DETAILED ACTION
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 8 is objected to because of the following informalities: Claim 8 recites “generate a noise cancelling signal at a using a sampling rate greater than 2 kHz”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
Claims 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bastyr et al. (US #2023/0306947) in view of Zollner et al. (US #2021/0104218) further in view of You et al. (US #2023/0197047).
Regarding Claim 1, Bastyr discloses a method for high frequency road noise cancellation in a vehicle system (title, abstract, figs. 1-6, ¶0017: a broadband adaptive feed-forward and feedback active noise cancellation [ANC] system 106 that generates anti-noise by adaptively filtering the signals from the vibration sensors 104 using one or more physical microphones 108), comprising:
monitoring an occupant ear position using a head-tracking device (Bastyr ¶0040 discloses the vehicle 102 includes an occupancy detector 114 that provides an occupancy signal [Occ] that indicates whether or not the front seat 124 is occupied. Although one occupancy detector 114 is illustrated in fig. 1, the ANC system 106 can include one occupancy detector 114 for each seat, or other numbers of occupancy detectors. ¶0041 discloses the ANC system 106 includes a camera [not shown], or other equipment to determine the virtual microphone locations using a head tracking technique to determine the location of an occupant's ear canal openings. ¶0042 discloses an ANC system can achieve optimal performance when the location of each of the occupants' ears in 3-dimensional space is coincident with a virtual microphone. An ANC system can achieve improved performance over a traditional, non-virtual microphone technique when the location of the virtual microphone is closer to the ear positions than are the physical microphones. Other techniques for the selection of the virtual microphone locations include the use of seat position encoders. An ANC system may use the data of the current seat position to estimate the location of the seat occupant's ears in three dimensions to select the closest virtual microphone location to the occupant's ears, e.g., by selecting a low virtual microphone location for a forward seat position, and a high virtual microphone location for a rearward seat position. The virtual microphone locations may be predetermined by the ANC system tuning engineers at the time of ANC system tuning, and so the selection of virtual microphone locations involves determining which virtual microphones are closest to the ear locations in 3-dimensional space);
capturing an airborne noise source using a feedforward microphone (Bastyr ¶0019 discloses in certain embodiments, a microphone may be used in place of a vibration sensor to output the noise signal X(n) indicative of noise generated from the interaction of the wheel 116 and the road surface 118) and a headrest microphone of a zone of the occupant ear position (Bastyr ¶0035 discloses a vehicle with a headrest mounted microphone may benefit from the virtual microphone technique, because a virtual microphone can be located closer to the occupant's ears than the headrest mounted microphone. ¶0057 discloses in an embodiment more than one virtual microphone location around each seat's headrest is chosen, and the relevant transfer functions, S'v(z) and H(z) are stored for each speaker and physical microphone in the system. In an embodiment with only one occupant, all eight virtual microphone e'v(n) signals input into LMS block 528 are in close proximity to the driver, at positions surrounding the occupant's head);
updating acoustic path information according to the occupant ear position and speaker position(s) within the zone (Bastyr ¶0041 discloses then the ANC system 106 selects the optimal noise cancellation tuning using a combination of physical microphones, virtual microphones, accelerometer sensors, physical and virtual secondary paths, transfer functions, tuning parameters, and speakers for a given occupancy configuration. ¶0050 discloses combining equations 1, 2 and 3 creates an estimate of the virtual error microphone signal from the physical error signal, the physical and virtual microphone secondary path and the transfer function between the physical and virtual locations. ¶0055 discloses at step 608, the VM ANC system 506 adjusts the anti-noise signal Y(n) provided to one or more speakers 510 based on the current occupancy configuration. The occupancy controller 552 may include predetermined stored data that is indicative of optimum transfer function parameters, such as H-filters, for each occupancy configuration based on hardware and software limitations of the system 506. The transfer function may include one or more virtual microphone transfer functions H(z) 550, one or more physical microphone transfer functions, or a combination of both virtual and physical microphone transfer functions. In one embodiment, a set of virtual microphones, physical microphones, speakers, noise signals, virtual secondary paths, physical secondary paths, physical or virtual microphone gains, accelerometer gains, other LMS system tuning parameters, and H(z) transfer functions is stored in a database for each occupancy configuration, and the VMANC system 506 selects the complete set of parameters from the database at step 608);
generating a noise cancellation signal (Bastyr claim 1); and
outputting the noise cancellation signal via a (Bastyr fig. 1: 110) located near the zone of the occupant ear position to at least partially reduce a road noise sound level in the zone (Bastyr ¶0017: the road noise cancellation [RNC] system; fig. 1. ¶0030 discloses the anti-noise signal Y(n), broadcast by the speaker 310 generates anti-noise that is substantially out of phase but identical in magnitude to the actual engine order noise at the location of a listener's ear, which may be in close proximity to a physical microphone 308, thereby reducing the sound amplitude of the engine order; fig. 3. ¶0028 discloses an example of an ANC system 306, including both an RNC system 300 and an EOC system 340. The RNC system 300 can include a vibration sensor 304, physical microphone 308, w-filter 326, adaptive filter controller 328, secondary path filter 320, and speaker. The EOC system 340 as disclosed in ¶0029, can include an engine speed sensor 342, which may provide an engine speed signal 344 [e.g., a square-wave signal] indicative of rotation of an engine crank shaft or other rotating shaft such as the drive shaft, half shafts or other shafts whose rotational rate is aligned with vibrations coupled to vehicle components that lead to noise in the passenger cabin).
Bastyr may not explicitly disclose the speaker is a headrest speaker; and the noise cancellation signal is generated at a sampling rate greater than 2 kHz.
However, Zollner (title, abstract, figs. 1-12) teaches the speaker is a headrest speaker (In one example, similar to the speakers 104, 504, and 801 in the systems shown in figs. 1-10, the headrest speaker 1122 can be used to transmit anti-noise to reduce the road noise 1102 that can be heard in the target space 1123 in Zollner. ¶0038 discloses the vehicle 1101 can include a headrest loudspeaker 1122 positioned within or at a head rest 1124 of a driver seat 1125. In other examples, other configurations of the audio system 1107 in vehicle 1101 are possible. For example, two or more loudspeakers can be disposed in or at the headrest 1124. Additionally or alternatively, one or more loudspeaker can be disposed in or at one or more other headrests in the vehicle 1101. Additionally or alternatively, one or more loudspeakers and/or one or more microphones can be disposed close to the headrests such as in or on the seat).
Bastyr and Zollner are analogous art as they pertain to occupancy-based active noise cancellation. Therefore it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify audio output device (as taught by Bastyr) to include headrest loudspeakers positioned within or at a head rest of a driver seat and other seats within the vehicle (as taught by Zollner, ¶0038) that reduces the computing power of feedforward ANC systems (Zollner, ¶0002).
And You (title, abstract, figs. 1-7) teaches the noise cancellation signal is generated at a sampling rate greater than 2 kHz (You ¶0090 discloses sample the reference signal at a sampling rate of 2 kHz [It is considered that this sampling rate can also be used for generating the noise cancellation signal]).
Therefore it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify the teachings of Zollner and You, that a headrest speaker and a sampling rate greater than 2kHz are well known features in the field of active road noise cancellation system and they would implement these features in the method disclosed in Bastyr for designing an occupancy-based active noise cancellation method/system.
Regarding Claim 2, Bastyr in view of Zollner and You discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising
outputting additional noise cancellation signals via one or more additional speakers inside or outside the zone of the occupant ear position (Bastyr ¶0037 discloses an ANC system may include many speakers that can radiate anti-noise to the passengers. Speakers in close proximity to the front seat passengers may be more effective in radiating anti-noise to the front seat passengers, resulting in superior noise cancellation than would result if distal speakers radiated anti-noise to the front seat passengers. In this occupancy case, more front seat speakers can be employed to radiate anti-noise, and fewer speakers located closer to empty rear seats can be used to radiate anti-noise).
Regarding Claim 3, Bastyr in view of Zollner and You discloses the method of claim 1,
wherein the headrest microphone is coupled to a seat headrest and/or a backrest of a seat of the vehicle system (Bastyr ¶0035 discloses hence the noise cancellation system performance is maximized at the location of these virtual microphones, which are ideally close to the actual positions of the listener's ears, rather than at the location of the physical microphones, which may be far from the listener's ears, e.g., on the vehicle headliner. A vehicle with a headrest mounted microphone may benefit from the virtual microphone technique, because a virtual microphone can be located closer to the occupant's ears than the headrest mounted microphone).
Regarding Claim 4, Bastyr in view of Zollner and You discloses the method of claim 1,
wherein the head-tracking device comprises a stereo camera configured to capture three-dimensional images of occupant ears and headrest speakers (Bastyr ¶0040 discloses the ANC system 106 can include one occupancy detector 114 for each seat, or other numbers of occupancy detectors. The occupancy detector 114 can include numerous sensors and/ or techniques, such as … a camera with a machine vision system, a camera with facial recognition. ¶0041 discloses the ANC system 106 includes a camera [not shown], or other equipment to determine the virtual microphone locations using a head tracking technique to determine the location of an occupant's ear canal openings. ¶0042 discloses an ANC system can achieve optimal performance when the location of each of the occupants' ears in 3-dimensional space is coincident with a virtual microphone. An ANC system can use the data of the current seat position to estimate the location of the seat occupant's ears in three dimensions to select the closest virtual microphone location to the occupant's ears, e.g., by selecting a low virtual microphone location for a forward seat position, and a high virtual microphone location for a rearward seat position).
Regarding Claim 5, Bastyr in view of Zollner and You discloses the method of claim 1,
wherein the headrest speaker and the headrest microphone are mounted in a shared housing (It is a design choice which would come within the practice of the art at the time of the invention).
Regarding Claim 6, Bastyr in view of Zollner and You discloses the method of claim 1,
wherein the head-tracking device uses artificial intelligence to identify and track facial features including ears (Bastyr ¶0060 discloses machine learning or artificial intelligence may be used to create optimal W-filters in place of the LMS adaptive filter controllers).
Regarding Claim 7, Bastyr in view of Zollner and You discloses the method of claim 1,
wherein generating the noise cancellation signal includes using low latency anti-aliasing filters (Bastyr ¶0037 discloses speakers in close proximity to the front seat passengers may be more effective in radiating anti-noise to the front seat passengers, resulting in superior noise cancellation than would result if distal speakers radiated anti-noise to the front seat passengers. In this occupancy case, more front seat speakers can be employed to radiate anti-noise, and fewer speakers located closer to empty rear seats can be used to radiate anti-noise).
Regarding Claim 8, Bastyr discloses a vehicle system (title, abstract, figs. 1-6), comprising:
a feedforward sensor, including an accelerometer and a microphone (Bastyr ¶0017 discloses RNC system includes vibration sensors 104 [e.g., accelerometers, ¶0018] and microphones 108);
a vehicle speaker system (Bastyr fig. 1:110);
a cabin microphone, including a headrest microphone (Bastyr ¶0035 discloses a vehicle with a headrest mounted microphone may benefit from the virtual microphone technique, because a virtual microphone can be located closer to the occupant's ears than the headrest mounted microphone. ¶0057 discloses in an embodiment more than one virtual microphone location around each seat's headrest is chosen, and the relevant transfer functions, S'v(z) and H(z) are stored for each speaker and physical microphone in the system. In an embodiment with only one occupant, all eight virtual microphone e'v(n) signals input into LMS block 528 are in close proximity to the driver, at positions surrounding the occupant's head) and a headliner microphone;
a head-tracking device configured to detect an occupant ear position and seat location (Bastyr ¶0040 discloses the vehicle 102 includes an occupancy detector 114 that provides an occupancy signal [Occ] that indicates whether or not the front seat 124 is occupied. Although one occupancy detector 114 is illustrated in fig. 1, the ANC system 106 can include one occupancy detector 114 for each seat, or other numbers of occupancy detectors. ¶0041 discloses the ANC system 106 includes a camera [not shown], or other equipment to determine the virtual microphone locations using a head tracking technique to determine the location of an occupant's ear canal openings. ¶0042 discloses an ANC system can achieve optimal performance when the location of each of the occupants' ears in 3-dimensional space is coincident with a virtual microphone. An ANC system can achieve improved performance over a traditional, non-virtual microphone technique when the location of the virtual microphone is closer to the ear positions than are the physical microphones. Other techniques for the selection of the virtual microphone locations include the use of seat position encoders. An ANC system may use the data of the current seat position to estimate the location of the seat occupant's ears in three dimensions to select the closest virtual microphone location to the occupant's ears, e.g., by selecting a low virtual microphone location for a forward seat position, and a high virtual microphone location for a rearward seat position. The virtual microphone locations may be predetermined by the ANC system tuning engineers at the time of ANC system tuning, and so the selection of virtual microphone locations involves determining which virtual microphones are closest to the ear locations in 3-dimensional space);
an embedded system including a digital signal processing system (Bastyr ¶0038: DSP), a low latency signal processing system, low latency filters (Bastyr ¶0037 discloses speakers in close proximity to the front seat passengers may be more effective in radiating anti-noise to the front seat passengers, resulting in superior noise cancellation than would result if distal speakers radiated anti-noise to the front seat passengers. In this occupancy case, more front seat speakers can be employed to radiate anti-noise, and fewer speakers located closer to empty rear seats can be used to radiate anti-noise), and a power management integrated circuit (Power management can be an integral part of a vehicle system, since vehicles operates on 12V battery and several power consuming devices operate within the vehicle, such as air conditioner, seat adjustment, etc.); and
instructions stored on non-volatile memory of the embedded system with computer-readable instructions (Bastyr ¶0061) that, when executed, cause the embedded system to:
monitor the occupant ear position using the head-tracking device (Bastyr ¶0040 discloses the vehicle 102 includes an occupancy detector 114 that provides an occupancy signal [Occ] that indicates whether or not the front seat 124 is occupied. Although one occupancy detector 114 is illustrated in fig. 1, the ANC system 106 can include one occupancy detector 114 for each seat, or other numbers of occupancy detectors. ¶0041 discloses the ANC system 106 includes a camera [not shown], or other equipment to determine the virtual microphone locations using a head tracking technique to determine the location of an occupant's ear canal openings. ¶0042 discloses an ANC system can achieve optimal performance when the location of each of the occupants' ears in 3-dimensional space is coincident with a virtual microphone. An ANC system can achieve improved performance over a traditional, non-virtual microphone technique when the location of the virtual microphone is closer to the ear positions than are the physical microphones. Other techniques for the selection of the virtual microphone locations include the use of seat position encoders. An ANC system may use the data of the current seat position to estimate the location of the seat occupant's ears in three dimensions to select the closest virtual microphone location to the occupant's ears, e.g., by selecting a low virtual microphone location for a forward seat position, and a high virtual microphone location for a rearward seat position. The virtual microphone locations may be predetermined by the ANC system tuning engineers at the time of ANC system tuning, and so the selection of virtual microphone locations involves determining which virtual microphones are closest to the ear locations in 3-dimensional space),
capture airborne noise using the feedforward sensor (Bastyr ¶0019 discloses in certain embodiments, a microphone may be used in place of a vibration sensor to output the noise signal X(n) indicative of noise generated from the interaction of the wheel 116 and the road surface 118) and the headrest microphone located near a zone of the occupant ear position (Bastyr ¶0035 discloses a vehicle with a headrest mounted microphone may benefit from the virtual microphone technique, because a virtual microphone can be located closer to the occupant's ears than the headrest mounted microphone. ¶0057 discloses in an embodiment more than one virtual microphone location around each seat's headrest is chosen, and the relevant transfer functions, S'v(z) and H(z) are stored for each speaker and physical microphone in the system. In an embodiment with only one occupant, all eight virtual microphone e'v(n) signals input into LMS block 528 are in close proximity to the driver, at positions surrounding the occupant's head),
update acoustic path information according to the occupant ear position and speaker position(s) within the zone (Bastyr ¶0041 discloses then the ANC system 106 selects the optimal noise cancellation tuning using a combination of physical microphones, virtual microphones, accelerometer sensors, physical and virtual secondary paths, transfer functions, tuning parameters, and speakers for a given occupancy configuration. ¶0050 discloses combining equations 1, 2 and 3 creates an estimate of the virtual error microphone signal from the physical error signal, the physical and virtual microphone secondary path and the transfer function between the physical and virtual locations. ¶0055 discloses at step 608, the VM ANC system 506 adjusts the anti-noise signal Y(n) provided to one or more speakers 510 based on the current occupancy configuration. The occupancy controller 552 may include predetermined stored data that is indicative of optimum transfer function parameters, such as H-filters, for each occupancy configuration based on hardware and software limitations of the system 506. The transfer function may include one or more virtual microphone transfer functions H(z) 550, one or more physical microphone transfer functions, or a combination of both virtual and physical microphone transfer functions. In one embodiment, a set of virtual microphones, physical microphones, speakers, noise signals, virtual secondary paths, physical secondary paths, physical or virtual microphone gains, accelerometer gains, other LMS system tuning parameters, and H(z) transfer functions is stored in a database for each occupancy configuration, and the VMANC system 506 selects the complete set of parameters from the database at step 608), and
output the noise cancelling signal (Bastyr claim 1) via the (Bastyr fig. 1: 110) located near the zone of the occupant ear position to at least partially reduce a road noise sound level in the zone (Bastyr ¶0017: the road noise cancellation [RNC] system; fig. 1. ¶0030 discloses the anti-noise signal Y(n), broadcast by the speaker 310 generates anti-noise that is substantially out of phase but identical in magnitude to the actual engine order noise at the location of a listener's ear, which may be in close proximity to a physical microphone 308, thereby reducing the sound amplitude of the engine order; fig. 3. ¶0028 discloses an example of an ANC system 306, including both an RNC system 300 and an EOC system 340. The RNC system 300 can include a vibration sensor 304, physical microphone 308, w-filter 326, adaptive filter controller 328, secondary path filter 320, and speaker. The EOC system 340 as disclosed in ¶0029, can include an engine speed sensor 342, which may provide an engine speed signal 344 [e.g., a square-wave signal] indicative of rotation of an engine crank shaft or other rotating shaft such as the drive shaft, half shafts or other shafts whose rotational rate is aligned with vibrations coupled to vehicle components that lead to noise in the passenger cabin).
Bastyr may not explicitly disclose a vehicle speaker system, including a headrest speaker, a door speaker, a center speaker, and a subwoofer; the headrest speaker located near the zone of the occupant ear position to at least partially reduce a road noise sound level in the zone; and generate a noise cancelling signal at a using a sampling rate greater than 2 kHz.
However, Zollner (title, abstract, figs. 1-12) teaches a vehicle speaker system, including a headrest speaker, a door speaker, a center speaker, and a subwoofer (In one example, similar to the speakers 104, 504, and 801 in the systems shown in figs. 1-10, the headrest speaker 1122 can be used to transmit anti-noise to reduce the road noise 1102 that can be heard in the target space 1123 in Zollner. ¶0038 discloses the vehicle 1101 can include a plurality of loudspeakers, such as a left rear loudspeaker 1111 and a right rear loudspeaker 1112, which can be positioned on or within a rear shelf 1113. The vehicle 1101 can also include a left side loudspeaker 1114 and a right-side loudspeaker 1115, each mounted within a vehicle rear door 1116 and 1117, respectively. The vehicle 1101 can also include a left front loudspeaker 1118 and a right front loudspeaker 1119, each mounted within a vehicle front door 1120, 1121, respectively. The vehicle 1101 can also include a headrest loudspeaker 1122 positioned within or at a head rest 1124 of a driver seat 1125. In other examples, other configurations of the audio system 1107 in vehicle 1101 are possible. For example, two or more loudspeakers can be disposed in or at the headrest 1124. Additionally or alternatively, one or more loudspeakers can be disposed in or at one or more other headrests in the vehicle 1101. Additionally or alternatively, one or more loudspeakers and/or one or more microphones can be disposed close to the headrests such as in or on the seat, roof liner or pillar. A center speaker and a subwoofer in the vehicle shown in fig. 11 is common practice).
Bastyr and Zollner are analogous art as they pertain to occupancy-based active noise cancellation. Therefore it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify audio output device (as taught by Bastyr) to include headrest loudspeakers positioned within or at a head rest of a driver seat and other seats within the vehicle (as taught by Zollner, ¶0038) that reduces the computing power of feedforward ANC systems (Zollner, ¶0002).
And You (title, abstract, figs. 1-7) teaches generate a noise cancelling signal at a using a sampling rate greater than 2 kHz (You ¶0090 discloses sample the reference signal at a sampling rate of 2 kHz [It is considered that this sampling rate can also be used for generating the noise cancellation signal]).
Therefore it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify the teachings of Zollner and You, that a headrest speaker and a sampling rate greater than 2kHz are well known features in the field of active road noise cancellation system and they would implement these features in the method disclosed in Bastyr for designing an occupancy-based active noise cancellation method/system.
Regarding Claim 9, Bastyr in view of Zollner and You discloses the vehicle system of claim 8. But Bastyr may not explicitly disclose wherein the headrest microphone is coupled to a headrest and/or a backrest of a seat of the vehicle system.
However, Zollner (title, abstract, figs. 1-12) teaches wherein the headrest microphone is coupled to a headrest and/or a backrest of a seat of the vehicle system (Zollner ¶0038 discloses the vehicle 1101 can include one or more loudspeakers and/or one or more microphones can be disposed close to the headrests such as in or on the seat, as shown in fig. 11).
Bastyr and Zollner are analogous art as they pertain to occupancy-based active noise cancellation. Therefore it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify audio output device (as taught by Bastyr) to include headrest loudspeakers positioned within or at a head rest of a driver seat and other seats within the vehicle (as taught by Zollner, ¶0038) that reduces the computing power of feedforward ANC systems (Zollner, ¶0002).
Regarding Claim 10, Bastyr in view of Zollner and You discloses the vehicle system of claim 8,
wherein the head-tracking device comprises a stereo camera configured to capture three-dimensional images of occupant ears and headrest speakers (Bastyr ¶0040 discloses the vehicle 102 includes an occupancy detector 114 that provides an occupancy signal [Occ] that indicates whether or not the front seat 124 is occupied. Although one occupancy detector 114 is illustrated in fig. 1, the ANC system 106 can include one occupancy detector 114 for each seat, or other numbers of occupancy detectors. The occupancy detector 114 can include numerous sensors and/or techniques, such as … a camera with facial recognition. ¶0041 discloses the ANC system 106 includes a camera [not shown], or other equipment to determine the virtual microphone locations using a head tracking technique to determine the location of an occupant's ear canal openings).
Regarding Claim 11, Bastyr in view of Zollner and You discloses the vehicle system of claim 8. But Bastyr may not explicitly disclose wherein the headrest speaker and the headrest microphone are mounted in a shared housing.
However, Zollner (title, abstract, figs. 1-12) teaches wherein the headrest speaker and the headrest microphone are mounted in a shared housing (Zollner ¶0038 discloses the vehicle 1101 can include one or more loudspeakers and/or one or more microphones can be disposed close to the headrests such as in or on the seat, as shown in fig. 11).
Bastyr and Zollner are analogous art as they pertain to occupancy-based active noise cancellation. Therefore it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify audio output device (as taught by Bastyr) to include headrest loudspeakers positioned within or at a head rest of a driver seat and other seats within the vehicle (as taught by Zollner, ¶0038) that reduces the computing power of feedforward ANC systems (Zollner, ¶0002).
Regarding Claim 12, Bastyr in view of Zollner and You discloses the vehicle system of claim 8. But Bastyr in view of Zollner may not explicitly disclose wherein the noise cancelling signal reduces noise up to 1 kHz.
However, You (title, abstract, figs. 1-7) teaches wherein the noise cancelling signal reduces noise up to 1 kHz (You ¶0090 discloses sample the reference signal at a sampling rate of 2 kHz [It is considered that this sampling rate can also be used for generating the noise cancellation signal]).
Therefore it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify the teachings of Zollner and You, that a headrest speaker and a sampling rate greater than 2kHz are well known features in the field of active road noise cancellation system and they would implement these features in the method disclosed in Bastyr for designing an occupancy-based active noise cancellation method/system.
Regarding Claim 13, Bastyr in view of Zollner and You discloses the vehicle system of claim 8,
wherein the instructions include to capture airborne noise using the headliner microphone and the headrest microphone (Bastyr ¶0017 discloses the ANC system 106 may also include on or more virtual microphones 113, 112, and one or more microphones 108 and one or more occupancy detectors 114 that are used for adapting anti-noise signal(s) that are optimized for the occupants in the vehicle 102 at a given time; fig. 1).
Regarding Claim 14, Bastyr in view of Zollner and You discloses the vehicle system of claim 8. But Bastyr may not explicitly disclose wherein the instructions include to output the noise cancelling signal via the door speaker, the center speaker, and the subwoofer in addition to the headrest speaker.
However, Zollner (title, abstract, figs. 1-12) teaches wherein the instructions include to output the noise cancelling signal via the door speaker, the center speaker, and the subwoofer in addition to the headrest speaker (Zollner ¶0021 discloses the anti-noise signals Y1 … YM drive M transducers [actuators], e.g., loudspeakers 104, which output corresponding sound waves that travel M·L physical paths, referred to as acoustic secondary paths 105, which extend from each of the loudspeakers [i.e., door speaker, center speaker, subwoofer, and headrest speaker] 104 to each of the microphones 102).
Bastyr and Zollner are analogous art as they pertain to occupancy-based active noise cancellation. Therefore it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify audio output device (as taught by Bastyr) to include headrest loudspeakers positioned within or at a head rest of a driver seat and other seats within the vehicle (as taught by Zollner, ¶0038) that reduces the computing power of feedforward ANC systems (Zollner, ¶0002).
Claims 15-20 are rejected for the same reasons as set forth in Claims 1-7.
Conclusion
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/YOGESHKUMAR PATEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2691
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