DETAILED ACTION
In the response to this office action, the examiner respectfully requests that support be shown for language added to any original claims on amendment and any new claims. That is, indicate support for newly added claim language by specifically pointing to page(s) and line numbers in the specification and/or drawing figure(s). This will assist the examiner in prosecuting this application.
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 Objections
Claim 6, 7, 13, 14, and 20 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 6 states “the first audio frame and the second audio frame” which should be “the first audio frame and the at least two second audio frames” to match the wording of claim 1.
Claims 13 and 20 are objected in an analogous manner.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claim(s) 1-2, 8-9, and 15-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Chu et al. (US 20040032796 A1).
Regarding claim 8, Chu discloses an electronic device (see figure 1B for block diagram, 1A, 2A, and 2B for physical embodiments) comprising:
one or more processors (160 of figure 1B); and
a memory (155) coupled to the one or more processors, the memory storing programs that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause performance of operations (paragraph [0022]) comprising:
obtaining a first audio frame and at least two second audio frames that are to be compared (Chu calls them blocks, 640 samples, paragraph [0023]), wherein the first audio frame and the at least two second audio frames are synchronously sampled (paragraph [0022]), the first audio frame is obtained by processing sound signals collected by the first microphone, the at least two second audio frames are obtained by processing sound signals collected by the second microphones (paragraph [0022]), and the first microphone is a reference microphone (see middle microphone of figure 1A);
calculating a time delay estimation between the first audio frame and each of the at least two second audio frames (see abstract, paragraphs [0008], [0020] and [0040]); and
determining a sound source orientation corresponding to the first audio frame and the at least two second audio frames through a preset time delay-orientation lookup table (see abstract, paragraphs [0008], paragraphs [0050] to [0051]) according to the time delay estimation between the first audio frame and each of the at least two second audio frames (paragraphs [0050] to [0051]).
Regarding claim 9, Chu discloses wherein the time delay-orientation lookup table is constructed according to the following steps:
constructing a plurality of virtual sound source points (such as candidate source positions 1, 2, and 3 of figure 1A) based on preset angle intervals and preset distance intervals in a microphone array coordinate system (x, y, z, see figure 1A), wherein the microphone array coordinate system is created with a center of the microphone array as an origin (see figure 2A, paragraph [0025]);
for each virtual sound source point of the virtual sound source points, calculating a time delay combination corresponding to the virtual sound source point according to speed of sound, a distance from the virtual sound source point to each microphone of the microphone array and a sampling frequency of the microphone array, wherein the time delay combination is configured to store time delay information of each of the second microphones relative to the first microphone (paragraphs [0050] to [0051]); and
constructing the time delay-orientation lookup table according to an orientation and the time delay combination corresponding to each virtual sound source point (paragraphs [0050] to [0051]).
Claims 1 and 15 are rejected in an analogous manner to claim 8.
Claims 2 and 16 are rejected in an analogous manner to claim 9.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-5, 10-12, and 17-19 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.
Claims 6, 7, 13, 14, and 20 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the claim objections set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DOUGLAS JOHN SUTHERS whose telephone number is (571)272-0563. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 8 am -5 pm.
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/DOUGLAS J SUTHERS/ Examiner, Art Unit 2695
/PAUL KIM/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2695
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