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 .
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 1-4, 6-14, 16 and -20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by 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).
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.”).
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, active processes 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, Woong discloses further comprising determining, by the hearing device, whether to pause one or more active processes 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 8, Woong discloses further comprising stopping or pausing an audio streaming when the scanning for the advertisements begins (page 0010 - When receiving the playback interruption instruction, the mobile terminal sends a playback pause instruction to the Bluetooth headset, so that the Bluetooth headset pauses the playback of the target audio stream;”).
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 claims 11, 22, and 23, 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.
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 5,15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable Woong et al. (CN 115002273A) in 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 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 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.
Conclusion
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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/NAFIZ E HOQUE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2693