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
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, 4 and 7-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alves (PGPUB 2008/0037801), hereinafter referenced as Alves in view of Lee (PGPUB 2003/0174661).
Regarding claims 1 and 8, Alves discloses an echo canceller and method for removing an echo sound that is a sound output from a speaker, propagates through space and is input to a microphone, the echo canceller comprising:
a microphone signal generation unit that generates a microphone signal based on a sound received from the microphone (the second microphone generates a microphone signal; p. 0030-0033);
an adaptive filter update unit that updates an adaptive filter used for estimating an echo signal that is a signal related to the echo sound (adaptive filters are updated using the error signal; p. 0034-0041);
a pseudo-echo signal generation unit that generates a pseudo-echo signal based on an output signal that is a signal related to a sound output from the speaker and the adaptive filter (estimate based on the speaker, far end signal and adaptive filter; fig. 3 with p. 0038, 0050-0054);
an echo signal removing unit that removes the pseudo-echo signal from the microphone signal and generates an echo-removed signal (fig. 3 wherein the adaptive filters filter the speaker subbands to generate a pseudo-echo signal and then the difference between the second microphone input subbands and the filter output is echo canceled subband signal with p. 0033-0043);
a gain adjustment unit that adjusts a gain of the echo-removed signal based on a determination result by the target speech detection unit (gain; p. 0064-0065); and
an output signal generation unit that generates the output signal based on the echo-removed signal adjusted by the gain adjustment unit (RER processes the echo-cancelled signal and produces the echo-reducer output; p. 0034), but does not specifically teach a target speech detection unit that determines whether a target speech signal that is a signal different from the echo signal is included in the echo-removed signal.
It is noted that Alves discloses that the VAD detects spoken speech in the echo reducer output and uses that detection to select the speech output versus comfort noise (p. 0072). In addition, Lee discloses and echo canceller comprising a target speech detection unit that determines whether a target speech signal that is a signal different from the echo signal is included in the echo-removed signal (fig. 1 with p. 0029-0032 wherein the desired speech is identified as near-end speech signal and separately identifies the echo as echo signal), to determine whether near-end speech is present in the echo-removed signal and to control the gain applied to the signal.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill of the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the method as described above, to improve suppression of residual echo while reducing gain, which improves quality and intelligibility of the output signal.
Regarding claim 4, Alves discloses an echo canceller wherein in a case that a difference between a level of the microphone signal and a level of the echo-removed signal is less than a prescribed third threshold, the target speech detection unit determines that the target speech signal is included in the echo-removed signal, and in a case that the difference is equal to or larger than the third threshold, the target speech detection unit determines that the target speech signal is not included in the echo-removed signal when the difference is equal to or larger than the third threshold (energy of near end signal relative to the residual and uses thresholds; p. 0046-0058).
Regarding claim 7, Alves discloses an echo canceller further comprising: a frequency spectrum transformation unit that acquires the echo-signal-removed signal from the echo signal removing unit and transforms the echo-removed signal into a frequency spectrum, and the target speech detection unit determines whether the target speech signal is included in the echo-removed signal based on the frequency spectrum (echo canceller in the frequency domain wherein the analysis filter bank generates subbands and the noise cancellation algorithm is frequency domain based using DFT analysis filter; p. 0037-0043).
Claim(s) 2-3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alves in view of Lee and in further view of Unno et al. (PGPUB 2009/0036170), hereinafter referenced as Unno.
Regarding claim 2, Alves in view of Lee disclose an echo canceller as described above, but does not specifically teach wherein the target speech detection unit determines that the target speech signal is included in the echo-removed signal when a level of a smoothed signal obtained by smoothing the echo-removed signal in a prescribed period is equal to or larger than a prescribed first threshold.
Unno discloses an echo canceller wherein the target speech detection unit determines that the target speech signal is included in the echo-removed signal when a level of a smoothed signal obtained by smoothing the echo-removed signal in a prescribed period is equal to or larger than a prescribed first threshold (AEC output signal power can be a smoothed frame power; p. 0015-0021), to provide reliable data.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill of the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the method as described above, to improve echo suppression while reducing erroneous attenuation of desired near end speech.
Regarding claim 3, it is interpreted and rejected for similar reasons as set forth above. In addition, Unno discloses an echo canceller wherein the first threshold is a value obtained by adding a prescribed second threshold to a noise floor level of the smoothed signal or a value larger than the above value (relative level threshold against noise level; p. 0023).
Claim(s) 5-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alves in view of Lee and in further view of Romesburg (USPN 6,185,300), hereinafter referenced as Romesburg.
Regarding claim 5, Alves in view of Lee disclose a canceller as described above, but does not specifically teach an echo canceller wherein when the determination result indicates that the target speech signal is not included in the echo-removed signal, the gain adjustment unit performs adjustment to attenuate the gain of the echo-removed signal.
Romesburg discloses a canceller wherein when the determination result indicates that the target speech signal is not included in the echo-removed signal, the gain adjustment unit performs adjustment to attenuate the gain of the echo-removed signal (suppress while avoiding undue distortions of any near-end voice that may be present; column 22, lines 9-26 with fig. 5), in further suppress residual echo.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill of the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the method as described above, to assist with improving the system.
Regarding claim 6, it is interpreted and rejected for similar reason as set forth above. In addition, Romesburg discloses an echo canceller wherein when the determination result indicates that the target speech signal is included in the echo-removed signal, the gain adjustment unit determines amplification or attenuation of the gain of the echo-removed signal based on a peak value of the microphone signal (peak value of the microphone signal; column 15, lines 19-56).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. This information has been detailed in the PTO 892 attached (Notice of References Cited).
Hoang et al. discloses a hearing device comprising a noise reduction.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAKIEDA R JACKSON whose telephone number is (571)272-7619. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Fri 6:30a-2:30p.
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/JAKIEDA R JACKSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2657
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