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 § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-24 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Nemer et al. (PGPUB 2018/0060223), hereinafter referenced as Nemer.
Regarding claim 1, Nemer discloses a method comprising:
receiving a time-domain audio signal (audio encoder receives input audio; p. 0037, 0041 with fig. 3, 140);
generating a blocked time-domain audio signal as a portion of the time-domain audio signal (transform based codec operates on frames of audio samples; p. 0037 with fig. 3, element 140);
transforming the blocked time-domain audio signal using a first non-windowed transform function to generate a first frequency-domain audio signal (transform processing of audio blocks into frequency domain coefficients; fig. 3, element 310 with p. 0041 wherein blocks of frequency transform coefficients 310, which are input to the orthogonal transformation and permutation system 300. In some embodiments these blocks of frequency transform coefficients 310 are normalized modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) coefficients. The MDCT and DCT correspond to a first non-windowed transform function);
transforming the first frequency-domain audio signal using a second non-windowed transform function to generate a second frequency-domain audio signal (fig. 3, element 300 which corresponds to the second non-windowed transform function wherein additional transform operations on frequency domain bands); and
compressing the second frequency-domain audio signal to generate a compressed frequency-domain audio signal (fig. 3, elements 320-330 and wherein the codec quantizes spectral information for compression).
Regarding claims 2 and 10, Nemer discloses a method wherein the first non-windowed transform function is a discrete cosine transform (DCT) transform (p. 0048).
Regarding claims 3 and 17, Nemer discloses a method further comprising:
generating a quantized frequency-domain audio signal by quantizing the second frequency-domain audio signal, wherein:
the compressing of the second frequency-domain audio signal includes compressing the quantized frequency-domain audio signal, the second frequency-domain audio signal includes a plurality of transform coefficient values, quantizing the second frequency-domain audio signal includes mapping each of plurality of transform coefficient values to one of a plurality of quantized transform coefficient values, and the mapping each of the plurality of transform coefficient values to one of the quantized transform coefficient values includes introducing an error to each quantized transform coefficient value (quantizing/compressing; fig. 3, element 330, fig. 4, element 420 with p. 0045, 0052 comprising vector quantization/mapping and its associated decoding).
Regarding claims 4 and 18, Nemer discloses a method wherein the quantizing of the second frequency-domain audio signal includes: selecting a transform coefficient from a first mapped position, identifying a second mapped position adjacent to the first mapped position, and mapping the transform coefficient to the second mapped position (quantizing/compressing; fig. 3, element 330, fig. 4, element 420 with p. 0045, 0052 comprising vector quantization/mapping and its associated decoding and ordering of coefficients and processing based on transform domain information).
Regarding claims 5 and 19, Nemer discloses a method wherein the selecting of the transform coefficient is based on an error associated with the quantized transform coefficient value corresponding to the transform coefficient (quantizing/compressing; fig. 3, element 330, fig. 4, element 420 with p. 0045, 0052 comprising vector quantization/mapping and its associated decoding).
Regarding claim 6, Nemer discloses a method wherein the mapping of the transform coefficient to the second mapped position includes repeatedly selecting and mapping the transform coefficient to the second mapped position until an error is less than a threshold value (quantizing/compressing; fig. 3, element 330, fig. 4, element 420 with p. 0045, 0052 comprising vector quantization/mapping and its associated decoding).
Regarding claim 7, Nemer discloses a method wherein the mapping of the first transform coefficient to the second mapped position includes:
identifying a subset of the plurality of quantized transform coefficient values, identifying the first mapped position as within the subset of the plurality of quantized transform coefficient values, and the second mapped position is within the subset of the plurality of quantized transform coefficient values (quantizing/compressing; fig. 3, element 330, fig. 4, element 420 with p. 0045, 0052 comprising vector quantization/mapping and its associated decoding).
Regarding claim 8, Nemer discloses a method further comprising one of:
storing the compressed frequency-domain audio signal in a computer memory,
or streaming the compressed frequency-domain audio signal (storing or streaming; p. 0039).
Regarding claim 9, it is interpreted and rejected for similar reasons as set forth above. In addition Nemer discloses a method comprising:
receiving a formatted data packet including a compressed frequency-domain audio signal;
generating a decompressed frequency-domain audio signal by decompressing the compressed frequency-domain audio signal;
transforming the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal using a first non-windowed transform function to generate a first time-domain audio signal;
transforming the first time-domain audio signal using a second non-windowed transform function to generate a second time-domain audio signal; and
generating a reconstructed time-domain audio signal based on the second time-domain audio signal; (fig. 4, elements 175, 180 with p. 0044-0045 for recovering time-domain audio signal from a formatted data packet. Receive transmitted encoded bitstream, unpacks it, performs inverse vector quantization, generates a set of received frequency transform coefficients, supplies those coefficients to an orthogonal inverse transformation a permutation system and outputs the recovered signal).
Regarding claims 11 and 20, Nemer discloses a method further comprising:
generating an inverse-quantized frequency-domain audio signal by inverse-quantizing the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal, wherein the quantizing of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal includes:
calculating an alternating sum of a first block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal, calculating a sum of a second block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal, and repeatedly remapping values of the second block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal until the sum of the second block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal is within a threshold value of the alternating sum of the first block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal (quantizing/compressing; fig. 3, element 330, fig. 4, element 420 with p. 0045, 0052 comprising vector quantization/mapping and its associated decoding).
Regarding claims 12 and 21, Nemer discloses a method wherein:
prior to the calculating of the alternating sum of the first block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal, the method further comprising:
identifying a range of frequencies associated with the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal, the calculating of the alternating sum of the first block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal is calculated within the range of frequencies, and the calculating of the alternating sum of the second block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal is calculated within the range of frequencies (quantizing/compressing; fig. 3, element 330, fig. 4, element 420 with p. 0045, 0052 comprising vector quantization/mapping and its associated decoding).
Regarding claims 13 and 22, Nemer discloses a method further comprising:
generating an inverse-quantized frequency-domain audio signal by inverse-quantizing the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal, wherein the quantizing of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal includes:
calculating an alternating sum of a first block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal,
reversing an element order of a second block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal,
calculating an alternating sum of the second block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal, and
repeatedly remapping values of the second block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal until the sum of the second block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal is within a threshold value of the alternating sum of the first block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal (quantizing/compressing; fig. 3, element 330, fig. 4, element 420 with p. 0045, 0052 comprising vector quantization/mapping and its associated decoding).
Regarding claims 14 and 23, Nemer discloses a method further comprising:
generating an inverse-quantized frequency-domain audio signal by inverse-quantizing the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal, wherein the quantizing of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal includes:
reversing an element order of a first block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal, calculating a sum of the first block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal,
calculating a sum of a second block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal, and
repeatedly remapping values of the second block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal until the sum of the second block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal is within a threshold value of the sum of the first block of the decompressed frequency-domain audio signal (quantizing/compressing; fig. 3, element 330, fig. 4, element 420 with p. 0045, 0052 comprising vector quantization/mapping and its associated decoding).
Regarding claims 15 and 24, Nemer discloses a method further comprising playing back the reconstructed time-domain audio signal (playing back; p. 0039).
Regarding claim 16, it is interpreted and rejected for similar reasons as set forth above in claim 1 with the features disclosing inverse processing for the purpose of recovering a time domain audio signal of similar claim 9. In addition, Nemer discloses a similar arrangement in fig. 1.
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).
Goodwin et al. disclose audio coder window and transform implementations.
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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