses a system that teaches the concept of being able to determine when an ear mounted device such as headphone/earphone/earset/hearing aid are don or doff from a user’s ear, wherein components of the headphone/earphone/earset/hearing device, including microphone function, are adjusted accordingly based on donn/doff status (Bonner et al, col. 6, lines 11-33: when the ear mounted device is don or mounted on the wearer’s ear, the device adjusts it’s functions accordingly including activating one or more microphones; col. 7, lines 55-64: when the ear mounted device is doff or falling off the wearer’s ear, the device adjusts it’s functions accordingly including deactivating one or more microphones). It would have been obvious to modify the Sheaffer et al system such that it can also determine a microphone anomaly based on if the ear mounted hearing device is mounted on a wearer’s ear or has fallen off the wearer’s ear with the microphone being activated when mounted on wearer’s ear and deactivated when falling off wearer’s ear as taught in Bonner et al for the purpose of further alerting the wearer to microphone anomalies caused by the microphone mounted hearing device falling off the wearer’s ears.
Claim 23 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sheaffer et al, US Patent Pub. 20200105291 A1, and Bonner et al, US Patent 10045111 B1, as applied to claim 21 above, and further in view of Bran et al, US Patent 11227481 B1.
Re Claim 23, the combined teachings of Sheaffer et al and Bonner et al disclose the method of claim 21, but fails to disclose further comprising determining with an accelerometer in the earbud that the earbud has been dropped or is moving. However, Bran et al teaches the concept of a donn/doff detector where an accelerometer can determine that a headset is being used based on the determine movement (Bran et al, col. 11, lines 25-35). It would have been obvious to modify the capacitive sensor of Bonner et al, as used to modify Sheaffer et al, to include an accelerometer as taught in Bran et al for the purpose of being able to determine movement of the headset.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claims 20 & 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Sheaffer et al, US Patent Pub. 20200105291 A1.
Re Claim 20, Sheaffer et al discloses one or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more computing devices, cause performance of a method of real-time monitoring of user-generated audio content for audio anomalies (paras 0058-0061: system able to detect multiple audio signals that may negatively affect the perceptual quality of microphone recorded audio signal interpreted as audio anomalies; abstract: system able to detect audio impairments), the method comprising: receiving, in real time, audio data generated by a mobile device (paras 0058-0061: system able to detect multiple audio signals that may negatively affect the perceptual quality of microphone recorded audio signal interpreted as audio anomalies; abstract: system able to detect audio impairments); detecting, in real time, from the audio data a start of an occurrence of a type of audio anomaly of multiple types of audio anomalies, wherein the type of audio anomaly is an environment anomaly (paras 0058-0061: system able to detect multiple audio signals that may negatively affect the perceptual quality of microphone recorded audio signal interpreted as audio anomalies; abstract: system able to detect audio impairments), and the detecting includes determining that a noise in the environment is due to an unexpected event (para 0024: noise in the environment includes wind-noise; para 0058: noises in the environment also include music, animal noises etc); and transmitting, in real time, an alert of the occurrence to the mobile device or another device, the alert bringing attention to or describing the occurrence of the type of audio anomaly (para 0065: audio alerts such as warning tones can be communicated to an external wearable device coupled to the electronic device to alert the user of the detected audio impairment), the alert including a recommendation to stop or suspend recording or move to a different location (claim 17: recommendation to move audio input device closer or further away; para 0006: audio input device can be a microphone; paras 0063: the system may guide used to select optimum solution to compensate for impairment by enabling communication with between the system and the user based on feedback options).
Re Claim 22, Sheaffer et al discloses one or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more computing devices, cause performance of a method of real-time monitoring of user-generated audio content for audio anomalies (paras 0058-0061: system able to detect multiple audio signals that may negatively affect the perceptual quality of microphone recorded audio signal interpreted as audio anomalies; abstract: system able to detect audio impairments), the method comprising: receiving, in real time, audio data generated by a mobile device (paras 0058-0061: system able to detect multiple audio signals that may negatively affect the perceptual quality of microphone recorded audio signal interpreted as audio anomalies; abstract: system able to detect audio impairments); detecting, in real time, from the audio data a start of an occurrence of a type of audio anomaly of multiple types of audio anomalies (paras 0058-0061: system able to detect multiple audio signals that may negatively affect the perceptual quality of microphone recorded audio signal interpreted as audio anomalies; abstract: system able to detect audio impairments), wherein the type of audio anomaly is a voice anomaly, and the detecting includes determining that a human voice is too low or too high (paras 0069-0070: speech intelligibility levels can be determined to be too high or too low; wherein said levels will be also impacted by voice levels); and transmitting, in real time, an alert of the occurrence to the mobile device or another device, the alert bringing attention to or describing the occurrence of the type of audio anomaly (para 0065: audio alerts such as warning tones can be communicated to an external wearable device coupled to the electronic device to alert the user of the detected audio impairment), the alert including a recommendation to move closer or further from a microphone of the mobile device (claim 17: recommendation to move audio input device closer or further away; para 0006: audio input device can be a microphone; paras 0063: the system may guide used to select optimum solution to compensate for impairment by enabling communication with between the system and the user based on feedback options).
Contact
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GEORGE C MONIKANG whose telephone number is (571)270-1190. The examiner can normally be reached Mon. - Fri., 9AM-5PM, ALT. Fridays off.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Carolyn R Edwards can be reached at 571-270-7136. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/GEORGE C MONIKANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2692 08/08/2026
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