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 .
DETAIL ACTION
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d). The certified copy has been placed of record in the file.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) was submitted on ***. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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 (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 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) 1-2 and 4-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Marila et al (US 6928410 B1) in view of KAMIYAMA et al (JP 2014232245 A).
Regarding claim 1, Marila discloses an audio processing method[e.g. FIG. 1; speech signal processing] comprising:
obtaining event information [e.g. FIG. 5; time for scheduled conference] concerning an event [conference] from an information source apparatus or an information source service [e.g. coming phone call or message];
determining a character string [e.g. FIG. 1; a string of syllables] to be spoken by a speech apparatus [e.g. FIG. 1 and 4-5; speaker], based on the event information obtained;
dividing the character string determined into one or more sub-character strings [e.g. FIG.1; 4 syllables];
generating an audio signal from the character string [e.g. FIG. 1-3; modification be adjusted so that the audible signal 122 can be more speech-like than music-like according to the linguistic rule; generating audible signal].
Although Marila discloses executing , on the string signal, modifying according to a feature of a consonant [e.g. for each of the one or more sub-character strings [e.g. FIG. 2-3; modification be adjusted so that the audible signal 122 can be more speech-like than music-like according to the linguistic rule. The linguistic rule includes an assignment of a tone to a syllable of the speech data based on a vowel of the syllable, a consonant of the syllable]; and outputting the audio signal [e.g. FIG 2-3] modified, it is noted that Marila differs to the present invention in that Marila fails to explicitly disclose a filter to correct the audio signal.
However, KAMIYAMA teaches the well-known concept of correcting the audio signal by executing, , filter processing filter to apply a first filter according to a feature of a consonant for each of the one or more sub-character strings [e.g. FIG. 1; filter generation unit 11 includes, for example, a vowel filter generation unit 4, a voiced consonant filter generation unit 5, and an unvoiced consonant filter generation unit 6]; and outputting the audio signal [e.g. FIG 1-2; generating a clear sound] corrected.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the speech signal processing system disclosed by Marila to exploit the well-known a sound clarifying technique taught by KAMIYAMA as above, in order to provide improved easiness of hearing while preventing deterioration of naturalness by switching the clarification process for each phoneme type of vowels, voiced consonants, and unvoiced consonants [See KAMIYAMA; page 4; paragraph 5-6 before [Reference 2]].
Regarding claim 2, Marila and KAMIYAMA further disclose the character string is divided into the one or more sub-character strings based on syllables [Marila: FIG. 1; string of syllables].
Regarding claim 4, Marila and KAMIYAMA further disclose obtaining sound collection information obtained by collecting sounds around the speech apparatus [e.g. KAMIYAMA: FIG. 1 and 8-9] ; and further applying a third filter according to the sound collection information to the audio signal in the filter processing [e.g. KAMIYAMA: FIG. 1; filter generation unit 11 includes, for example, a vowel filter generation unit 4, a voiced consonant filter generation unit 5, and an unvoiced consonant filter generation unit 6].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the speech signal processing system disclosed by Marila to exploit the well-known a sound clarifying technique taught by KAMIYAMA as above, in order to provide improved easiness of hearing while preventing deterioration of naturalness by switching the clarification process for each phoneme type of vowels, voiced consonants, and unvoiced consonants [See KAMIYAMA; page 4; paragraph 5-6 before [Reference 2]].
Regarding claim 5, this is a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that includes same limitation as in claim 1 above, the rejection of which are incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 6, this is an apparatus that includes same limitation as in claim 1 above, the rejection of which are incorporated herein.
Claim(s) 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Marila et al (US 6928410 B1) in view of KAMIYAMA et al (JP 2014232245 A) and Yang et al (US 20110038490 A1).
Regarding claim 3, Marila and KAMIYAMA further disclose a second filter KAMIYAMA: FIG. 1], but Marila and KAMIYAMA fail to disclose the detail of the second filter.
However, Yang (US 20110038490 A1) teaches a second filter according to a type of the speech apparatus is further applied to the audio signal [FIG. 2; [0044]].
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the speech signal processing system disclosed by Marila to exploit the well-known a sound clarifying technique taught by KAMIYAMA and the well-known audio signal processing technique taught by Yang as above, in order to provide improved easiness of hearing while preventing deterioration of naturalness by switching the clarification process for each phoneme type of vowels, voiced consonants, and unvoiced consonants [See KAMIYAMA; page 4; paragraph 5-6 before [Reference 2]] and reduced distortion and also increased the headroom of the audio signal [See Yang; [0037]].
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
KALINLI et al (US 20120253812 A1).
Bonnie et al (US 20230377607 A1).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZHUBING REN whose telephone number is (571)272-2788. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9am-5pm.
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/ZHUBING REN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2658
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