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 .
Allowable Subject Matter
1. Claims 2-5, 8-11, 13-15 and 18-20 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
2.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.
3.Claim(s) 1, 6, 12 and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mani et al. (US 10375251).
Regarding claims 1 and 12, Mani discloses a device, comprising: one or more processors (Col.7 lines 12-15 and fig.3, 301: Mani discusses how a system implemented by a processor), any of the one or more processors configured to: determine whether a conferencing session is in a far end single talk condition , based on a microphone signal and a filtered remote audio signal (Col.2 lines 39-44 and Col.2 lines 22-24: Mani discusses a single talk discriminator to determine whether the microphone signal is indicative of a single talk (i.e. to determine a single a single talk condition); Mani also discusses how the echo canceller may comprise an adaptive filter (i.e. to filtered remote audio signal) to generate an estimate of the echo from the second far-end signal); and based on the conferencing session being determined to be in the far end single talk condition (Col.2 lines 39-44), set a threshold of a non-linear processor to be a predetermined amount above a ratio between a level of the microphone signal and a level of the filtered remote audio signal (Col.2 lines 13-60, Col.3 lines 35-40 and Col.7 lines 48-51: Mani discusses how the single talk discriminator compare the first ratio with a first predetermined threshold, and determine that the microphone signal is indicative of a single talk if the first ratio is above the first predetermined threshold; and how the system attenuating at least one of the microphone signal and the far-end signal to output a second microphone signal).
Mani discloses the invention set forth above but does not specifically mentioning “a conferencing session” Mani however discloses a start of a communication using a communication devices; and communication between far-end and near-end devices using teleconferencing equipment (Mani: Col.2 lines 9-11, Col.6 lines 65-67 and fig.1a). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to interpret the communication between two end devices as “a conferencing session” as disclosed by Mani, thus improve a method for tuning an acoustic echo canceller, as teach by Mani
Considering claims 6 and 16, Mani further discloses the device of claims 1 and 12, where any of the one or more processors is further configured to: determine whether the conferencing session is in a doubletalk condition, based on the microphone signal and the filtered remote audio signal (Col.7 lines 19-55: adaptive filter detecting double talk from microphone signal); and based on the conferencing session being determined to be in the doubletalk condition, set the threshold of the non-linear processor to a predetermined value (Col.6 lines 46-52 and Col.7 lines 44-55).
4. Claim(s) 7 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mani et al. (US 10375251) in view of Sconza et al. (US 20230065067).
Considering claims 7 and 17, Mani fail to disclose claims 7 and 17. Sconza however discloses the method of claims 7 and 17, wherein any of the one or more processors is configured to set the threshold of the non-linear processor by setting the threshold of the non-linear processor to be the predetermined value of no greater than 1 dB (abstract lines 3-7: Sconza discusses how the communication between a loudspeaker and the non-linear processor can be utilized to adjust the threshold of the non-linear processor , i.e. it would have been obvious to adjust the threshold value to any value including a value no greater than 1dB).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the invention of Mani, and modify a system wherein any of the one or more processors is configured to set the threshold of the non-linear processor by setting the threshold of the non-linear processor to be the predetermined value of no greater than 1 dB, as taught by Sconza, thus improves the removal of residual echo by the non-linear processor through use of the acoustic echo cancellation system and the non-linear processor systems, and enhances the overall acoustic echo cancellation performance, as discussed by Sconza.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YOSEF K LAEKEMARIAM whose telephone number is (571)270-5149. The examiner can normally be reached 9:30-6:30 M-F.
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YOSEF K. LAEKEMARIAM
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2651
/YOSEF K LAEKEMARIAM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2691
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