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 § 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.
Claims 1, 9, and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim, KR2023-0089577 (machine translation included) in view of Cheon et al, US Patent 11,082,795 in further view of Chigot et al, US PGPub 2025/0071503 in further view of Gouin, US PGPub 2022/0201414.
Regarding claim 1, Kim teaches an electronic apparatus comprising: at least one processor configured to: identify a candidate region having a critical area or more area than the critical area in map data related to a space where the electronic apparatus is located, move the electronic apparatus to a representative location of the candidate region (robot cleaner 100 moves in an object space and maps the environment, see figures 1 and 2, abstract, pages 6-7). The robot cleaner communicates with a smart speaker 200 to enhance voice recognition by determining the room impulse response using sample measurement signals (page 3). However, the robot cleaner does not comprise a speaker; a microphone; and output[ing] an audio signal through the speaker, acquire a reverberation time of the audio signal at a plurality of locations including the representative location in the candidate region based on a recorded audio signal corresponding to the audio signal acquired through the microphone, and identify a target location from which a longest reverberation time is acquired among the plurality of locations. Cheon et al disclose an electronic apparatus in figure 1 having a speaker 11, microphone 12, outputting an audio signal through the speaker 11 (column 4 line 58 – column 5 line 49). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill at the effective time of filing to modify the robot cleaner of Kim per the teachings of Cheon et al for the purpose of characterizing the sound environment of a large space without the constant communication with the smart speaker. The combination of Kim and Cheon et al fails to disclose “acquire a reverberation time of the audio signal at a plurality of locations including the representative location in the candidate region based on a recorded audio signal corresponding to the audio signal acquired through the microphone”. Chigot et al disclose “acquire a reverberation time of the audio signal at a plurality of locations including the representative location in the candidate region based on a recorded audio signal corresponding to the audio signal acquired through the microphone” (see paragraph 13). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill at the effective time of filing to modify the combination of Kim and Cheon et al per the teachings of Chigot et al, thereby using the robot cleaner to measure reverberation time, for the purpose of increasing speech recognition in a large space. The combination of Kim, Cheon et al, and Chigot et al fails to disclose “identify a target location from which a longest reverberation time is acquired among the plurality of locations”. Gouin discloses “identify a target location from which a longest reverberation time is acquired among the plurality of locations” in paragraph 17. The purpose of calculating the longest reverberation time in Gouin was to improve the intelligibility of audio signals in a space. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill at the effective time of filing to modify the combination of Kim, Cheon et al, Chigot et al per the teachings of Gouin for the benefit of further increasing the speech recognition capabilities of the robot cleaner.
Regarding claim 9, the electronic apparatus as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a display, wherein the at least one processor is configured to control the display to display a user interface (UI) including the map data indicating the target location (see Chigot et al, paragraph 61).
Regarding claim 11, its subject matter represents the method of claim 1, therefore it is rejected using the same rationale as that for claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-8, 10, and 12-15 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. Hayakawa et al, US PGPub 2022/0076667, which is directed toward a technique of increasing speech recognition in an acoustic environment by generating an acoustic model of the environment through the use of sensors. Jung et al, US Patent 9,804,822, which is directed toward an electronic apparatus for recognizing voice input in an noisy or highly reverberant environment.
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Brian T. Pendleton
Supervisory Patent Examiner
Art Unit 2425
/Brian T Pendleton/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2425
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