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 responsive to the REMARK filed August 11, 2026.
This application has been examined. Claims 1-10 are pending.
Specification
3. The objection to the title of the invention set forth in the prior Office Action is acknowledged as addressed by Applicant's amendment of the title in the Amendment filed August 11, 2026. Subject to confirmation that the substitute title is descriptive of the claimed invention (see header table above), the objection to the specification is withdrawn.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
4. 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 t which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
5. Claims 1-10 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Rosner et al. (US Pub No. 2013/0339028) in view of Matsuoka et al. (US Pat No. 10,621,442).
In order to expedite and avoid piecemeal prosecution, the following rejection is made to the extent that the claims are understood, by considering those elements which are understood and interpreting their function in a manner which is consistent with the recited goals of the claims, and then applying the best available art.
The examiner relies on the entire teachings of Rosner and Matsuoka references; the applicant should carefully consider the entire teachings of the above-mentioned references to better understand the examiner’s position.
In regard to claims 1, 8, Rosner et al. disclose a method, a sound wake-up device for waking up a functional circuit, comprising: a microphone circuit for receiving external sound and outputting a sound electrical signal (as shown in Fig. 2, which is reproduced below for ease of reference and convenience, Rosner discloses a power-efficient voice activation system is provided. The voice activation system can include multiple stages. Each stage activates the next so that the most power consuming devices are active for the least amount of time. a voice activation system 200, according to an embodiment of the present invention. Voice activation system 200 includes a microphone 202. See ¶ 30-31);
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a sampling (i.e. ADC) and frequency domain conversion circuit, coupled to the microphone circuit, for receiving the sound electrical signal, sampling the sound electrical signal, and converting the sound electrical signal in a time domain into a sound spectrum signal in a frequency domain (in Rosner, a conventional speech recognition system 100. Speech recognition system 100 includes a microphone 102, an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter 104, and a speech recognition engine 106. As shown in FIG. 1, microphone 102 receives sound waves and outputs a corresponding electrical signal to A/D converter 104. A/D converter 104 converts the received signal from an analog signal to a digital signal. See ¶ 24, 31, 42, 44); a high-frequency energy calculation circuit for receiving a high-frequency part of the sound spectrum signal and calculating a high-frequency energy of the high-frequency part (in Rosner, the exemplary operation of a first stage, according to another embodiment of the present invention. In the embodiment depicted in FIG. 4, the first stage analyzes the ratio between high-frequency energy and low-frequency energy in the received audio signal. In a further embodiment, the first stage can store a pair of predefined thresholds 402 and 404. When the energy ratio is between thresholds 402 and 404, the first stage can output the first activation signal. See ¶ 40); a low-frequency energy calculation circuit for receiving a low-frequency part of the sound spectrum signal and calculating a low-frequency energy of the high-frequency part (in Rosner, when the energy ratio is between thresholds 402 and 404, the first stage can output the first activation signal. The range between thresholds 402 and 404 can represent the energy ratios of common speech signals. Thus, when the energy ratio of the received audio signal falls outside of this range, first stage 206 can determine that the received audio signal is not speech signal. See ¶ 40); and an activation determination circuit for receiving the high-frequency energy, and the low-frequency energy, and determining whether to wake up the functional circuit based on respective magnitudes of the high-frequency energy, the mid-frequency energy, and the low-frequency energy (in Rosner, first stage 206 receives a digital version of the received audio signal from A/D converter 204. In an embodiment, first stage 206 is configured to analyze at least one energy characteristic of the received audio signal to determine whether the received signal includes speech. For example, first stage 206 can be configured to compare one or more energy characteristics of the received audio signal to one or more respective thresholds. If the energy characteristics of the received audio signal meets or exceeds the one or more thresholds, first stage 206 outputs a first activation signal that activates second stage 208. In doing so, first stage 206 monitors the ambient environment to determine if a speech signal has been received. See ¶ 32, 35, 56-57, 59-60). But Rosner et al. do not disclose a mid-frequency energy calculation circuit for receiving a mid-frequency part of the sound spectrum signal and calculating a mid-frequency energy of the high-frequency part. In the same field of endeavor, Matsuoka et al. disclose a mid-frequency energy calculation circuit for receiving a mid-frequency part of the sound spectrum signal and calculating a mid-frequency energy of the high-frequency part (as shown in Fig. 11, which is reproduced below for ease of reference and convenience, Matsuoka discloses the audio signal captured by the electronic device 510 is sampled at a sampling rate RS to generate a series of audio data. The audio data include one or more of an audio feature that needs to be identified from the audio data, a plurality of alternative features, and ambient noises. Each of the audio features and the ambient noises normally has their respective temporal or spectrum characteristics. The audio data is split to a plurality of sound components each associated with a respective frequency or frequency band and including a series of time windows. For example, the filter bank 902 includes three filters that are associated with three frequency bands: 900 Hz and below, 1000-5000 Hz, and 6000 Hz and above. The audio data is therefore split to three sound components: a low frequency sound component SCL, an intermediate frequency sound component SCI, and a high frequency sound component SCH. See col. 26:27-67; col. 14:63-15:47).
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It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify the voice activation system of Rosner to include a separate mid-frequency energy calculation circuit, as taught by Matsuoka, because Matsuoka demonstrates that processing audio using three specific frequency bands (low: ≤900 Hz, mid: 1000-5000 Hz, high: ≥6000 Hz) improves the ability to distinguish target audio events from ambient noise. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to apply this known three-band technique to the energy-based wake-up detector of Rosner in order to achieve more accurate and reliable wake-up decisions with a reasonable expectation of success.
In regard to claims 2, 9, Rosner et al. disclose wherein the activation determination circuit wakes up the functional circuit when the high-frequency energy is below a first threshold value, the low-frequency energy is below a second threshold value, and the mid-frequency energy is above a third threshold value (in Rosner, the voice activation system can include multiple stages. Each stage activates the next so that the most power consuming devices are active for the least amount of time. In an embodiment, a first stage can be an energy comparator that compares energy characteristic(s) of a received audio signal to one or more respective predetermined thresholds. If those predetermined thresholds are met or exceeded, the first stage can activate a second stage that analyzes at least a portion of a profile of the received signal to determine if it is a valid trigger for the voice activation system. See ¶ 30).
In regard to claims 3, 10, Matsuoka et al. disclose wherein the activation determination circuit further comprises storing a previous mid-frequency energy at a previous time, and wherein the activation determination circuit wakes up the functional circuit when the high-frequency energy is below a first threshold value, the low-frequency energy is below a second threshold value, and a difference by which the mid-frequency energy is higher than the previous mid-frequency energy is above a third threshold value (in Matsuoka, an audio event detection system that processes audio in multiple frequency bands, including a mid-frequency band (1000–5000 Hz), and explicitly calculates both the current energy level and the variation of energy level (ΔE) between consecutive time windows for each frequency band. The system stores energy values from previous time frames to compute these energy differences and uses them as part of the feature set for audio event classification. See col. 24:60-25:22; col. 29:48-30:2). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the activation determination circuit of Rosner by incorporating the teaching of Matsuoka to store a previous mid-frequency energy value, and trigger wake-up of the functional circuit when high-frequency energy is below a first threshold, low-frequency energy is below a second threshold, and the difference between the current mid-frequency energy and the stored previous mid-frequency energy exceeds a third threshold.
In regard to claim 4, Rosner et al. disclose wherein the sampling and frequency domain conversion circuit comprises: an amplifier circuit for receiving the sound electrical signal and amplifying the sound electrical signal to obtain an amplified sound electrical signal; an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for receiving the amplified sound electrical signal, performing an analog-to-digital conversion, and outputting a digital sound signal (in Rosner, a conventional speech recognition system 100. Speech recognition system 100 includes a microphone 102, an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter 104, and a speech recognition engine 106. As shown in FIG. 1, microphone 102 receives sound waves and outputs a corresponding electrical signal to A/D converter 104. A/D converter 104 converts the received signal from an analog signal to a digital signal. See ¶ 24, 31, 42, 44). But Rosner et al. do disclose a Fast Fourier Transformer (FFT) for receiving the digital sound signal and converting the digital sound signal from the time domain to the frequency domain to obtain the sound spectrum signal. In the same field of endeavor, Matsuoka et al. disclose a Fast Fourier Transformer (FFT) for receiving the digital sound signal and converting the digital sound signal from the time domain to the frequency domain to obtain the sound spectrum signal (in Matsuoka, a frequency domain approach, the feature extractor 706 includes some or all modules of a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) engine 1102, a plurality of FFT Information Extractors 1104, one or more autocorrelation modules 906, one or more energy analysis module 908, a plurality of statistics engines 910 and a concatenation module 912. At the FFT engine 1102, the audio signal is sampled at a sampling rate RS, partitioned to a plurality of time windows (TW.sub.1-TW.sub.n), and converted into audio data using the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). In some implementations, the resulting audio data includes a plurality of FFT coefficients (e.g., Cepstral coefficients associated with different harmonic frequencies). See col. 26:28-67).
In regard to claim 5, Matsuoka et al. disclose wherein the high-frequency energy calculation circuit comprises: a digital high-frequency band-pass filter for receiving the sound spectrum signal and obtaining the high-frequency part of the sound spectrum signal; and an energy calculation circuit, coupled to the digital high-frequency band-pass filter, for receiving the high-frequency part and converting the high-frequency part into the high-frequency energy (in Matsuoka, an audio event detection system that splits an audio signal into multiple frequency bands using a filter bank comprising digital filters associated with distinct frequency bands, including a high-frequency band (6000 Hz and above). The system further includes energy analysis modules (908) that receive the output of the band-specific filters and compute energy-related features from each frequency band component. See col. 23:61-25:21). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the high-frequency energy calculation of the first (always-on) stage in Rosner by implementing it using the digital high-frequency band-pass filter followed by a dedicated energy calculation circuit, as taught by Matsuoka.
In regard to claim 6, Matsuoka et al. disclose wherein the mid-frequency energy calculation circuit comprises: a digital mid-frequency band-pass filter for receiving the sound spectrum signal and obtaining the mid-frequency part of the sound spectrum signal; and an energy calculation circuit, coupled to the digital mid-frequency band-pass filter, for receiving the mid-frequency part and converting the mid-frequency part into the mid-frequency energy (in Matsuoka, an audio event detection system that splits an audio signal into multiple frequency bands using a filter bank comprising digital filters associated with distinct frequency bands, including a mid-frequency band (i.e. SCI) (1000HZ-5000HZ). The system further includes energy analysis modules (908) that receive the output of the band-specific filters and compute energy-related features from each frequency band component. See col. 23:61-25:21). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the low-frequency energy calculation of the first (always-on) stage in Rosner by implementing it using the digital mid-frequency band-pass filter followed by a dedicated energy calculation circuit, as taught by Matsuoka.
In regard to claim 7, even though Rosner et al. and Matsuoka do not disclose a timing activation circuit, coupled to the microphone circuit, the sampling and frequency domain conversion circuit, the high-frequency energy calculation circuit, the mid-frequency energy calculation circuit, the low-frequency energy calculation circuit, and the activation determination circuit, for activating the microphone circuit, the sampling and frequency domain conversion circuit, and the activation determination circuit at each predetermined time, however it was well-known in the art at the time of the invention to use a timing circuit or timer to periodically activate power-consuming components (such as microphones, ADCs, and digital signal processing blocks) in acoustic wake-up or voice trigger systems in order to reduce average power consumption through duty cycling. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the voice activation system of Rosner by adding a timing activation circuit that periodically activates the microphone, sampling, frequency domain conversion, band-specific energy calculation circuits, and activation determination circuit at predetermined time intervals, as suggested by the frame-based processing in Matsuoka and common knowledge in the field of low-power audio sensors.
Examiner's note:
Examiner has cited particular columns and line numbers in the references applied to the claims above for the convenience of the Applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the Applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passages as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 08/11/2026 have been fully considered but are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that Rosner fails to disclose the “independent hardware modules for absolute energy calculation” recited in claim 1, because Rosner's first stage “employs a single circuit to input multiple bands and directly calculate a relative ratio between them” rather than separate circuits that output absolute, independent energy values.
This argument is not persuasive because it is not commensurate with the scope of claim 1. Claim 1 does not recite “independent,” “separate,” or “absolute” hardware modules; it recites a high-frequency energy calculation circuit “for receiving a high-frequency part... and calculating a high-frequency energy of the high-frequency part,” and, separately, a low-frequency energy calculation circuit performing the corresponding function for the low-frequency part - each recited using open (“comprising”) transitional language that does not exclude the calculated energies from being subsequently combined into a ratio or otherwise further processed. To compute the ratio disclosed at Rosner ¶ 40, Rosner's first stage 206 necessarily derives a high-frequency energy value and a low-frequency energy value as intermediate quantities before dividing one by the other; this derivation reads on “calculating a high-frequency energy” and “calculating a low-frequency energy” regardless of whether those values are exposed as discrete outputs or are consumed internally by a ratio computation. Moreover, as relied upon in the rejection of claims 2 and 9, Rosner discloses an alternative embodiment of first stage 206 in which “one or more energy characteristics of the received audio signal” are compared individually “to one or more respective thresholds” (¶ 32), which does not require a ratio at all and further undermines Applicant's characterization of Rosner as limited to a single relative-ratio circuit. For at least these reasons, Rosner in combination with Matsuoka continues to teach the disputed limitation.
Applicant argues that Rosner fails to disclose the claimed “multi-dimensional absolute amplitude logic decision,” because Rosner's decision-making “relies entirely on comparing a relative ratio... against a pair of thresholds,” and that even a combination with Matsuoka's three-band division would still yield only a relative ratio among three bands rather than a decision based on the respective absolute magnitudes of three distinct bands.
This argument is likewise not commensurate with the scope of claim 1, which recites determining whether to wake the functional circuit “based on respective magnitudes of the high-frequency energy, the mid-frequency energy, and the low-frequency energy” - language that does not exclude a determination informed by a ratio or other relationship derived from those magnitudes, since a ratio is itself a function of the respective magnitudes being compared. In any event, the rejection does not rely on Rosner's ratio-based embodiment alone for this limitation. As set forth in the rejection of claims 2 and 9 (Office action of 05/12/2026 at p. 6), Rosner's alternative embodiment wakes up the functional circuit when energy characteristics are compared, individually, against independent first, second, and third threshold values - i.e., an evaluation of respective magnitudes against independent thresholds, not a single relative ratio. Matsuoka independently confirms that computing and comparing absolute, per-band energy values against independent criteria for low-, mid-, and high-frequency bands (via energy analysis modules 908, col. 23:61-25:21) was well within the ordinarily skilled artisan's toolkit at the time of the invention. The proposed combination therefore results in a system that evaluates the respective magnitudes of three independently calculated band energies, consistent with claim 1, whether or not Rosner's baseline embodiment is described in terms of a ratio.
Applicant argues there is no motivation to combine Rosner and Matsuoka because their purposes are incompatible - Rosner is directed to power efficiency while Matsuoka is directed to feature extraction for machine-learning classification without regard to power consumption - such that incorporating Matsuoka's teachings into Rosner's always-on first stage would subvert Rosner's low-power objective, leaving no reasonable expectation of success.
This argument has been fully considered but is not persuasive. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), does not require that a proposed combination preserve every stated purpose of the primary reference, only that there be an articulated reason with some rational underpinning to combine the teachings. The modification relied upon here is narrow: it adds one additional digital band-pass filter and one additional energy-calculation circuit - the same category of low-complexity circuitry Rosner already uses for its existing high- and low-frequency paths - to obtain a third, mid-frequency energy value; it does not incorporate Matsuoka's downstream feature-concatenation, statistics engines, or machine-learning classification pipeline into Rosner's always-on stage. Because the modification mirrors circuitry already present in Rosner's own always-on first stage, it does not import the computational or hardware overhead of Matsuoka's full classification system, and Applicant's premise that the combination would “significantly increase computational complexity and hardware overhead” thereby “subverting” Rosner's core purpose is not supported by the scope of the modification actually proposed. Furthermore, the motivation for the combination is drawn from Rosner's own stated goal of reliably distinguishing speech from non-speech signals at minimal power (Rosner ¶ 30-32), a goal that a third, mid-frequency data point can serve directly by improving discrimination accuracy, which in turn reduces false wake events and the corresponding power cost of unnecessarily activating downstream stages. A reasonable expectation of success follows from Matsuoka's explicit teaching that per-band absolute energy values can be obtained using ordinary digital band-pass filtering and energy-calculation circuitry (col. 23:61-25:21), the same type of circuitry already used in Rosner. For these reasons, the proposed combination remains supported by an articulated rationale having rational underpinning, and the rejection of claims 1 and 8, and their dependent claims, is maintained.
Applicant additionally requests reconsideration and an early Notice of Allowance, and states that the additional prior art cited (Liu, Gao, Rumberg) was included only to show the state of the art and was not relied upon in the rejection; the Examiner confirms that these references remain cited of record as pertinent but non-applied art and continue to be so treated.
Conclusion
6. All claims are rejected.
7. THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).
A SHORTENED STATUTORY PERIOD FOR RESPONSE TO THIS FINAL ACTION IS SET TO EXPIRE THREE MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF THIS ACTION. IN THE EVENT A FIRST RESPONSE IS FILED WITHIN TWO MONTHS OF THE MAILING DATE OF THIS FINAL ACTION AND THE ADVISORY ACTION IS NOT MAILED UNTIL AFTER THE END OF THE THREE-MONTH SHORTENED STATUTORY PERIOD, THEN THE SHORTENED STATUTORY PERIOD WILL EXPIRE ON THE DATE THE ADVISORY ACTION IS MAILED, AND ANY EXTENSION FEE PURSUANT TO 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a) WILL BE CALCULATED FROM THE MAILING DATE OF THE ADVISORY ACTION. IN NO EVENT WILL THE STATUTORY PERIOD FOR RESPONSE EXPIRE LATER THAN SIX MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF THIS FINAL ACTION.
8. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to examiner Raymond Phan, whose telephone number is (571) 272-3630. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday from 6:30AM- 3:00PM. The Group Fax No. (571) 273-8300.
Communications via Internet e-mail regarding this application, other than those under 35 U.S.C. 132 or which otherwise require a signature, may be used by the applicant and should be addressed to [raymond.phan@uspto.gov].
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Andrew Jung can be reached at (571) 270-3779. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/RAYMOND N PHAN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2175
Prosecution Insights