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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-21 have been considered but are moot because in view of the new grounds of rejection. Claims 24-25 have been objected to.
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.
Claims 1-4, 6-14, and 16-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable Woong et al. (CN 115002273A – the original Chinese language version was supplied by Applicant and Examiner will use the translated version for citations. The corresponding paragraphs are matched to the Chinese version) in view of Diepstraten et al. (US Pante 5,991,287).
Regarding claim 1, Woong discloses a method performed by a hearing device configured to be worn at an ear of a user (para 0055 – “The Bluetooth headset 103 is a headset that supports the LE Audio protocol”), the method comprising:
scanning, by the hearing device, for advertisements of available broadcasted audio streams and an associated audio streaming protocol, to obtain broadcast information, wherein the broadcast information comprises data associated with the available broadcasted audio streams (see para 0068 – “the Bluetooth headset 103
scans the surrounding extended broadcast (Extend Advertising, EA) sent by the audio sharing source 101 based on the Broadcast Audio Scan Service (BASS) in the LE Audio protocol.) ”);
transmitting, by the hearing device, the broadcast information to an assistant device (see para 0075 – “The Bluetooth headset sends the second data to the mobile terminal;”);
receiving, by the hearing device, user-selection information transmitted by the assistant device, the user-selection information indicating a user section of one of the broadcasted audio streams, the one of the broadcasted audio streams being a user-selected audio stream (para 0080 - various pieces of second data are presented on the
user interface (User Interface, UI) of the application program. The user selects an interested audio stream flag from each piece of second data, and clicks the second data on the UI. The audio stream flag corresponding to the second data determined by the user's click is the target audio stream flag. In other words, the user's mobile phone determines the first data based on the user's click content.”); and providing, by the hearing device, the user-selected audio stream for the user (para 0090 – “the user selects the interested audio stream flag on the application UI of the mobile phone, which is equivalent to selecting the EA corresponding to a certain audio sharing source 101 . According to the LE Audio protocol, EA will point to the BIS corresponding to the PA. Each PA will correspond to a PA ID (that is, a periodic broadcast ID). The mobile phone sends the PA ID to the Bluetooth headset 103 as a target audio stream identifier.”).
Woong does not disclose wherein the method further comprises stopping or pausing an active process running on the hearing device when the hearing device is scanning for the advertisements of the available broadcasted audio streams.
Diepstraten discloses wherein the method further comprises stopping or pausing an active process running on the hearing device when the hearing device is scanning for the advertisements of the available broadcasted audio streams ( see abstract; col. 5, lines 54-col. 6, line 11 – when the device is about to scan, it sends a null signal to suspends data transmission and resumes to the active process and receives the buffered data; col. 2 , lines 30-32 –“ Transmission of the data may be Suspended only during the Scanning period, or may extend to beyond the Scanning period.”; also see fig. 4, element 403, 404, 405).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Woong with the teachings of Diepstraten in order to prevent loss of data during the scanning period. In a single antenna device, it cannot simultaneously maintain an active process and scan for broadcast advertisement at the same time. Therefore, pausing current process is necessary while scanning.
Regarding claim 2, Woong discloses wherein the hearing device is communicatively connected with the assistant device via a wired and/or a wireless connection (See Summary of the Invention section, page 1 – related to Bluetooth connection, also see para 0055 – “the application program interacts with the Bluetooth headset 103 through a generic attribute protocol (Generic Attribute Profile, GATT). After the mobile terminal 102 is connected with the Bluetooth headset 103 through GATT, the user can control the Bluetooth headset 103 by using the control instructions provided on the display interface of the application. It should be noted that the specific process of the interaction between the mobile terminal 102 and the Bluetooth headset 103 based on the GATT protocol is well known in the art, and this application will not describe it too much. It can be understood that the above-mentioned communication between the mobile terminal 102 and the Bluetooth headset 103 based on the GATT protocol is only a specific implementation provided by the embodiments of the present application, and other protocols may also be used for communication between the mobile terminal 102 and the Bluetooth headset 103, such as Bluetooth Serial Port Profile”).
Regarding claim 3, Woong discloses wherein a communicative connection between the hearing device and the assistant device is maintained during the scanning for the advertisements (see page 7 – S201-S204 steps requiring a maintained connection; also see para 0055).
Regarding claim 4, Woong discloses wherein the scanning for the advertisements is performed for a scan duration (see page 7, S204- “S202: When the Bluetooth headset receives the scan instruction, scan the audio stream flag sent by the audio”).
Regarding claim 6, Woong discloses further comprising determining, by the hearing device, the active process running on the hearing device (see page 11 – “When receiving the playback interruption instruction, the mobile terminal sends a playback pause instruction to the Bluetooth headset, and after receiving the playback pause instruction, the Bluetooth headset pauses playback of the target audio stream” and see page 11 – “when the mobile terminal has an incoming call, playback of the target audio stream is paused, and the mobile terminal will buffer the user's previous operation of selecting the audio stream. After the incoming call ends, the Bluetooth headset is controlled to directly play the target audio stream selected by the user before the incoming call according to the user's previous operation of selecting an audio stream”).
Regarding claim 7, Diepstraten discloses further comprising determining, by the hearing device, whether to stop or pause the active process running on the hearing device ( see abstract; col. 5, lines 54-col. 6, line 11 – when the device is about to scan, it sends a null signal to suspends data transmission and resumes to the active process and receives the buffered data; col. 2 , lines 30-32 –“ Transmission of the data may be Suspended only during the Scanning period, or may extend to beyond the Scanning period.”; also see fig. 4, element 403, 404, 405).
Regarding claim 8, Diepstraten discloses further comprising wherein the active process that is stopped or paused when during the scanning for advertisement comprses an audio streaming ( see abstract; col. 5, lines 54-col. 6, line 11 – when the device is about to scan, it sends a null signal to suspends data transmission and resumes to the active process and receives the buffered data; col. 2 , lines 30-32 –“ Transmission of the data may be Suspended only during the Scanning period, or may extend to beyond the Scanning period.”; also see fig. 4, element 403, 404, 405).
Regarding claim 9, Woong discloses further comprising receiving a scan request from the assistant device, wherein the scanning for the advertisements is performed in response to the scan request (see page 1 – “The method includes: sending a scan instruction to the Bluetooth headset , so that the bluetooth headset scans the audio stream flag sent by the audio sharing source based on the LE Audio protocol according to the scanning instruction, and obtains the target audio stream from the audio sharing source according to the first data based on the LE Audio protocol, and plays the target audio stream.” And see page 7 – S201-S204).
Regarding claim 10, Woong discloses wherein the scanning for the advertisements is initiated in response to a user interaction with the hearing device or with the assistant device (see page 7 – S201-S204).
Regarding claim 11, see rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claim 12, see rejection of claim 3.
Regarding claim 13-14, see rejection of claim 4 (also inherent in Bluetooth standard).
Regarding claim 16, see rejection of claim 9.
Regarding claim 17, see rejection of claim 10.
Regarding claim 18, see rejection of claim 6.
Regarding claim 19, see rejection of claim 7.
Regarding claim 20, see rejection of claim 8.
Regarding claim 21, see rejection of claim 10.
Claims 5 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable Woong et al. (CN 115002273A) in view of Diepstraten et al. (US Pante 5,991,287) and in further view of Gong, Jinhua (US Pub 2022/0330000).
Regarding claim 5, Woong discloses a method performed by a hearing device configured to be worn at an ear of a user.
Woong in view of Diepstraten does not disclose wherein the scan duration is set by the user interacting with the assistant device or with the hearing device.
Gong discloses wherein the scan duration is set by the user interacting with the assistant device or with the hearing device (para 0030-0031, 0044, 0107).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Woong in view of Diepstraten with the teachings of Gong in order to make it more user friendly by meeting different requirements of a user for connection speed and transmission stability in different usage scenarios (Gong, para 0004).
Regarding claim 15, see rejection of claim 5.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 24-25 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.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NAFIZ E HOQUE whose telephone number is (571)270-1811. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ahmad Matar can be reached at (571)272-7488. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/NAFIZ E HOQUE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2693
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