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 .
This Office Action is in response to correspondence filed 04 February 2026 in reference to application 18/702,262. Claims 1, 2, 5-7, 9-14, 16-18, 22, 23, 26, and 27 have been amended.
Response to Amendment
The amendment filed 04 February 2026 has been accepted and considered in this office action. Claims 1, 14, 17, and 22 have been amended, and claims 4 and 15 cancelled.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 04 February 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues, see Remarks pages 9-13 that Oh fails to teach the claims as amended, specifically a “classification side information parameter indicating the classification manner”. The examiner respectfully disagrees. Applicant contends that the grouping information of Oh only indicates which object are grouped together. However Examiner notes that Oh states at paragraph 0065 “In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, grouping information may include information about a method by which the above-described object groups are formed. The audio signal decoder may perform object degrouping that reconstructs decoded object signal groups into original objects by referring to the transmitted grouping information.” The “Information about a method by which the object groups are formed” anticipates the claimed “classification side information parameter indicating the classification manner.” Therefore Oh teaches the limitations of the claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim(s) 1, 2, and 14, 16-17, 22, 23, 26, and 27 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oh et al. (US PAP 2015/0194158) in view of Eksler et al (US PAP 2022/0238127).
Consider claim 1, Oh teaches A method for encoding a signal, performed by an encoding end (abstract), comprising:
obtaining audio signals, wherein the audio signals comprise at least one object signal (Figure 5, input object signals OBJECT a-z);
obtaining an analysis result by performing signal feature analysis on the at least one object signal (0061-63, grouping audio object signals based on correlation, must analyze to determine correlation);
obtaining at least one object signal set by classifying, based on the analysis result, the at least one object signal, and determining a respective encoding mode corresponding to each object signal set based on a classification result, wherein the object signal set comprises one or more of the at least one object signal (figure 5, paragraph 0057, objects are grouped according to signal characteristics, and fed to separate encoders 520 and 540 based on the characteristics, 0062-63, different coding modes depending on how objects are grouped); and
obtaining at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information by encoding the one or more of the at least one object signal in each object signal set using the respective encoding mode (figure 5, paragraph 0057 objects coded and object parameters generated and sent to multiplexer ), writing the at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information to an encoding bitstream and sending the encoding bitstream to a decoding end (figure 5, paragraph 0057, object parameters are transmitted through the multiplexer and sent to decoder);
wherein writing the at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information to the encoding bitstream and sending the encoding bitstream to the decoding end comprises:
determining a classification side information parameter, wherein the classification side information parameter is configured to indicate a classification manner for object signals (0057-58, figure 5, grouping information generated by grouping unit 550 may be sent to decoder, 0065, grouping information may include information about how groups are formed);
determining a respective side information parameter corresponding to each object signal set (figure 5, paragraph 0057 objects coded and object parameters generated); and
obtaining the encoding bitstream by perform a bitstream multiplexing on the classification side information parameter, the respective side information parameter corresponding to each object signal set, and the at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information, and sending the encoding bitstream to the decoding end (Figure 5, paragraph 0057, object parameters and grouping information is transmitted through the multiplexer and sent to decoder).
Oh does not specifically teach, but Eksler teaches wherein the side information parameter is configured to indicate an encoding mode corresponding to the object signal set (0149, coding mode may be encoded in a flag).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to encode coding modes as taught by Eksler in the system of Oh in order to allow for decoder to properly decode the encoded audio signals.
Consider claim 2, Oh teaches The method of claim 1, but does not specifically teach: preprocessing the at least one object signal set;
wherein encoding the one or more of the at least one object signal in each object signal set using the respective encoding mode comprises:
encoding the one or more of at least one object signal in each object signal set after preprocessing using the respective encoding mode.
In the same field of object codding, Eksler teaches preprocessing the at least one object signal set (0042-43, preprocessing audio object signals);
wherein encoding the one or more of the at least one object signal in each object signal set using the respective encoding mode comprises:
encoding the one or more of at least one object signal in each object signal set after preprocessing using the respective encoding mode (figure 1, encoding at encoders 109 after preprocessing).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to preprocess the audio signals as taught by Eksler in the system of Oh in order to allow for the proper signal analysis to be completed in order to properly perform the coding (Eksler 0043).
Consider claim 14, Oh teaches a method for decoding a signal (abstract, figure 6), performed by a decoding end, comprising:
receiving an encoding bitstream sent by an encoding end (receiving bitstream into demux 610, para 0058);
obtaining at least one decoded object signal set by decoding the encoding bitstream (figure 6, 0058, decoding object signals into decoded objects);
performing bitstream parsing on the encoding bitstream to obtain a classification side information parameter, a respective side information parameter corresponding to each object signal set, and at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information (figure 6, 0058, demux extracts object parameters, as well as grouping signals, 0065, grouping information may include information about how groups are formed and may be used by decoder);
wherein the classification side information parameter is configured to indicate a classification manner for object signals (Figure 5, paragraph 0057, object parameters and grouping information is transmitted through the multiplexer and sent to decoder).
Oh does not specifically teach, but Eksler teaches the side information parameter is configured to indicate an encoding mode corresponding to the object signal set (0149, coding mode may be encoded in a flag).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to encode coding modes as taught by Eksler in the system of Oh in order to allow for decoder to properly decode the encoded audio signals.
Consider claim 16, Oh and Eksler teach the method of claim 15, wherein obtaining the at least one object signal set by decoding the encoding bitstream comprises:
determining a classification manner for the object signals based on the classification side information parameter (Oh, figure 5, 0058, grouping parameters );
determining a respective encoding mode corresponding to each encoded object signal parameter information based on the side information parameter (Oh 0058, parameters received for audio object decoding, Eksler 0149, coding mode may be encoded in a flag); and
decoding the at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information using respective decoding modes that are based on the classification manner for the object signals and the respective encoding modes corresponding to the at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information (0058, decoding audio objects using parameters provided by encoder)
Consider claim 17, Oh teaches The method of claim 16, wherein the classification side information parameter indicates that the classification manner for the object signals is classification based on an cross-correlation parameter value (0061-63, objects may be grouped based on correlations between objects); and
decoding the at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information using the respective decoding modes that are based on the classification manner for the object signals and the respective encoding modes corresponding to the at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information comprises:
obtaining at least one decoded object signal set by decoding the at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information using respective decoding modes with a same decoding kernel that are based on the encoding modes of the at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information (Figure 6, 0058 decoding signals initially with waveform decoder 620);
wherein the method further comprises: performing post-processing on the at least one decoded object signal set (Figure 8, 0076, rendering objects into audio channels).
Consider claim 22, Oh teaches A communication device, comprising a processor and a memory a having computer program stored thereon (0145, RAM ROM, computer systems), wherein when the processor executes the computer program, the device is configured to:
obtain audio signals, wherein the audio signals comprise at least one object signal (Figure 5, input object signals OBJECT a-z);
obtain an analysis result by performing signal feature analysis on the at least one object signal (0061-63, grouping audio object signals based on correlation, must analyze to determine correlation);
obtain at least one object signal set by classifying, based on the analysis result, the at least one object signal, and determining a respective encoding mode corresponding to each object signal set based on a classification result, wherein the object signal set comprises one or more of the at least one object signal (figure 5, paragraph 0057, objects are grouped according to signal characteristics, and fed to separate encoders 520 and 540 based on the characteristics, 0062-63, different coding modes depending on how objects are grouped); and
obtain at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information by encoding the one or more of the at least one object signal in each object signal set using the respective encoding mode (figure 5, paragraph 0057 objects coded and object parameters generated and sent to multiplexer ), writing the at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information to an encoding bitstream and sending the encoding bitstream to a decoding end (figure 5, paragraph 0057, object parameters are transmitted through the multiplexer and sent to decoder).
wherein the device is further configured to:
determine a classification side information parameter, wherein the classification side information parameter is configured to indicate a classification manner for object signals (0057-58, figure 5, grouping information generated by grouping unit 550 may be sent to decoder, 0065, grouping information may include information about how groups are formed);
determine a respective side information parameter corresponding to each object signal set (figure 5, paragraph 0057 objects coded and object parameters generated); and
obtain the encoding bitstream by perform a bitstream multiplexing on the classification side information parameter, the respective side information parameter corresponding to each object signal set, and the at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information, and sending the encoding bitstream to the decoding end (Figure 5, paragraph 0057, object parameters and grouping information is transmitted through the multiplexer and sent to decoder).
Oh does not specifically teach, but Eksler teaches wherein the side information parameter is configured to indicate an encoding mode corresponding to the object signal set (0149, coding mode may be encoded in a flag).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to encode coding modes as taught by Eksler in the system of Oh in order to allow for decoder to properly decode the encoded audio signals.
Consider claim 23, Oh teaches A communication device, comprising a processor and a memory having a computer program stored thereon, wherein when the processor executes the computer program, the device is caused to perform the method of claim 14 (0145, RAM ROM, computer systems, see rejection of claim 14).
Consider claim 26, Oh teaches A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, for storing instructions, wherein when the instructions are executed, the method of claim 1 is performed (0145, computer readable media, computer systems, see rejection of claim 1).
Consider claim 27, Oh teaches A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, for storing instructions, wherein when the instructions are executed, the method of claim 14 is performed (0145, computer readable media, computer systems, see rejection of claim 14).
Claim(s) 5, 7, 9, and 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oh and Eksler as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Johnston et al (US Patent 8,908,874).
Consider claim 5, Oh teaches the method of claim 1, wherein obtaining the analysis result by performing the signal feature analysis on the at least one object signal comprises:
performing a correlation analysis on the at least one object signal to determine cross-correlation parameter values between object signals (0061-63, correlation between signals, i.e. cross-correlation can be used to determine object groupings);
wherein the at least one object signal comprises two or more object signals (0061-63, correlation between signals, i.e. cross-correlation can be used to determine object groupings, also see 0057 and figure 5).
Oh and Eksler do not specifically teach performing a high-pass filtering process on the at least one object signal before further signal analysis.
In the same field of audio coding, Johnston teaches performing a high-pass filtering process on the at least one object signal before further signal analysis (col 13 lines 22-30, high pass filtering input signals).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to high pass the incoming signals as taught by Johnston in the system of Oh and Eksler in order to block unwanted components such as DC components (Johnston col 13 lines 22-30).
Consider claim 7, Oh teaches The method of claim 5, wherein the encoding mode corresponding to an object signal set comprises an independent encoding mode or a joint encoding mode (figure 5, 0057, audio objects are then jointly coded at waveform coder 560.);
wherein the independent encoding mode corresponds to a time domain processing manner or a frequency domain processing manner; (OPTIONAL LIMITATION AS INDENDPENDENT ENCODING MODE NOT REQUIRED DUE TO OR)
in response to each object signal in an object signal set being a speech signal or a speech- like signal, the independent encoding mode adopts the time domain processing manner (OPTIONAL LIMITATION AS INDENDPENDENT ENCODING MODE NOT REQUIRED DUE TO OR); or
in response to each object signal in an object signal set being an audio signal other than the speech signal and the speech-like signal, the independent encoding mode adopts the frequency domain processing manner (OPTIONAL LIMITATION AS INDENDPENDENT ENCODING MODE NOT REQUIRED DUE TO OR).
Consider claim 9, Oh teaches The method of claim 5, wherein encoding the one or more of the at least one object signal in each object signal set using the respective encoding mode comprises: encoding all of the at least one object signal set using respective encoding modes with a same encoding kernel (core coder 560, which may be AAC etc, see 0057.).
Consider claim 13, Oh teaches The method of claim 7, wherein encoding the one or more object signals in each object signal set using the respective encoding mode comprises: encoding different object signal sets using respective encoding modes with different encoding kernels (encoders 1 and 2, 520 and 540).
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oh and Eksler and Johnston as applied to claim 5 above, and further in view of Uhlich et al. (US PAP 2023/0164510).
Consider claim 6, Oh and Eksler and Johnston teach The method of claim 5, wherein obtaining the at least one object signal set by classifying the at least one object signal based on the analysis result, and determining the respective encoding mode corresponding to each object signal set based on the classification result comprises:
obtaining the at least one object signal set by classifying the at least one object signal based on the cross-correlation parameter values (Oh 0061-63, correlation between signals, i.e. cross-correlation can be used to determine object groupings)
determining the respective encoding mode based on a respective correlation degree corresponding to each of the at least one object signal set (Oh 0061-63, correlation between signals, i.e. cross-correlation can be used to determine object groupings).
Oh and Johnston do not specifically teach
setting normalized correlation degree intervals based on correlation degrees; and
calculating the cross-correlation parameter values between the object signals and the normalized correlation degree intervals.
In the same field of audio coding, Uhlich teaches setting normalized correlation degree intervals based on correlation degrees (0102,setting normalized correlation interval to -1 to 1); and
calculating the cross-correlation parameter values between the object signals and the normalized correlation degree intervals (0102, cross-correlation calculation bounded within normalized interval).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to use a normalized correlation as taught by Uhlich in the system of Oh and Johnston in order to provide a more accurate level of comparison between the audio objects.
Claim(s) 10-12 ad 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oh and Eksler as applied to claims 1 and 14 above, and further in view of Ishikawa et al (US PAP 2011/0182432).
Consider claim 10, Oh and Eksler teach the method of claim 1, but do not specifically teach wherein obtaining the analysis result by performing the signal feature analysis on the at least one object signal comprises: perform an analysis of a frequency band bandwidth range on the at least one object signal.
In the same field of object coding, Ishikawa teaches wherein obtaining the analysis result by performing the signal feature analysis on the at least one object signal comprises: perform an analysis of a frequency band bandwidth range on the at least one object signal (0088-90, time-frequency conversion to perform audio object classification. Figure 3, 0030-31, coding decision made on the basis if frequency segments, i.e. bands).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to use frequency based analysis as taught by Ishikawa in the system of Oh and Eksler in order to allow for a granular approach to coding, improving coding efficiency and reducing overall bitrates (Ishikawa 0030).
Consider claim 11, Ishikawa teaches The method of claim 10, wherein obtaining the at least one object signal set by classifying the at least one object signal based on the analysis result, and determining the respective encoding mode corresponding to each object signal set based on the classification result comprise:
determining bandwidth intervals corresponding to different frequency bandwidths (0088-90, time-frequency conversion to perform audio object classification. Figure 3, 0030-31, coding decision made on the basis if frequency segments, i.e. bands); and
obtaining the at least one object signal set by classifying the at least one object signal based on the frequency band bandwidth ranges of the at least one object signal and the bandwidth intervals corresponding to different frequency bandwidths, and determining the respective encoding mode based on the frequency bandwidths corresponding to the at least one object signal set (0088-90, time-frequency conversion to perform audio object classification. Figure 3, 0030-31, coding mode decision such as coding granularity made on the basis of frequency segments, i.e. bands).
Consider claim 12, Ishikawa teaches the method of claim 10, wherein obtaining the at least one object signal set by classifying the at least one object signal based on the analysis result, and determining the respective encoding mode corresponding to each object signal set based on the classification result comprise:
obtaining inputted command line control information, wherein the command line control information is configured to indicate a respective frequency band bandwidth range to be encoded corresponding to each object signal (0030-32, coding parameters are controlled based on the frequency segments); and
obtaining the at least one object signal set by classifying the at least one object signal based on the command line control information and the analysis result, and determining the respective encoding mode corresponding to each object signal set based on the classification result (088-90, time-frequency conversion to perform audio object classification. Figure 3, 0030-31, coding mode decision such as coding granularity made on the basis of frequency segments, i.e. bands).
Consider claim 18, Oh and Eksler teach the method of claim 16, wherein
decoding the at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information using the respective decoding modes that are based on the classification manner for the object signals and the respective encoding modes corresponding to the at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information comprises:
obtaining at least one decoded object signal set by decoding the at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information using respective decoding modes with different decoding kernels that are based on the encoding modes of the at least one piece of encoded object signal parameter information (Oh 0058, figure 8, using upmixer 1 and 2, 630 and 650, based on received parameters);
wherein the method further comprises: performing post-processing on the at least one decoded object signal set (Figure 8, 0076, rendering objects into audio channels).
Oh and Eksler do not specifically teach wherein the classification side information parameter indicates that the classification manner for the object signals is classification based on a frequency bandwidth range.
In the same field of object coding, Ishikawa teaches wherein the classification side information parameter indicates that the classification manner for the object signals is classification based on a frequency bandwidth range (0088-90, time-frequency conversion to perform audio object classification. Figure 3, 0030-31, coding decision made on the basis if frequency segments, i.e. bands).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to use frequency-based analysis as taught by Ishikawa in the system of Oh and Eksler in order to allow for a granular approach to coding, improving coding efficiency and reducing overall bitrates (Ishikawa 0030).
Conclusion
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.
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DOUGLAS GODBOLD
Examiner
Art Unit 2655
/DOUGLAS GODBOLD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2655