DETAILED ACTION
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 1, 3-14 and 16-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lawrence US PG-Pub 2018/0014121 in view of Garcia US Pat 12,621,604.
Regarding claim 1, 8 and 14, Lawrence teaches filter an audio signal into a plurality of frequency bands comprising a high-frequency band and a low-frequency band (Fig. 10-1001); convert the audio signal in the high-frequency band to a target sound pressure (Fig. 10 & [0030]-[0031] & [0130]-[0131]: the high frequency band is apply a gain, not for the purpose of excursion, but it will use a DRC-1002 to increase audio in high frequency to a range target pressure dB); convert the audio signal in the low-frequency band to a target speaker displacement (Fig. 10 & Fig. 1: speaker protection block-100 is using low frequency band and dealing making sure the loudspeaker does not have the targeted over-excursion); calculating based on the target sound pressure corresponding to the audio signal in the high-frequency band, a first output voltage for a playing the audio signal by a loudspeaker; calculating based on the target speaker displacement corresponding to the audio signal in the low-frequency band, a second output voltage for playing the audio signal by the loudspeaker (Fig. 10 & [0103] & [0176] & [0178]: the audio signal being modify in DRC-1002 and speaker protection block-100 will be represented in voltage to supply to the audio driver amplifier); and combine the first and second output voltages to obtain a final output voltage for playing the audio signal by the loudspeaker (Fig. 10: adder to combine the audio signals to Vout).
Lawrence failed to teach predict, by a trained HF neural network and based on the target sound pressure corresponding to the audio signal in the high-frequency band, a first output voltage for a playing the audio signal by a loudspeaker; predict, by a trained LF neural network and based on the target speaker displacement corresponding to the audio signal in the low-frequency band, a second output voltage for playing the audio signal by the loudspeaker.
However, Garcia teaches predict, by a trained neural network and based on the target sound and excursion, voltage to be supply to the loudspeaker (Fig. 1 & Col. 6 line 24-37 & Col. 14 line 4-56: the DNN will create a Vector of frequency bands, which is dividing the audio signal, then train the DNN on each band so you have a optimal weight for each band to deal with nonlinear region of the driver, which the nonlinear response of a driver happens because of over-excursion).
Lawrence and Garcia are analogous art because they are both in the same field of endeavor, namely audio processing. Therefore, 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, because using DNN is an alternate equivalent way to calculate how to modify an audio signal to increase their gain without causing excursion. Which we can use two separate DNN on both path of Lawrence, one for the High frequency signal using the DRC and another for the Low frequency signal using the Speaker protection system-100.
Regarding claim 3, 9 and 16, Lawrence teaches wherein combining the first and second output voltages to obtain a final output voltage comprises summing the first and second output voltages (Fig. 10: Vout is summing the voltage that was process from Speaker protection system-100 and DRC-1002).
Regarding claim 4, 10 and 17, Lawrence teaches wherein the loudspeaker comprises a speaker of a smartphone ([0002]: loudspeakers integrated in mobile phone).
Regarding claim 5, 11 and 18, Lawrence teaches wherein the loudspeaker comprises a speaker of a headphone ([0002]: loudspeakers integrated in headphone).
Regarding claim 6, 12 and 19, Lawrence teaches wherein using DRC with ground-truth control voltages from input (Fig. 10 & [0030]-[0031] & [0130]-[0131]: using input voltage Vin with DRC to provide wanted sound pressure).
Lawrence failed to teach wherein the trained HF neural network is trained to predict ground-truth control voltage from input, recorded sound pressure caused by those ground-truth control voltage.
However, Garcia teaches neural network is trained to predict ground-truth control voltage from input, recorded sound pressure caused by those ground-truth control voltage (Fig. 1 & Col. 6 line 24-37 & Col. 14 line 4-56: the DNN will create a Vector of frequency bands, which is dividing the audio signal, then train the DNN on each band so you have an optimal weight for each band to deal with nonlinear region of the driver, by using the input and recording response of loudspeaker).
Lawrence and Garcia are analogous art because they are both in the same field of endeavor, namely audio processing. Therefore, 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, because using DNN is an alternate equivalent way to calculate how to modify an audio signal to increase their gain without causing excursion. Which we can use two separate DNN on both path of Lawrence, one for the High frequency signal using the DRC and another for the Low frequency signal using the Speaker protection system-100.
Regarding claim 7, 13 and 20, Lawrence teaches wherein a model is created to calculate ground-truth control voltages from input, recorded speaker displacements caused by those ground-truth control voltages (Fig. 10, Fig. 1 & [0105]: using input voltage Vin with model to get input voltage and record the speaker displacement, so it can calculate how will the displacement change with a input voltage Vin).
Lawrence failed to teach using a LF neural network that will be trained.
However, Garcia teaches using a neural network that will be trained (Fig. 1 & Col. 6 line 24-37 & Col. 14 line 4-56: the DNN will create a Vector of frequency bands, which is dividing the audio signal, then train the DNN on each band so you have a optimal weight for each band to deal with nonlinear region of the driver, which the nonlinear response of a driver happens because of over-excursion).
Lawrence and Garcia are analogous art because they are both in the same field of endeavor, namely audio processing. Therefore, 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, because using DNN is an alternate equivalent way to calculate how to modify an audio signal to increase their gain without causing excursion. Which we can use two separate DNN on both path of Lawrence, one for the High frequency signal using the DRC and another for the Low frequency signal using the Speaker protection system-100.
Claim 2 and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lawrence US PG-Pub 2018/0014121 in combination with Garcia US Pat 12,621,604 in view of Malsky US PG-Pub 2020/0404420.
Regarding claim 2 and 15, the combination teaches wherein the audio signal is filtered into the high-frequency band and the low-frequency band by HPF and LPF (Lawrence, Fig. 10).
The combination failed to teach a crossover filter.
However, Malsky teaches crossover filter ([0081]: using crossover filter).
The combination and Malsky are analogous art because they are both in the same field of endeavor, namely audio processing. Therefore, 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, because using a crossover filter is an alternate equivalent way to separate audio signal into high and low frequencies.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WILLIAM A JEREZ LORA whose telephone number is (571)270-5519. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7am-9am and 11am-6pm.
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/WILLIAM A JEREZ LORA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2695
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