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(s) 1-7,10-17,20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Reilly et al (US 12666217 B2), and further in view of Moore (US 20190394569 A1).
As per claim 1, Reilly discloses a method for controlling a sound field of speaker arrays, used in a device,
the method comprising: obtaining a position of a listener and distance information between the position and one or more speaker arrays (via the zone player, in fig. 4, comprising the speakers, and also a camera in 424, per para 40, where the position of the listener and zone player must be obtained, in order to obtain the position as relative to the zone players per para 44).
wherein each of the one or more speaker arrays includes a plurality of speakers (216 in fig. 2c);
Reilly discloses that the location information is used to: determine the position of the listener. In some embodiments, this processed location data defines a “sweet spot” where the sound fields received by the listener are optimized to provide the listener with the most enjoyable playback experience (e.g., optimized imaging, optimized equalization values, optimized volume levels, and so on) (para 73).
However, Reilly does not disclose
obtaining a delay time that corresponds to each of the plurality of speakers based on the distance information; and
processing each of a plurality of audio signals according to the delay times corresponding to each of the plurality of speakers and outputting the plurality of audio signals to the one or more speaker arrays.
Moore teaches that audio systems can modify audio/speaker channel signals based on relative user location/distance in order to provide (para 68): a desired acoustic effect (such as monophonic, stereophonic or multi-channel sound), a desired acoustic equalization, predefined acoustic characteristics of a surrounding environment (such as an acoustic transfer function, acoustic loss, acoustic delay, acoustic noise in the environment, ambient sound in the environment, and/or one or more reflections) and/or a current location of one or more users in the environment relative to A/V display device 114-1 and/or one or more of speakers 118.
Moore discloses that the desired acoustic effect is implemented by
obtaining a delay time that corresponds to each of the plurality of speakers based on the distance information (para 68: the display instructions may include a temporal relationship or coordination among the playback times of audio output by speakers 118 to achieve the desired acoustic effect.); and
processing each of a plurality of audio signals according to the delay times corresponding to each of the plurality of speakers and outputting the plurality of audio signals to the one or more speaker arrays (para 68: used to determine and/or dynamically adapt one or more acoustic radiation patterns of the one or more speakers 118).
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art at the time of filing to determine delays for each speaker channel based on the determined relative user location/distance for the purpose of implementing the optimized imaging or equalization or sweet spot in the system of Reilly.
A system for controlling a sound field of speaker arrays, comprising: one or more speaker arrays; and a computing device, coupled to the one or more speaker arrays; wherein the computing device executes a plurality of following tasks: obtaining a position of a listener and distance information between the position and the one or more speaker arrays, wherein each of the one or more speaker arrays includes a plurality of speakers; obtaining a delay time that corresponds to each of the plurality of speakers based on the distance information; and processing each of a plurality of audio signals according to the delay time corresponding to each of the plurality of speakers and outputting the plurality of audio signals to the one or more speaker arrays.
As per claim 11, a system for controlling a sound field of speaker arrays, comprising: one or more speaker arrays (figs. 2a-2c); and a computing device (zone player portion), coupled to the one or more speaker arrays; wherein the computing device executes a plurality of following tasks: obtaining a position of a listener and distance information between the position and the one or more speaker arrays, wherein each of the one or more speaker arrays includes a plurality of speakers; obtaining a delay time that corresponds to each of the plurality of speakers based on the distance information; and processing each of a plurality of audio signals according to the delay time corresponding to each of the plurality of speakers and outputting the plurality of audio signals to the one or more speaker arrays (per the claim 1 rejeciton).
As per claims 2,12, the method for controlling the sound field of speaker arrays of claim 1, wherein each of the one or more speaker arrays includes the plurality of speakers aligned in a straight line at equal intervals (per 216 in fig. 2c).
As per claims 3,13, the method for controlling the sound field of speaker arrays of claim 1, wherein each of the one or more speaker arrays includes the plurality of speakers aligned in a straight line at different intervals (216 in fig. 2c, noting the interval between the two larger speakers is different than the interval between one of the large speakers and the smaller speaker).
As per claims 4,14, the method for controlling the sound field of speaker arrays of claim 1, wherein the distance information includes a plurality of shortest distances between the remaining of the plurality of speakers except for a first speaker in any of the one or more speaker arrays and a first straight line, and
the first straight line is an extended straight line connecting the first speaker and the listener; and wherein the first speaker is a reference speaker located on the far left or far right in any of the one or more speaker arrays.
(the speakers and listener have their positions determined as per the above claims, accordingly, the speakers and listener must be in a common coordinate system where a coordinate system is a set of lines connecting each identified point in the 3d space, including those for which the position has been determined such as the speakers and the listener) (further the speakers are reference speakers as left and right, per the stereo pair in fig. 6)(further all of the speakers, are reference speakers when determining the listener’s relative position as per the above claim rejections).
As per claims 5,15, the method for controlling the sound field of speaker arrays of claim 4, wherein the delay time is obtained based on each of the plurality of shortest distances and sound speed (since the delay is used to render the audio as described above, the determined delay for each channel as obtained is based on the shortest distances between each speaker, and between the user and the speakers and also based on sound speed, because the delay time is determined so to render based on the physical configuration of each speaker and of the listener).
As per claims 6,16, the method for controlling the sound field of speaker arrays of claim 5, wherein the delay time τ is determined, but Reilly and Moore do not specify the delay is expressed as follows: τ=distv wherein dist is the shortest distance, and v is the sound speed.
The examiner takes official notice that it is well known in the art to determine delays for speaker arrays using sound speed and interspeaker distance/shortest distance.
It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art at the time of filing to represent the delay in terms of interspeaker/shortest distance and sound speed as those are the laws of nature that define the delay of acoustic audio produced by loudspeakers.
As per claims 7,17, the method for controlling the sound field of speaker arrays of claim 1, wherein the step of processing each of the plurality of audio signals according to the delay time further comprises: adjusting each of the plurality of the audio signals so that each of the plurality of speakers plays their respective each of the plurality of the audio signals in advance of corresponding delay times (the delay times are applied to the playback/rendering of the audio as cited above, ie directly before the time indicated by the delay).
As per claims 10,20 the method for controlling the sound field of speaker arrays of claim 8, wherein the photography device is arranged at an intermediate position of one of the one or more speaker arrays (fig. 2c where the camera is part of the zone player intermediate the speakers) (alternatively, the zone player and its camera can be part of the speakers per fig. 2a).
Claim(s) 8,9,18,19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Reilly et al (US 12666217 B2), and further in view of Moore (US 20190394569 A1) as applied to claim 1,11 and further in view of Thomas (US 20210318850 A1).
As per claims 8,18, Reilly and Moore disclose the method for controlling the sound field of speaker arrays of claim 1,and using a camera image to obtain a listener position, but do not specify:
wherein before obtaining the position and the distance information, the method further comprises:
receiving a facial image generated by a photography device, wherein the facial image comprises a face of the listener;
Thomas teaches that audio devices with cameras can use faces to identify listeners (per para 59). In order to determine a primary speaker/listener during a conference. It would have been obvious to one skilled in the art at the time of filing to detect the listener of Reilly and Moore using facial features for the purpose of also allowing determination of the primary speaker/listener during a communication.
As per claims 9,19, the method for controlling the sound field of speaker arrays of claim 8, wherein after receiving the facial image generated by the photography device, the method further comprises:
determining that the facial image comprises more than one person (reilly para 44: To gather data indicative of the position of the listener and/or listeners, ); and
selecting a first person who is closest to the photography device in the facial image as the listener (per Thomas para 59).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALEXANDER KRZYSTAN whose telephone number is 571-272-7498, and whose email address is alexander.krzystan@uspto.gov
The examiner can usually be reached on m-f 7:30-4:00 est.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone or email are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Fan Tsang can be reached on (571) 272-7547.
The fax phone numbers for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned are 571-273-8300 for regular communications and 571-273-8300 for After Final communications.
/ALEXANDER KRZYSTAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2653
Examiner Alexander Krzystan
June 25, 2026
Prosecution Insights