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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
1. 35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 8 recites a computer-readable medium. The broadest reasonable interpretation of the claims drawn to a computer readable medium typically covers forms of non-transitory tangible medium and transitory propagating signals per se in view of the ordinary and customary meaning of computer readable medium. See MPEP 2111.01. When the broadest reasonable interpretation of claims covers a signal per se, the claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as covering non-statutory subject matter. Suggestion is to amend to narrow the claim to cover only statutory embodiments by adding the limitation “non-transitory” to the claims. For example, a non-transitory tangible computer readable medium.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
2. In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
3. Claims 1, 4, 8, 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by submitted prior art Bucher et al. (2019/0198037).
As to claim 1, Bucher teaches a method of operating a hearing aid system with adaptive feedback cancellation ([0001-0002]) comprising the steps of:
determining at least one feedback path change measure ([0050] - detecting whether a change has occurred in the external acoustic feedback path 300, [0052] - measuring a difference D between the same reference estimated feedback path transfer function 11 and first estimated feedback path transfer function 8) based on at least one characteristic of an adaptive feedback cancellation filter ([0050-0051] - comparing the reference estimated feedback path transfer function 11 with the first estimated feedback path transfer function 8; and controlling the adaptive filter element 6 and the frequency shift unit 7, based on the above comparison between said reference estimated feedback path transfer function 11 and the first estimated feedback path transfer function 8);
carrying out, based on said at least one feedback path change measure, at least one of: controlling adaptation speed of said adaptive feedback cancellation filter and applying decorrelation ([0051] - controlling the adaptive filter element 6 and the frequency shift unit 7, based on the above comparison between said reference estimated feedback path transfer function 11 and the first estimated feedback path transfer function 8; [0056] - decreasing the adaptation rate, i.e. by progressively fading out the step size determining the rate of convergence of the adaptation algorithm; [0044] - the de-correlation action of the frequency shift unit 7; [0026] - controls an adaptation of a feedback cancellation system in way that memory-intensive calculations).
As to claim 4, Bucher teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein the decorrelation is applied using at least one of: adding a probe noise signal, providing spectral substitution, providing spectral replication, and providing de-correlation of an output signal in the form of a frequency shift or a phase shift of said output signal ([0044] - continuous adaptation of the feedback canceller unit 5 for achieving a precise, punctual compensation of the feedback sound fb—as well as the de-correlation action of the frequency shift unit 7).
Claim 8 is rejected for the same reasons discussed above with respect to claim 1. Furthermore, Bucher teaches a computer readable medium comprising instructions executed by a computer (signal processing unit; [0033] - operations executed on the digital signal in a respective path portion; [0068] - operations will be in fact executed only on the magnitude values |Y (m, k)| of the output spectrum Y (m, k) extracted every 4-th frequency bin).
As to claim 9, Bucher teaches a hearing aid system comprising a feedback path change measure unit ([0050] - a comparison unit 12) and a change measure controller ([0051] - controlling the adaptive filter element 6 and the frequency shift unit 7), wherein said feedback path change measure unit ([0050] - a comparison unit 12) is adapted to determine a feedback path change measure ([0050] - detecting whether a change has occurred in the external acoustic feedback path 300, [0052] - measuring a difference D between the same reference estimated feedback path transfer function 11 and first estimated feedback path transfer function 8) based on at least one characteristic of an adaptive feedback cancellation filter ([0050-0051] - comparing the reference estimated feedback path transfer function 11 with the first estimated feedback path transfer function 8; and controlling the adaptive filter element 6 and the frequency shift unit 7, based on the above comparison between said reference estimated feedback path transfer function 11 and the first estimated feedback path transfer function 8) and wherein said change measure controller ([0051] - controlling the adaptive filter element 6 and the frequency shift unit 7) is adapted to at least one of controlling adaptation speed of an adaptive feedback cancellation filter and applying decorrelation ([0051] - controlling the adaptive filter element 6 and the frequency shift unit 7, based on the above comparison between said reference estimated feedback path transfer function 11 and the first estimated feedback path transfer function 8; [0056] - decreasing the adaptation rate, i.e. by progressively fading out the step size determining the rate of convergence of the adaptation algorithm; [0044] - the de-correlation action of the frequency shift unit 7; [0026] - controls an adaptation of a feedback cancellation system in way that memory-intensive calculations).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
4. In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
5. Claims 2-3, 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bucher et al. (2019/0198037) in view of Miran et al. (2024/0298121).
As to claims 2 and 10, Bucher teaches the method according claim 1 and the hearing aid system according claim 9, further comprises: determining feedback path change measure ([0050] - detecting whether a change has occurred in the external acoustic feedback path 300, [0052] - measuring a difference D between the same reference estimated feedback path transfer function 11 and first estimated feedback path transfer function 8) based on at least one characteristic of an adaptive feedback cancellation filter ([0050-0051] - comparing the reference estimated feedback path transfer function 11 with the first estimated feedback path transfer function 8; and controlling the adaptive filter element 6 and the frequency shift unit 7, based on the above comparison between said reference estimated feedback path transfer function 11 and the first estimated feedback path transfer function 8). Bucher does not explicitly discuss combining the first and second feedback path change measures and hereby providing an improved feedback path change measure based on at least two characteristics of the adaptive feedback cancellation filter.
Miran teaches determining a first feedback path change measure ([0002-0004] - determine a change in a feedback path based on the motion signal. The processor causes the adaptive filter to have faster adaption in response to the change in the feedback path is above a first threshold. The processor also causes the adaptive filter to have slower adaption in response to the change in the feedback path being below a second threshold) based on a time domain characteristic of the adaptive feedback cancellation filter ([0051] - A decoder 622 learns a mapping (linear or non-linear) from the current and previous samples of the motion signals 620 over time interval 626 to predict the current status of the feedback path change), determining a second feedback path change measure ([0002-0004] - determine a change in a feedback path based on the motion signal. The processor causes the adaptive filter to have faster adaption in response to the change in the feedback path is above a first threshold. The processor also causes the adaptive filter to have slower adaption in response to the change in the feedback path being below a second threshold) based on a time domain characteristic of the adaptive feedback cancellation filter ([0051] - A decoder 622 learns a mapping (linear or non-linear) from the current and previous samples of the motion signals 620 over time interval 626 to predict the current status of the feedback path change), and combining the first and second feedback path change measures and hereby providing an improved feedback path change measure based on at least two characteristics of the adaptive feedback cancellation filter ([0089] - the adaptive feedback canceller comprises a second adaptive filter, a first output of the adaptive filter being combined with a second output of the second adaptive filter to form the feedback cancellation signal, and wherein a mixing weight applied to the adaptive filter and the second adaptive filter is changed in response to determining the change in the feedback path exceeds the first threshold; [0075] - determined 1003 that the change in the feedback path is above a first threshold, then a first mixing weight of the first and second adaptive filters is set 1004 in response. The first mixing weight causes the combined output of the first and second adaptive filters to have a faster adaptation to feedback perturbations compared to a second mixing weight. If it is determined 1005 that the change in the feedback path is below a second threshold, then, the second mixing weight is set 1006 in response. A combined output of the first and second adaptive filters is inserted 1004 into the digitized input signal to cancel feedback).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Miran into the teachings of Bucher for the purpose of applying mixing weight to the adaptive filter and the second adaptive filter in response to determining the change in the feedback path exceeds the thresholds.
As to claim 3, Bucher teaches the method according claim 2 further comprising using the feedback path change measure based on a frequency domain characteristics ([0059] - a reference estimated feedback path transfer function 11, for each frequency bin k sampled in a frequency-domain representation of a spectrum of the feedback path transfer functions 8, 11) of the adaptive feedback cancellation filter ([0050] - detecting whether a change has occurred in the external acoustic feedback path 300, [0052] - measuring a difference D between the same reference estimated feedback path transfer function 11 and first estimated feedback path transfer function 8) based on at least one characteristic of an adaptive feedback cancellation filter ([0050-0051] - comparing the reference estimated feedback path transfer function 11 with the first estimated feedback path transfer function 8; and controlling the adaptive filter element 6 and the frequency shift unit 7, based on the above comparison between said reference estimated feedback path transfer function 11 and the first estimated feedback path transfer function 8) to determine a frequency range wherein to apply de-correlation ([0044] - continuous adaptation of the feedback canceller unit 5 for achieving a precise, punctual compensation of the feedback sound fb—as well as the de-correlation action of the frequency shift unit 7).
Allowable Subject Matter
6. Claims 5, 6, 7 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
7. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to QUYNH H NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-7489. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 7:30AM-5:30PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ahmad Matar can be reached on 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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/QUYNH H NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2693
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