DETAILED ACTION
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.
Claim 1, 3-6 and 8-9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim US PG-Pub 2025/0058629 in view of Sun US PG-Pub 2024/0098414.
Regarding claim 1, 8-9, Kim teaches a signal input module, configured to obtain at least one interaction signal collected or output by an automobile system (Fig. 4-S410 & [0048] & [0060]: sensing device-120 obtain vehicle information like an interaction signal of the accelerator pedal for acceleration mode and deceleration mode); a signal processing module, configured to perform data stream conversion on each interaction signal to obtain a corresponding pending signal (Fig. 4-S430,S440 & [0062] & [0090] & [0099]: converting the acceleration and deceleration interactions into an acceleration pending signal and deceleration pending signal in which both consist of multiple audio signals with different features like volume, timbre and time delays that will go into each different loudspeaker); a driving module, configured to output, through at least one feedback output channel, a driving signal for driving vibration and/or sound of an actuator mounted on an automobile seat according to the multiple audio signal (Fig. 4-S460,S470 & [0105]: control device-150 will output the audio and vibration signal to the loudspeakers and actuator, which is output through the a vehicle CAN interface to reach the sound playback controller which has the power to drive the loudspeaker and actuators); and an execution module, configured to drive the vibration and/or sound of the actuator according to the driving signal output by each individual feedback output channel, wherein the actuator is at least one of a vibration motor and a speaker (Fig. 4-S460,S470 & [0093] & [0094]: control device-150 will output the audio and vibration signal to the loudspeakers-130 and actuator-140 that are on the vehicle seat to play audio sound and vibration signal having to do with the audio sound).
Kim failed to explicitly teach a multi-channel data processing module, configured to preprocess the pending signal according to a preset signal processing method to obtain a multi-channel signal.
However, Sun teaches a multi-channel data processing module, configured to preprocess audio signal according to a preset signal processing method to obtain a multi-channel signal ([0028]: having sound sources and preprocess them according to preset distribution principle to obtain car multi-channel surround sound playback signal).
Kim and Sun are analogous art because they are both in the same field of endeavor, namely vehicle audio. Therefore, 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, because having preset distribution for audio which will give you multi-channel signals, helps to effectively improve the overall acoustic experience as Sun teaches at the end of [0028].
Regarding claim 3, Kim teaches allocate the pending signal corresponding to the interaction signal to different signal channels according to preset interactive scenarios corresponding to different interaction signals (Fig. 4-S430,S440 & [0062] & [0090] & [0099]: converting the acceleration and deceleration interactions into an acceleration pending signal and deceleration pending signal in which both consist of multiple audio signals with different features like volume, timbre and time delays that will go into each different loudspeakers [which can be consider channels]).
Kim failed to teach obtain the multi-channel signal.
However, Sun teaches obtain a multi-channel signal ([0028]: having sound sources and preprocess them according to preset distribution principle to obtain car multi-channel surround sound playback signal).
Kim and Sun are analogous art because they are both in the same field of endeavor, namely vehicle audio. Therefore, 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, because having preset distribution for audio which will give you multi-channel signals, helps to effectively improve the overall acoustic experience as Sun teaches at the end of [0028].
Regarding claim 4, Kim teaches wherein each of the signal channels corresponds to at least one of the feedback output channels, and each of the feedback output channels corresponds to an individual actuator of the automobile seat (Fig. 4-S460,S470 & [0105]: control device-150 will output the audio and vibration signal to the loudspeakers and actuator, which is output through the a vehicle CAN interface to reach the sound playback controller which has the power to drive the individual loudspeaker and individual actuators).
Regarding claim 5, the combination teaches wherein the driving module is further configured to: perform amplification processing on the driving signal according to vibration acoustic characteristics of the automobile seat (Kim, [0049] & [0056]: the control device-150 can be a digital signal processor and amplifier to amplify audio signals).
The combination failed to teach digital amplification. However, the use of digital amplifier is an alternate equivalent way to amplify signals, as it is well known in the audio art. Therefore, 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.
Regarding claim 6, Kim teaches wherein the preset signal processing method comprises at least one of signal sampling, signal encoding and decoding, signal noise reduction, signal filtering, and calling from a preset database according to signal type ([0050] & [0056]: the control device-150 can be a digital signal processor, so when processing the signal it must be sample to digital form).
Claim 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim US PG-Pub 2025/0058629 in combination with Sun US PG-Pub 2024/0098414 in view of Lee US PG-Pub 2019/0111839.
Regarding claim 2, the combination teaches each of the signals having different features is used as a interaction signal to perform data stream conversion processing (Kim, Fig. 4-S430,S440 & [0062] & [0090] & [0099]: converting the acceleration and deceleration interactions into an acceleration pending signal and deceleration pending signal in which both consist of multiple audio signals with different features like volume, timbre and time delays that will go into each different loudspeaker).
The combination failed to teach identify and analyze the interaction signal by using a preset machine learning algorithm, and separate a single interaction signal into a plurality of signals having different features.
However, Lee teaches identify and analyze the interaction signal by using a preset machine learning algorithm, and separate a single interaction signal into a plurality of signals having different features (Fig. 3 & [0040]: for different interaction signal like driving mode-21, the machine learning will determine different signals having different features like volume, sound pressure or sound color is needed and outputting it through loudspeakers).
The combination and Lee are analogous art because they are both in the same field of endeavor, namely vehicle audio. Therefore, 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, because using machine learning is an alternate equivalent way to analyze information to determine different features.
Claim 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim US PG-Pub 2025/0058629 in combination with Sun US PG-Pub 2024/0098414 in view of Lee US PG-Pub 2019/0111839 and further in view of Gurvich US PG-Pub 2019/0303725.
Regarding claim 7, the combination teaches wherein the preset machine learning algorithm comprises at least one of a sound feature extraction (Lee, Fig. 3 & [0040]: for different interaction signal like driving mode-21, the machine learning will determine different signals having different features like volume, sound pressure or sound color is needed and outputting it through loudspeakers).
However, the combination failed to explicitly teach at least one of a sound feature extraction and classification algorithm, an image feature extraction and classification algorithm, a sound-based supervised and unsupervised machine learning algorithm, and an image-based supervised and unsupervised machine learning algorithm.
However, Gurvich teaches at least one of a sound feature extraction and classification algorithm, an image feature extraction and classification algorithm, a sound-based supervised and unsupervised machine learning algorithm, and an image-based supervised and unsupervised machine learning algorithm ([0069]: you can use machine learning to do feature extraction and classification using supervised and unsupervised learning for sound and image).
The combination and Gurvich are analogous art because they are both in the same field of endeavor, namely machine learning. Therefore, 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, because machine learning is an alternate equivalent way to analyze data.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WILLIAM A JEREZ LORA whose telephone number is (571)270-5519. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7am-9am and 11am-6pm.
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/WILLIAM A JEREZ LORA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2695