DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to communications filed 12/6/2024:
Claims 1-22 are pending
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 Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claim(s) 1, 6, 9-13 and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Farahanisamani et al (US20230197048, hereinafter “Farahanisamani”).
Regarding claim 1, Farahanisamani teaches a road noise cancelation (RNC) system (abstract, noise cancellation system for vehicle), comprising:
a position sensor configured to detect a position of an occupant in a vehicle (¶43, one or more sensors to detect an occupant’s position in the vehicle);
a transducer configured to receive a cancelation signal and produce a cancelation audio signal in the vehicle (Fig. 2, one or more speakers to output a cancellation sound);
a microphone configured to provide an error signal representative of acoustic energy at a first location in the vehicle (Fig. 1, noise capturing microphones in the vehicle cabin);
a set of projection filters configured to filter the error signal to provide an estimated error signal at the position of the occupant in the vehicle, wherein the set of projection filters are selected from a predefined library of projection filters associated with a set of occupant positions in the vehicle (¶63, 65, 73, one or more filters that can be used to obtain filter coefficients stored in a memory of the ANC so that the resulting output of the fixed filter corresponds to a single virtual microphone 8 at the estimated average position of the listeners ear); and
an adaptive module that adjusts the cancelation signal based on the estimated error signal (Fig. 2, adaptive filter module to adjust the cancellation signal based on a captured error signal).
Regarding claim 6, Farahanisamani teaches wherein the position sensor provides at least one coordinate indicator of a position of each ear of the occupant in the vehicle, wherein either:
a) the position sensor has a resolution that results in a delay between changes in the position of each ear of the occupant and changes in coordinate indicator (¶73, position tracking done by means of a camera with image processing means therefore there will be at least a processing delay in determining the user position), or
b) a hysteresis factor is applied to adjustments in the cancelation signal based on the resolution of the position sensor.
Regarding claim 9, Farahanisamani teaches wherein the position sensor includes two or more optical sensors (¶43, one or more sensors).
Regarding claim 10, Farahanisamani teaches wherein the estimated error signal is updated in response to detecting a change in an RNC condition at the vehicle (¶51, Fig. 1, the one or more sensors for capturing noise in the vehicle changes with the environment so therefore the estimated error signal is updated accordingly).
Regarding claim 11, Farahanisamani teaches wherein the first location in the vehicle includes at least one cabin microphone location (¶72, error microphones may be in the vehicle headliner).
Regarding claim 12, Farahanisamani teaches wherein the set of projection filters are configured to cancel road noise at frequencies of approximately 400 hertz (Hz) or higher (¶51, the one or more noise sensors are capturing noise in and out of the vehicle and wherein it’s common knowledge in the art that noise frequencies at the vehicle include frequencies above 400 Hz).
Regarding claim 13, Farahanisamani teaches wherein the predefined set of projection filters are included in an operational model stored at the vehicle (¶63, the one or more filter coefficients are stored in the memory of the ANC).
Regarding claim 15, Farahanisamani teaches wherein the operational model is updated periodically using a machine learning (ML) engine while the vehicle is not operating (¶36, 46-47, the noise cancellation system can incorporate AI-based algorithms and neural network processing and wherein the neural network can be trained from inputs of the one or more noise sensors).
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) 2-5 and 7-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Farahanisamani et al (US20230197048, hereinafter “Farahanisamani”) in view of Bastyr et al (US20230306947, hereinafter “Bastyr”).
Regarding claim 2, Farahanisamani fails to explicitly teach wherein the set of projection filters includes at least two distinct projection filters including:
a first projection filter (Wr) that is applied to the error signal from the microphone; and
a second projection filter (Wd) that is applied to an input signal to the transducer.
Bastyr teaches wherein the set of projection filters includes at least two distinct projection filters including:
a first projection filter (Wr) that is applied to the error signal from the microphone; and
a second projection filter (Wd) that is applied to an input signal to the transducer (¶55-56, Fig. 3, one or more transfer functions set between the error microphone as well as the transducer).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply a plurality of cancellation paths and their adjustable filters (as taught by Bastyr) to the noise cancellation system (as taught by Farahanisamani). The rationale to do so is to apply a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield the predictable result of improving the noise cancellation performance (Bastyr, ¶32).
Regarding claim 3, Farahanisamani in view of Bastyr teaches wherein an audio output signal from the transducer includes the input signal to the transducer and the adjusted cancelation signal (Farahanisamani, ¶11, speakers output input signal and noise cancellation signal).
Regarding claim 4, Farahanisamani in view of Bastyr teaches further comprising a projection filter selection module configured to select the first projection filter (Wr) and the second projection filter (Wd) from the predefined library of projection filters (Bastyr, ¶55-56, the plurality of transfer functions are selected from a database of predetermined filter values).
Regarding claim 5, Farahanisamani in view of Bastyr teaches wherein the projection filter selection module selects the first projection filter (Wr) and the second projection filter (Wd) based on an input from the position sensor (Bastyr, ¶55-56, the plurality of transfer functions are selected based on an occupancy determination), wherein the projection filter selection module either:
includes an estimator for predicting a future position of the occupant based on a multi-frame analysis, or
selects from the predefined library of projection filters associated with the set of occupant positions in the vehicle using a best-fit analysis, wherein the set of occupant positions in the vehicle account for a fraction of a total number of occupant positions based on one or more seat positions (Bastyr, ¶55-56, the plurality of transfer functions are selected based on an occupancy determination; Farahanisamani, ¶28-30, selecting optimum filter coefficients based on a detected position of the user).
Regarding claim 7, Farahanisamani in view of Bastyr teaches wherein the adaptive module is configured to select a default position of the occupant based on at least one of:
detecting the position of the occupant during startup of the vehicle (Bastyr, ¶54, a comparison is made to determine if there’s a change in occupancy at the start of the ANC/vehicle process),
detecting the position of the occupant at a cruising speed of the vehicle,
a profile of the occupant, or
at least one user input defining the default position.
Regarding claim 8, Farahanisamani in view of Bastyr teaches wherein the set of projection filters are further selected based on a detected position of a seat in which the occupant is located (Bastyr, ¶41-42, a seat position can be taken into account during the use of the ANC system).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 14 and 16-22 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Refer to PTO-892, Notice of References Cited for a listing of analogous art.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to QIN ZHU whose telephone number is (571)270-1304. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 6AM-4PM EST.
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/QIN ZHU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2691
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