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 05 August 2024 in reference to application 18/835,764. Claims 1-12 are pending and have been examined.
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(s) 1-6, 9, 11, and 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nagisetty et al. (US PAP 2020/0357417) in view of Fotopoulou et al. (US PAP 20201/0012784).
Consider claim 1, Nagisetty teaches an encoding apparatus (abstract, figure 11), comprising:
control circuitry, which, in operation, determines, when determining that an input stereo signal is suitable for encoding using a mid-side stereo scheme, either conversion of the input stereo signal into a mid-side signal and application of first encoding or application of second encoding, depending on a condition (0137-40, determining whether to use mid-side encoder 204 or other encoders such as DM or DMA encoders based on stereo signal characteristics);
first encoding circuitry, which, in operation, encodes the mid-side signal when the first encoding is applied (mid-side encoder 204 used to encode M/S signal when appropriate); and
second encoding circuitry, which, in operation, encodes the input stereo signal in a frequency domain when the second encoding is applied (0137-40, selecting DM or DMA encoders when appropriate. 0076, DM or DMA coders may use EVS selection method to determine coding methods, which at 0032 include frequency domain coders such as MDCT coders).
Nagisetty does not specifically teach encoding the mid-side signal in a time domain.
In the same field of mid-side coders, Fotopoulou teaches encoding the mid-side signal in a time domain (0186, the Mid signal may be encoded using ACELP methods which is time domain).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to encode Mid/Side using ACLEP as taught by Fotopoulou in the system of Nagisetty in order to allow for a bitrate efficient coding mode for speech signals.
Consider claim 2, Nagisetty and Fotopoulou teach The encoding apparatus according to claim 1, wherein
the first encoding includes Code-Excited-Linear-Prediction (CELP) based encoding (Fotopoulou 0186, the Mid signal may be encoded using ACELP methods which is time domain), and
the second encoding includes Modified Discrete Cosine Transform (MDCT) based encoding (Nagisetty 0137-40, selecting DM or DMA encoders when appropriate. 0076, DM or DMA coders may use EVS selection method to determine coding methods, which at 0032 include frequency domain coders such as MDCT coders).
Consider claim 3, Fotopoulou teaches the encoding apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the first encoding is multi-mode encoding and further includes Modified Discrete Cosine Transform (MDCT) based encoding (0186-87, the Mid signal may be encoded using ACELP methods which is time domain. Side channel maybe use encoded in MDCT domain).
Consider claim 4, Nagisetty and Fotopoulou teach The encoding apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the condition is based on a type of the input stereo signal, and the control circuitry determines to apply the first encoding when the type is a speech signal (Nagisetty 0033, coding determinations may be based on whether input audio is speech, Fotopoulou 0186-87, the Mid signal coding method may be selected based on whether input audio is speech).
Consider claim 5, Fotopoulou teaches The encoding apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the condition is based on an inter-channel time difference between a left channel and a right channel in the input stereo signal (0136-38 determining inter-channel time differences), and
the control circuitry determines to apply the first encoding when the inter-channel time difference is within a threshold range. (0136-38 determining inter-channel time differences, 0182-84 Mid-side coding based on inter-channel time differences).
Consider claim 6, Nagisetty and Fotopoulou teach the encoding apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the condition is based on a correlation between a left channel and a right channel in the input stereo signal (0138, inter-channel correlation), and
the control circuitry determines to apply the first encoding when the correlation is greater than or equal to a threshold. (0138, inter-channel correlation threshold values used to determine whether to use M/S encoding).
Consider claim 9, Fotopoulou teaches the encoding apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising adjustment circuitry, which, in operation, performs adjustment processing of bringing an inter-channel time difference between a left channel and a right channel in the input stereo signal close to zero (0172, time aligning channel signals), wherein
the first encoding circuitry encodes the mid-side signal obtained by converting the input stereo signal after the inter-channel time difference is adjusted (0172, time aligning channel signals before M/S coding).
Consider claim 11, Nagisetty and Fotopoulou teach the encoding apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the control circuitry performs Modified Discrete Cosine Transform (MDCT) based encoding of the first encoding in a section adjacent to a section in which the second encoding is performed, among consecutive sections in which the first encoding is performed (Fotopoulou 0186-87, the Mid signal may be encoded using ACELP methods which is time domain. Side channel maybe use encoded in MDCT domain. this coding may be in adjacent frames to regular FEC coding taught at Nagisetty.).
Consider claim 12, Nagisetty teaches an encoding method (abstract, figure 11), comprising:
determining, by an encoding apparatus, when determining that an input stereo signal is suitable for encoding using a mid-side stereo scheme, either conversion of the input stereo signal into a mid-side signal and application of first encoding or application of second encoding, depending on a condition (0137-40, determining whether to use mid-side encoder 204 or other encoders such as DM or DMA encoders based on stereo signal characteristics);
encoding, by the encoding apparatus, the mid-side signal when the first encoding is applied (mid-side encoder 204 used to encode M/S signal when appropriate); and
encoding, by the encoding apparatus, the input stereo signal in a frequency domain when the second encoding is applied (0137-40, selecting DM or DMA encoders when appropriate. 0076, DM or DMA coders may use EVS selection method to determine coding methods, which at 0032 include frequency domain coders such as MDCT coders).
Nagisetty does not specifically teach encoding the mid-side signal in a time domain.
In the same field of mid-side coders, Fotopoulou teaches encoding the mid-side signal in a time domain (0186, the Mid signal may be encoded using ACELP methods which is time domain).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to encode Mid/Side using ACLEP as taught by Fotopoulou in the system of Nagisetty in order to allow for a bitrate efficient coding mode for speech signals.
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nagisetty and Fotopoulou as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Ojanpera (US PAP 2008/0130903).
Consider claim 7, Nagisetty and Fotopoulou teach The encoding apparatus according to claim 1, but do not specifically teach wherein the condition is based on a bit rate, and the control circuitry determines to apply the first encoding when the bit rate is less than or equal to a threshold.
In the same field of Mid/Side Coding, Ojanpera teaches wherein the condition is based on a bit rate, and the control circuitry determines to apply the first encoding when the bit rate is less than or equal to a threshold (using bitrate constraints to choose between M/S coding or L/R coding).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to use bitrate considerations as taught by Ojanpera in the system of Nagisetty and Fotopoulou in order to allow for improved quality of signals at lower bitrates (Ojanpera 0025).
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nagisetty and Fotopoulou as applied to claim 9 above, and further in view of Fatus et al. (US PAP 2019/0066701).
Consider claim 10, Nagisetty and Fotopoulou teach the encoding apparatus according to claim 9, but do not specifically teach wherein a range of adjustment for the inter-channel time difference is based on an angular resolution for reproducing a speech signal.
In the same field of calculating inter-channel time differences, Fatus teaches wherein a range of adjustment for the inter-channel time difference is based on an angular resolution for reproducing a speech signal (0183, calculated inter-channel time differences are dependent on angular resolution used to measure them).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of effective filing to consider angular resolution as taught by Fatus in the system of Nagisetty and Fotopoulou in order to accurately compensate for time differences in the signal.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 8 is 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.
Consider claim 8, Nagisetty and Fotopoulou teach the encoding apparatus according to claim 1, but do not specifically teach “wherein the determination is based on whether a percentage of bands determined to use the mid-side stereo scheme among a plurality of bands of a frequency spectrum of the input stereo signal is greater than or equal to a threshold, or whether the mid-side stereo scheme is determined to be used in all of the plurality of bands” when combined with each and every other limitation of the claim and base claim. Notably, while selecting mid/side coding for each band separately is generally known, using a threshold percentage of bands to determine to encode all band using m/s coding is not. Therefore claim 8 contains allowable subject matter.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Disch et al. (US 2017/0365263) provides general background on Mid/side coding.
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DOUGLAS GODBOLD
Examiner
Art Unit 2655
/DOUGLAS GODBOLD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2655