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 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.
Claims 1-3, 9, 11-13 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oughriss et al. (US PG PUB 2014/0118616 hereinafter referred as Oughriss) in view of Kim et al. (US Pat. No. 10, 972, 853).
Regarding claim 1, Oughriss discloses an audio processing method, comprising:
based on that a to-be-played multimedia file comprises multiple channels of audio tracks, parsing the to-be-played multimedia file to obtain the multiple channels of audio tracks of the to-be-played multimedia file (see figure 3 step 310 receiving a program streams with video packets and audio packets, the audio packets comprising first and second language; see figure 2 and paragraph 0022 program stream decoder separates the video streams and the audio streams; the streams identified by audio PIDS are processed by audio processor; first and second audio output identified by audio PID; see also paragraph 0015);
determining at least two channels of target audio tracks from the multiple channels of audio tracks, and establishing a corresponding relationship between each channel of target audio track and each playback earphone (see figure 2, units 225 and 230, see paragraph 0022 the streams identified by audio PIDS are processed by audio processor; first and second audio output identified by audio PID; first audio sent to speaker and second audio sent to audio wireless transmitter; see figure 3, step 330 audio packets use by first user and second user; see paragraph 0023);
decoding each channel of target audio track based on a preset decoder corresponding to each channel of target audio track (see figure 3, step 330 outputting the audio packets; see figure 2 audio output 245 and audio transmitter 250; audio sent to speaker and wireless transmitter; see paragraph 0023 streaming the second audio for the second language via any wireless technology);
playing each channel of target audio track through the playback earphone corresponding to each channel of target audio track based on the corresponding relationship between each channel of target audio track and each playback earphone (see figure 2, AUDIO PID-SPN playing via wireless transmitter such as WIFI, Bluetooth and headphone, for instance; AUDIO-PID-ENG playing via speaker to be heard by group 280; see paragraphs 0022-0023).
Claim 1 differs from Oughriss in that the claim further requires obtaining pulse modulation code corresponding to each channel and playing each channel based on pulse modulation code corresponding to each channel of target audio track.
In the same field of endeavor Kim discloses obtaining pulse modulation code corresponding to each channel and playing each channel based on pulse modulation code corresponding to each channel of target audio track (see col. 2 lines 59-65 audio encoders receive input including in object-based audio which involves pulse-code-modulation data for single audio objects with associated metadata containing their location coordinates; see col. 7 lines 14-26 decoding device configured to decode object based audio; the decoding device including format generation unit and rendering unit; the rendering unit may be implemented in a separate device, such as loudspeaker, headphone unit, audio base or satellite device; see col. 7 lines 58-65 format generation unit configured to generate a sound field in a specified format based on multi-channel audio data; see col. 8 lines 4-21 generate audio signals for playback at a plurality of loudspeakers; the audio signals may include channels C1 through CL; see figure 5).
Therefore, in light of the teaching of Kim, it is notoriously well known before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to obtain a pulse modulation code when decoding encoded signals and playing audio according to that in order to reduce signal to noise ratio, to deliver high-resolution sound, and to obtain and output one or more speaker feeds.
Regarding claim 2, Kim discloses wherein before decoding each channel of target audio track based on the preset decoder corresponding to each channel of target audio track, the method further comprises: obtaining parameter information corresponding to each channel of target audio track; establishing the preset decoder corresponding to each channel of target audio track based on the parameter information corresponding to each channel of target audio track (see figures 2-3; col. 5 line 53-col. 6 line 5; col. 6 lines 28-35 and col. 7 lines 37-65). The motivation to combine the references is discussed in claim 1 above.
Regarding claim 3, Kim discloses the preset decoder comprises a hard decoder and a soft decoder; the parameter information comprises: an audio sampling rate, a quantity of soundtracks and a bit rate; the establishing the preset decoder corresponding to each channel of target audio track based on the parameter information corresponding to each channel of target audio track, comprises: performing a product operation on the audio sampling rate, the quantity of soundtracks, and the bit rate of each channel of target audio track to obtain a product operation result of each channel of target audio track; establishing the hard decoder for a target audio track corresponding to a maximum product operation result, and establishing the soft decoder for other target audio tracks (see figure 5; col. 1 lines 48-64; col. 4 lines 14-35; col. 6 line 36-col. 7 line 13; col. 7 lines 37-57; col. 11 lines 25-43 and col. 11 line 50-col. 12 line 40). The motivation to combine the references is discussed in claim 1 above.
Regarding claim 9, Oughriss discloses based on that a switching instruction input from a user is received, switching the target audio track currently being played (see paragraphs 0023 and 0025).
Regarding claim 11, the limitation of claim 11 can be found in claim 1 above. Therefore claim 11 is analyzed and rejected for the same reasons as discussed in claim 1 above. See also Kim’s claim 30.
Claims 12-13 and 19 are rejected for the same reasons as discussed in claims 2-3 and 9 respectively above.
Claims 4-8, 10, 14-18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oughriss et al. (US PG PUB 2014/0118616 hereinafter referred as Oughriss) in view of Kim et al. (US Pat. No. 10, 972, 853) and further in view of Erickson (US Pat. No. 10, 129, 587).
Regarding claim 4, although the applied prior art of Oughriss discloses based on that each channel of target audio track is played through the playback earphone corresponding to each channel of target audio track, synchronously playing videos contained in the to-be-played multimedia file based on a target synchronization clock (see paragraphs 0020-0022); the combination of Oughriss and Kim fails to specifically discloses playing the captions included in the multimedia file.
In the same field of endeavor Erickson discloses playing the captions included in the multimedia file (see col. 6 lines 9-20; the second media streams 327 may correspond to alternative subtitle streams synchronized to the first media stream 324, where the first media stream 324 may correspond to audio and/or video; see also col. 2 lines 52-67 and figures 1-3).
Therefore, in light of the teaching in Erickson, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the above combination by adding closed captioning data in the multimedia stream and output the media file simultaneously in order to facilitate fast switching of synchronized media using time-stamp management, to capture user data and to perform time-stamp management function.
Regarding claim 5, Erickson the synchronously playing the videos and captions contained in the to-be-played multimedia file based on the target synchronization clock comprises: decoding elementary streams corresponding to the videos and captions contained in the to-be-played multimedia file to obtain initial data respectively corresponding to the videos and captions; synchronously playing the videos and captions contained in the to-be-played multimedia file based on the target synchronization clock and the initial data respectively corresponding to the videos and the captions (see figures 1-3; col. 2 lines 52-67; col. 4 lines 13-23; col. 5 lines 7-33 and col. 6 lines 9-20). The motivation to combine the references is discussed in claim 4 above.
Regarding claim 6, Erickson discloses before parsing elementary streams corresponding to the videos and captions contained in the to-be-played multimedia file to obtain initial data respectively corresponding to the videos and captions, the method further comprises: determining an audio clock corresponding to each channel of target audio track; determining the target synchronization clock from a plurality of audio clocks, wherein the target synchronization clock is used to synchronously play the videos, captions and at least two channels of target audio tracks contained in the to-be-played multimedia file (see col. 5 lines 7-33; col. 6 lines 9-20; col. 6 line 51-col. 7 line 7; and col. 7 line 50-col. 8 line 6). The motivation to combine the references is discussed in claim 4 above.
Regarding claim 7, Oughriss discloses the determining the target synchronization clock from the plurality of audio clocks, comprises: determining a first target audio track corresponding to a maximum product operation result based on a product operation result of each channel of target audio track; determining an audio clock of the first target audio track as the target synchronization clock (see paragraphs 0016-0017 and 0024).
Regarding claim 8, Kim discloses the said determining the target synchronization clock from the plurality of audio clocks, comprises: based on that a corresponding preset decoder is established for each channel of target audio track, determining a second target audio track corresponding to a preset decoder that is a last audio track to finish the establishment; determining an audio clock of the second target audio track as the target synchronization clock (see col. 11 lines 11-24; col. 12 line 40-col. 13 line 5). See also Oughriss’s paragraph 0022 and Erickson’s col. 3 lines 49-67. The motivation to combine the references is discussed in claims 1 and 4 above.
Regarding claim 10, Erickson discloses based on that each channel of target audio track is played through the playback earphone corresponding to each channel of target audio track, playing the captions contained in the to-be-played multimedia file, comprises: receiving a selection operation from a user; in response to the selection operation, determining one or more channels of to-be-output captions from the captions contained in the to-be-played multimedia file; obtaining caption data of each channel of to-be-output caption; obtaining a global clock of a playback pipeline of the to-be-played multimedia file and a synchronous rendering logic corresponding to each channel of to-be-output caption; based on the global clock and the synchronous rendering logic corresponding to each channel of to-be-output caption, synchronously rendering the caption data of each channel of to-be-output caption, so as to synchronously display each channel of to-be-output caption while playing the to-be-played multimedia file (see figure 4; col. 2 lines 52-67; col. 4 lines 44-53; col. 5 lines 33-48; col. 6 line 9-col. 7 line 29 and also col. 7 line 20-col. 8 line 6). The motivation to combine the references is discussed in claim 4 above.
Claims 14-18 and 20 are rejected for the same reasons as discussed in claims 4-8 and 10 respectively.
Conclusion
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/HELEN SHIBRU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2484 February 5, 2026