DETAILED ACTION
Notice of 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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 10/31/2025 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 § 101
Claims 1-18 were evaluated under 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection to an abstract idea without significantly more, but since the claims are tied with frame loss concealment, no 35 USC 101 rejections have been given.
Double Patenting
The non-statutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A non-statutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a non-statutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based e-Terminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An e-Terminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about e-Terminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
Claims 1, 3, 4, 7-10, 12, 13, 16-18 are rejected on the ground of non-statutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1, 2, 4-6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15-17, 20-22 of U.S. Patent No. 11,967,327. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because claims 1, 3, 4, 7-10, 12, 13, 16-18 of the instant application similar in scope and content of the patented claims 1, 2, 4-6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15-17, 20-22 of the patent issued to the same Applicant.
Application No: 19/171,555
Patent No: 11,967,327
1.An audio decoding method, the method comprising a decoder
generating frequency spectra on a subframe basis where consecutive subframes of an audio signal includes a property that an applied window shape of first subframe of the consecutive sub frames is a mirrored version or a time reversed version of a window shape applied on a second subframe of the consecutive subframes,
and storing a signal spectrum corresponding to the second subframe, the audio decoding method further comprising: in response to a frame loss, obtaining the previously generated signal spectrum corresponding to the second subframe;
detecting peaks of the signal spectrum and
estimating a phase of each of the peaks;
determining a phase adjustment for each of the detected peaks based on the estimated phase;
adjusting the detected peaks by applying the phase adjustment to peak bins of each of the detected peaks, to form phase adjusted peak bins,
and taking a complex conjugate of the phase adjusted peak bins, to form time reversed phase adjusted peaks;
and combining the time reversed phase adjusted peak bins with a noise component of the spectrum, that is derived from non-peak bins of the signal spectrum, to form a combined spectrum for a first concealment subframe of a concealment audio frame.
1.A method of generating a concealment audio subframe of an audio signal in a decoding device, the method comprising:
generating frequency spectra on a subframe basis where consecutive subframes of the audio signal have a property that an applied window shape of first subframe of the consecutive subframes is a mirrored version or a time reversed version of a second subframe of the consecutive subframes;
Claim 4
detecting peaks of a signal spectrum of a previously received audio signal on a fractional frequency scale;
estimating a phase of each of the peaks;
deriving a phase adjustment for a time reversed concealment audio subframe to apply to the peaks of the signal spectrum based on the phase estimated;
applying the phase adjustment to the peaks of the signal spectrum to form phase adjusted peaks and to form a concealment audio subframe based on the phase adjusted peaks;
applying a time reversal to the concealment audio subframe;
Claim 5.
Claim 2.
and generating a synthesized concealment audio subframe based on the concealment audio subframe.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein a synthesized concealment audio frame comprises two consecutive concealment subframes, the method further comprising: combining the phase adjusted peak bins with the non-peak bins of the signal spectrum to form a combined spectrum for the second concealment subframe of the concealment audio frame.
3. The method of claim 1further comprising: associating each of the detected peaks with a number of peak frequency bins representing the peak.
6. The method of claim 1 further comprising associating each peak of the detected peaks with a number of peak frequency bins representing the peak.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the phase adjustment for the peaks of the
concealment audio subframe is calculated in accordance with:
PNG
media_image1.png
38
324
media_image1.png
Greyscale
wherein φ is the estimated phase of a peak and f is a frequency of a peak, Nlost denotes
the number of consecutive lost frames, N denotes the length of a full frame and Nstep21 is
the distance in samples between the start of the second subframe of the last received frame
and the start of the first subframe of a concealment audio frame.
11. The method of claim 10, wherein a phase adjustment for the peaks of the
time reversed concealment audio subframe is calculated in accordance with:
PNG
media_image1.png
38
324
media_image1.png
Greyscale
wherein φ is a phase of a peak and f is a frequency of a peak, Nlost denotes the number of consecutive lost frames, N denotes a length of a full frame and Nstep21 is a distance in samples between a starting point of an analysis subframe and concealment subframe.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the adjusting of the detected peaks by
applying the phase adjustment to peak bins of each of the detected peaks, to form phase
adjusted peak bins, and taking a complex conjugate of the phase adjusted peak bins, to
form time reversed phase adjusted peaks is in accordance with:
PNG
media_image2.png
42
260
media_image2.png
Greyscale
wherein * is the complex conjugate,
PNG
media_image3.png
28
71
media_image3.png
Greyscale
is the signal spectrum, and
PNG
media_image4.png
25
30
media_image4.png
Greyscale
is the phase
adjustment.
6. The method of claim 1, further comprising: calculating the noise component of the signal spectrum, the spectral coefficients retaining a desired property of the signal when calculating the noise component.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein the desired property comprises correlation with a second channel in a multichannel decoder system.
9. The method of claim 8, wherein the desired property comprises correlation with a second channel in a multichannel decoder system.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein estimating the phase of each of the peaks
comprises:
calculating a phase estimation for the peaks of the time reversed phase adjusted
peaks in accordance with:
PNG
media_image5.png
62
289
media_image5.png
Greyscale
where φi is an estimated phase at frequency
PNG
media_image6.png
27
110
media_image6.png
Greyscale
is an angle of spectrum
Xmem of a previously received audio signal at a frequency bin
PNG
media_image7.png
25
66
media_image7.png
Greyscale
is a rounding
error, and φc is a tuning constant.
10. The method of claim 1, wherein estimating the phase of each of the peaks comprises:
calculating a phase estimation for the peaks of the time reversed phase adjusted peaks in accordance with:
PNG
media_image5.png
62
289
media_image5.png
Greyscale
where φi is an estimated phase at frequency
PNG
media_image6.png
27
110
media_image6.png
Greyscale
is an angle of spectrum
Xmem of a previously received audio signal at a frequency bin
PNG
media_image7.png
25
66
media_image7.png
Greyscale
is a rounding
error, and φc is a tuning constant and ki is [fi], where [.]. represents a rounding operation.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein the peaks of the signal spectrum are detected on a fractional frequency scale.
Claim 1
10. An audio decoder configured to
generate frequency spectra on a subframe basis where consecutive subframes of an audio signal includes a property that an applied window shape of first subframe of the consecutive subframes is a mirrored version or a time reversed version of a window shape applied on a second subframe of the consecutive subframes,
and store a signal spectrum corresponding to the second subframe, the audio decoder further being configured to: in response to a frame loss, obtain the previously generated signal spectrum corresponding to the second subframe;
detect peaks of the signal spectrum
and estimate a phase of each of the peaks;
determine a phase adjustment for each of the detected peaks based on the estimated phase;
adjusting the detected peaks by applying the phase adjustment to peak bins of each of the detected peaks, to form phase adjusted peak bins,
and taking a complex conjugate of the phase adjusted peak bins, to form time reversed phase adjusted peaks;
and combine the time reversed phase adjusted peak bins with a noise component of the spectrum, that is derived from non-peak bins of the signal spectrum, to form a combined spectrum for a first concealment subframe of a concealment audio frame.
12. A decoder device configured to generate a concealment audio subframe of an audio signal, the decoder device comprising: processing circuitry; and memory operatively coupled with the processing circuitry, wherein the memory includes instructions that when executed by the processing circuitry causes the decoder device to perform operations comprising:
generating frequency spectra on a subframe basis where consecutive subframes of the audio signal have a property that an applied window shape of first subframe of the consecutive subframes is a mirrored version or a time reversed version of a second subframe of the consecutive subframes;
Claim 15
detecting peaks of a signal spectrum of a previously received audio signal on a fractional frequency scale;
estimating a phase of each of the peaks;
deriving a phase adjustment for a time reversed concealment audio subframe to apply to the peaks of the signal spectrum based on the phase estimated;
applying the phase adjustment to the peaks of the signal spectrum to form phase adjusted peaks and to form a concealment audio subframe based on the phase adjusted peaks;
applying a time reversal to the concealment audio subframe;
claim 16
claim 13
and generating a synthesized concealment audio subframe based on the concealment audio subframe.
11. The audio decoder of claim 10, wherein a synthesized concealment audio frame comprises two consecutive concealment subframes, the audio decoder further being configured to: combine the phase adjusted peak bins with the non-peak bins of the signal spectrum to form a combined spectrum for the second concealment subframe of the concealment audio frame.
12. The audio decoder of claim 10,further being configured to: associate each of the detected peaks with a number of peak frequency bins representing the peak.
17. The decoder device of claim 12 further adapted to associate each peak of the detected peaks with a number of peak frequency bins representing the peak.
13. The audio decoder of claim 10, the audio decoder being configured to calculate the phase adjustment for the peaks of the concealment audio subframe in accordance with:
PNG
media_image1.png
38
324
media_image1.png
Greyscale
wherein φ is the estimated phase of a peak and f is a frequency of a peak, Nlost denotes
the number of consecutive lost frames, N denotes the length of a full frame and Nstep21 is
the distance in samples between the start of the second subframe of the last received frame
and the start of the first subframe of a concealment audio frame.
22. The decoder device of claim 21 adapted to calculate a phase adjustment for the peaks of the time reversed concealment audio subframe in accordance with:
PNG
media_image1.png
38
324
media_image1.png
Greyscale
wherein φ is a phase of a peak and f is a frequency of a peak, Nlost denotes the number of consecutive lost frames, N denotes a length of a full frame and Nstep21 is a distance in samples between a starting point of an analysis subframe and concealment subframe.
14. The audio decoder of claim 10, wherein the adjusting of the detected peaks by
applying the phase adjustment to peak bins of each of the detected peaks, to form phase
adjusted peak bins, and taking a complex conjugate of the phase adjusted peak bins, to
form time reversed phase adjusted peaks is in accordance with:
PNG
media_image2.png
42
260
media_image2.png
Greyscale
wherein * is the complex conjugate,
PNG
media_image3.png
28
71
media_image3.png
Greyscale
is the signal spectrum, and
PNG
media_image4.png
25
30
media_image4.png
Greyscale
is the phase
adjustment.
15. The audio decoder of claim 10, further comprising: calculating the noise component of the signal spectrum, the spectral coefficients retaining a desired property of the signal when calculating the noise component.
16. The audio decoder of claim 15, wherein the desired property comprises correlation with a second channel in a multichannel decoder system.
20. The decoder device of claim 19, wherein the desired property comprises correlation with a second channel in a multichannel decoder system.
17. The audio decoder of claim 10, wherein estimating the phase of each of the peaks
comprises: calculating a phase estimation for the peaks of the time reversed phase adjusted
peaks in accordance with:
PNG
media_image5.png
62
289
media_image5.png
Greyscale
where φi is an estimated phase at frequency
PNG
media_image6.png
27
110
media_image6.png
Greyscale
is an angle of spectrum
Xmem of a previously received audio signal at a frequency bin
PNG
media_image7.png
25
66
media_image7.png
Greyscale
is a rounding
error, and φc is a tuning constant.
21. The decoder device of claim 12 adapted to estimate the phase of each of the peaks by calculating a phase estimation for the peaks of the time reversed phase adjusted peaks in accordance with:
PNG
media_image5.png
62
289
media_image5.png
Greyscale
where φi is an estimated phase at frequency
PNG
media_image6.png
27
110
media_image6.png
Greyscale
is an angle of spectrum
Xmem of a previously received audio signal at a frequency bin
PNG
media_image7.png
25
66
media_image7.png
Greyscale
is a rounding
error, and φc is a tuning constant and ki is [fi], where [.]. represents a rounding operation.
18. The audio decoder of claim 10, wherein the peaks of the signal spectrum are detected on a fractional frequency scale.
Claim 12
Claims 1, 3, 4, 7-10, 12, 13, 16-18 are rejected on the ground of non-statutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 9-13, 16, 17, 20-22 of U.S. Patent No. 12,293,766. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because claims 1, 3, 4, 7-10, 12, 13, 16-18 of the instant application similar in scope and content of the patented claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 9-13, 16, 17, 20-22 of the patent issued to the same Applicant.
Application No: 19/171,555
Patent No: 12,293,766
1.An audio decoding method, the method comprising a decoder
generating frequency spectra on a subframe basis where consecutive subframes of an audio signal includes a property that an applied window shape of first subframe of the consecutive sub frames is a mirrored version or a time reversed version of a window shape applied on a second subframe of the consecutive subframes,
and storing a signal spectrum corresponding to the second subframe, the audio decoding method further comprising:
in response to a frame loss, obtaining the previously generated signal spectrum corresponding to the second subframe;
detecting peaks of the signal spectrum and
estimating a phase of each of the peaks;
determining a phase adjustment for each of the detected peaks based on the estimated phase;
adjusting the detected peaks by applying the phase adjustment to peak bins of each of the detected peaks, to form phase adjusted peak bins,
and taking a complex conjugate of the phase adjusted peak bins, to form time reversed phase adjusted peaks;
and combining the time reversed phase adjusted peak bins with a noise component of the spectrum, that is derived from non-peak bins of the signal spectrum, to form a combined spectrum for a first concealment subframe of a concealment audio frame.
1.A method of generating a concealment audio subframe of an audio signal in a decoding device, the method comprising:
generating frequency spectra on a subframe basis where a first subframe window of consecutive subframes is a mirrored version or a time reversed version of a second subframe window of the consecutive subframes;
detecting peaks of a signal spectrum of a previously received audio signal on a fractional frequency scale;
estimating a phase of each of the peaks;
deriving a phase adjustment for a time reversed concealment audio subframe based on the estimated phase;
applying the phase adjustment to the peaks of the signal spectrum to form phase adjusted peaks and to form a concealment audio subframe based on the phase adjusted peaks; wherein applying the phase adjustment includes applying a time reversal to the concealment audio subframe;
Claim 5.
Claim 2.
and generating a synthesized concealment audio subframe based on the concealment audio subframe.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein a synthesized concealment audio frame comprises two consecutive concealment subframes, the method further comprising: combining the phase adjusted peak bins with the non-peak bins of the signal spectrum to form a combined spectrum for the second concealment subframe of the concealment audio frame.
3. The method of claim 1 further comprising: associating each of the detected peaks with a number of peak frequency bins representing the peak.
6. The method of claim 1 further comprising associating each peak of the detected peaks with a number of peak frequency bins representing the peak.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the phase adjustment for the peaks of the
concealment audio subframe is calculated in accordance with:
PNG
media_image1.png
38
324
media_image1.png
Greyscale
wherein φ is the estimated phase of a peak and f is a frequency of a peak, Nlost denotes
the number of consecutive lost frames, N denotes the length of a full frame and Nstep21 is
the distance in samples between the start of the second subframe of the last received frame
and the start of the first subframe of a concealment audio frame.
11. The method of claim 10, wherein a phase adjustment for the peaks of the
time reversed concealment audio subframe is calculated in accordance with:
PNG
media_image1.png
38
324
media_image1.png
Greyscale
wherein φ is a phase of a peak and f is a frequency of a peak, Nlost denotes the number of consecutive lost frames, N denotes a length of a full frame and Nstep21 is a distance in samples between a starting point of an analysis subframe and concealment subframe.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the adjusting of the detected peaks by
applying the phase adjustment to peak bins of each of the detected peaks, to form phase
adjusted peak bins, and taking a complex conjugate of the phase adjusted peak bins, to
form time reversed phase adjusted peaks is in accordance with:
PNG
media_image2.png
42
260
media_image2.png
Greyscale
wherein * is the complex conjugate,
PNG
media_image3.png
28
71
media_image3.png
Greyscale
is the signal spectrum, and
PNG
media_image4.png
25
30
media_image4.png
Greyscale
is the phase
adjustment.
6. The method of claim 1, further comprising: calculating the noise component of the signal spectrum, the spectral coefficients retaining a desired property of the signal when calculating the noise component.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein the desired property comprises correlation with a second channel in a multichannel decoder system.
9. The method of claim 8, wherein the desired property comprises correlation with a second channel in a multichannel decoder system.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein estimating the phase of each of the peaks
comprises:
calculating a phase estimation for the peaks of the time reversed phase adjusted
peaks in accordance with:
PNG
media_image5.png
62
289
media_image5.png
Greyscale
where φi is an estimated phase at frequency
PNG
media_image6.png
27
110
media_image6.png
Greyscale
is an angle of spectrum
Xmem of a previously received audio signal at a frequency bin
PNG
media_image7.png
25
66
media_image7.png
Greyscale
is a rounding
error, and φc is a tuning constant.
10. The method of claim 1, wherein estimating the phase of each of the peaks comprises:
calculating a phase estimation for the peaks of the time reversed phase adjusted peaks in accordance with:
PNG
media_image5.png
62
289
media_image5.png
Greyscale
where φi is an estimated phase at frequency
PNG
media_image6.png
27
110
media_image6.png
Greyscale
is an angle of spectrum
Xmem of a previously received audio signal at a frequency bin
PNG
media_image7.png
25
66
media_image7.png
Greyscale
is a rounding
error, and φc is a tuning constant.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein the peaks of the signal spectrum are detected on a fractional frequency scale.
Claim 1
10. An audio decoder configured to
generate frequency spectra on a subframe basis where consecutive subframes of an audio signal includes a property that an applied window shape of first subframe of the consecutive subframes is a mirrored version or a time reversed version of a window shape applied on a second subframe of the consecutive subframes,
and store a signal spectrum corresponding to the second subframe, the audio decoder further being configured to:
in response to a frame loss, obtain the previously generated signal spectrum corresponding to the second subframe;
detect peaks of the signal spectrum
and estimate a phase of each of the peaks;
determine a phase adjustment for each of the detected peaks based on the estimated phase;
adjusting the detected peaks by applying the phase adjustment to peak bins of each of the detected peaks, to form phase adjusted peak bins,
and taking a complex conjugate of the phase adjusted peak bins, to form time reversed phase adjusted peaks;
and combine the time reversed phase adjusted peak bins with a noise component of the spectrum, that is derived from non-peak bins of the signal spectrum, to form a combined spectrum for a first concealment subframe of a concealment audio frame.
12. A decoder device configured to generate a concealment audio subframe of an audio signal, the decoder device comprising: processing circuitry; and memory operatively coupled with the processing circuitry, wherein the memory includes instructions that when executed by the processing circuitry causes the decoder device to perform operations comprising:
generating frequency spectra on a subframe basis a first subframe window of consecutive subframes is a mirrored version or a time reversed version of a second subframe window of the consecutive subframes;
detecting peaks of a signal spectrum of a previously received audio signal on a fractional frequency scale;
estimating a phase of each of the peaks;
deriving a phase adjustment for a time reversed concealment audio subframe based on the estimated phase;
applying the phase adjustment to the peaks of the signal spectrum to form phase adjusted peaks and to form a concealment audio subframe based on the phase adjusted peaks; wherein applying the phase adjustment includes applying a time reversal to the concealment audio subframe;
claim 16
claim 13
and generating a synthesized concealment audio subframe based on the concealment audio subframe.
11. The audio decoder of claim 10, wherein a synthesized concealment audio frame comprises two consecutive concealment subframes, the audio decoder further being configured to: combine the phase adjusted peak bins with the non-peak bins of the signal spectrum to form a combined spectrum for the second concealment subframe of the concealment audio frame.
12. The audio decoder of claim 10,further being configured to: associate each of the detected peaks with a number of peak frequency bins representing the peak.
17. The decoder device of claim 12 further adapted to associate each peak of the detected peaks with a number of peak frequency bins representing the peak.
13. The audio decoder of claim 10, the audio decoder being configured to calculate the phase adjustment for the peaks of the concealment audio subframe in accordance with:
PNG
media_image1.png
38
324
media_image1.png
Greyscale
wherein φ is the estimated phase of a peak and f is a frequency of a peak, Nlost denotes
the number of consecutive lost frames, N denotes the length of a full frame and Nstep21 is
the distance in samples between the start of the second subframe of the last received frame
and the start of the first subframe of a concealment audio frame.
22. The decoder device of claim 21 adapted to calculate a phase adjustment for the peaks of the time reversed concealment audio subframe in accordance with:
PNG
media_image1.png
38
324
media_image1.png
Greyscale
wherein φ is a phase of a peak and f is a frequency of a peak, Nlost denotes the number of consecutive lost frames, N denotes a length of a full frame and Nstep21 is a distance in samples between a starting point of an analysis subframe and concealment subframe.
14. The audio decoder of claim 10, wherein the adjusting of the detected peaks by
applying the phase adjustment to peak bins of each of the detected peaks, to form phase
adjusted peak bins, and taking a complex conjugate of the phase adjusted peak bins, to
form time reversed phase adjusted peaks is in accordance with:
PNG
media_image2.png
42
260
media_image2.png
Greyscale
wherein * is the complex conjugate,
PNG
media_image3.png
28
71
media_image3.png
Greyscale
is the signal spectrum, and
PNG
media_image4.png
25
30
media_image4.png
Greyscale
is the phase
adjustment.
15. The audio decoder of claim 10, further comprising: calculating the noise component of the signal spectrum, the spectral coefficients retaining a desired property of the signal when calculating the noise component.
16. The audio decoder of claim 15, wherein the desired property comprises correlation with a second channel in a multichannel decoder system.
20. The decoder device of claim 19, wherein the desired property comprises correlation with a second channel in a multichannel decoder system.
17. The audio decoder of claim 10, wherein estimating the phase of each of the peaks
comprises: calculating a phase estimation for the peaks of the time reversed phase adjusted
peaks in accordance with:
PNG
media_image5.png
62
289
media_image5.png
Greyscale
where φi is an estimated phase at frequency
PNG
media_image6.png
27
110
media_image6.png
Greyscale
is an angle of spectrum
Xmem of a previously received audio signal at a frequency bin
PNG
media_image7.png
25
66
media_image7.png
Greyscale
is a rounding
error, and φc is a tuning constant.
21. The decoder device of claim 12 adapted to estimate the phase of each of the peaks by calculating a phase estimation for the peaks of the time reversed phase adjusted peaks in accordance with:
PNG
media_image5.png
62
289
media_image5.png
Greyscale
where φi is an estimated phase at frequency
PNG
media_image6.png
27
110
media_image6.png
Greyscale
is an angle of spectrum
Xmem of a previously received audio signal at a frequency bin
PNG
media_image7.png
25
66
media_image7.png
Greyscale
is a rounding
error, and φc is a tuning constant.
18. The audio decoder of claim 10, wherein the peaks of the signal spectrum are detected on a fractional frequency scale.
Claim 12
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 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 of this title, 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, 10, 12 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bruhn et al. ( WO 2014123471 A1), hereinafter referenced as Bruhn, in view of Andersen et al. ( EP 1846920 B1), hereinafter referenced as Andersen.
Regarding Claim 1, Bruhn teaches an audio decoding method, the method comprising a decoder generating frequency spectra on a subframe basis where consecutive subframes of an audio signal includes a property that an applied window shape of first subframe of the consecutive subframes is a mirrored version or a time reversed version of a window shape applied on a second subframe of the consecutive subframes ( Bruhn: Page 8, lines 3-9, Page 9, lines 4-12, 16-23, Figs.3,- 5, illustrates spectrum of the windowed analysis frame for frame loss concealment technique. Signal segment, referred to as analysis frame ( subframe). Sinusoidal analysis of the windowed analysis frame and subsequent frames are considered as mirrored. Page 24, lines 3-8, Fig. 13, decoder 130 is configured to implement a concealment of a lost audio frame ),
and storing a signal spectrum corresponding to the second subframe ( Bruhn: Page 24, lines 24-28, Fig.15, memory 156 within decoder 150, stores audio signal),
the audio decoding method further comprising: in response to a frame loss, obtaining the previously generated signal spectrum corresponding to the second subframe ( Bruhn: Page 20, lines 15-25, an adaptation of the frame loss concealment operation includes obtaining the spectrum of the substitution frame and to modify both magnitude and phase);
detecting peaks of the signal spectrum and estimating a phase of each of the peaks ( Bruhn: Page 10, lines14-15, identifying the peaks of the windowed analysis frame. Page 16, lines 29-30, calculating phase for each sinusoidal peak k) ;
determining a phase adjustment for each of the detected peaks based on the estimated phase ( Bruhn: Page 16, lines 29-32, Calculating the phase shift ϴk for each sinusoid peak k in response to the sinusoidal frequency fk) ;
adjusting the detected peaks by applying the phase adjustment to peak bins of each of the detected peaks, to form phase adjusted peak bins ( Bruhn: Page 16, lines 4-22, 29-32, applying phase randomization ( adjustment) to spectral peaks);
and taking a complex conjugate of the phase adjusted peak bins, to form time reversed phase adjusted peaks ( Bruhn: Page 16, lines 29-32, page 17, lines 1-3, calculating the inverse DFT of the spectrum for each sinusoid k advancing the phase of the prototype frame DFT with phase shift, selectively for the DFT indices related to a vicinity around the sinusoid frequency fk).
Bruhn, while teaching the method of claim 1, fails to explicitly teach the claimed, and combining the time reversed phase adjusted peak bins with a noise component of the spectrum, that is derived from non-peak bins of the signal spectrum, to form a combined spectrum for a first concealment subframe of a concealment audio frame.
However, Anderson does teach the claimed, and combining the time reversed phase adjusted peak bins with a noise component of the spectrum, that is derived from non-peak bins of the signal spectrum, to form a combined spectrum for a first concealment subframe of a concealment audio frame ( Anderson: Para.[0033],[0071], a noise mixing may be introduced in the sequence of concealment samples, and noise mixing is modified in response to the sequential process of indexing samples forwards in time and stepping backwards in time. Para.[0052], Fig.5A, concealment samples are in consecutive and in reverse time order. Para.[0078], Fig. 9 illustrates phase adjusted concealed signals).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Andersen’s teaching of method for generating concealment frames in communication system, into the method and apparatus for controlling audio frame loss concealment, taught by Bruhn, because, these concealment signals generated by this robust techniques would improve the sound quality.( Andersen, Para.[0017]).
Claim 10 is an audio decoder claim performing the steps in method claim 1 above and as such, claim 10 is similar in scope and content to claim 1 and therefore, claim 10 is rejected under similar rationale as presented against claim 1 above.
Regarding Claim 3, Bruhn in view of Anderson teach the method of claim 1. Bruhn further teaches, further comprising: associating each of the detected peaks with a number of peak frequency bins representing the peak ( Bruhn: Page 18, lines 21-26, quality of the operation is enhanced when making the frequency selective transient detection on the basis of frequency bands.).
Claim 12 is an audio decoder claim performing the steps in method claim 3 above and as such, claim 12 is similar in scope and content to claim 3 and therefore, claim 12 is rejected under similar rationale as presented against claim 3 above.
Regarding Claim 9, Bruhn in view of Anderson teach the method of claim 1. Bruhn further teaches, wherein the peaks of the signal spectrum are detected on a fractional frequency scale. ( Bruhn: Page 11, lines 7-10, identify the peaks of the DFT of the windowed analysis frame. The peak search will deliver the number of peaks Kand the corresponding DFT indexes of the peaks.);
Claim 18 is an audio decoder claim performing the steps in method claim 9 above and as such, claim 18 is similar in scope and content to claim 9 and therefore, claim 18 is rejected under similar rationale as presented against claim 9 above.
Claims 6 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bruhn et al. ( WO 2014123471 A1), hereinafter referenced as Bruhn, in view of Andersen et al. ( EP 1846920 B1), hereinafter referenced as Andersen, further in view of Schnabel et al. ( US 20160104497 A1), hereinafter referenced as Schnabel.
Regarding Claim 6, Bruhn in view of Anderson teach the method of claim 1. Bruhn in view of Anderson fail to explicitly teach the claimed, further comprising: calculating the noise component of the signal spectrum, the spectral coefficients retaining a desired property of the signal when calculating the noise component.
However, Schnabel does teach the claimed, further comprising: calculating the noise component of the signal spectrum, the spectral coefficients retaining a desired property of the signal when calculating the noise component ( Schnabel: Para.[0167], [0168], the coefficient generator may be configured to determine LPC coefficients representing background noise by using a minimum statistics approach on the signal spectrum to determine a background noise spectrum).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Schnabel’s teaching of generating an adaptive spectral shape of comfort noise, into the method and apparatus, taught by Bruhn in view of Anderson, because, these concealment signals generated by this robust techniques would improve the sound quality.( Andersen, Para.[0017]).
Claim 15 is an audio decoder claim performing the steps in method claim 6 above and as such, claim 15 is similar in scope and content to claim 6 and therefore, claim 15 is rejected under similar rationale as presented against claim 6 above.
Claims 7 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bruhn et al. ( WO 2014123471 A1), hereinafter referenced as Bruhn, in view of Andersen et al. ( EP 1846920 B1), hereinafter referenced as Andersen, further in view of Schnabel et al. ( US 20160104497 A1), hereinafter referenced as Schnabel, further in view of Huang et al. ( US 20190237086 A1), hereinafter referenced as Huang.
Regarding Claim 7, Bruhn in view of Anderson, further in view of Schnabel teach the method of claim 6. Bruhn in view of Anderson, further in view of Schnabel fail to explicitly teach the claimed, wherein the desired property comprises correlation with a second channel in a multichannel decoder system ( Huang: Para.[0033]-[0035], Fig.8, shows decoder system with multichannel).
However, Huang does teach the claimed, wherein the desired property comprises correlation with a second channel in a multichannel decoder system ( Huang: Para.[0033]-[0035], Fig.8, shows decoder system with multichannel).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Huang’s teaching of forward error correction for multichannel audio signal, into the method and apparatus, taught by Bruhn in view of Andersen, further in view of Schnabel, because, these efficient FEC technique for multi-channel audio would provide significantly higher quality of recovery over packet loss concealment techniques.( Huang, Para.[0017]-[0019]).
Claim 16 is an audio decoder claim performing the steps in method claim 7 above and as such, claim 16 is similar in scope and content to claim 7 and therefore, claim 16 is rejected under similar rationale as presented against claim 7 above.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 4, 5, 8, 11, 13, 14 and 17 contain subject matter that is allowable over the prior art of record. They would be considered allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Listed below are the prior arts made of record and not relied upon but are considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Lecomte et al. (US 10984804 B2) teaches an invention relate to an error concealment unit for providing an error concealment audio information for concealing a loss of an audio frame in an encoded audio information. The error concealment unit provides a first error concealment audio information component for a first frequency range using a frequency domain concealment. The error concealment unit also provides a second error concealment audio information component for a second frequency range, which includes lower frequencies than the first frequency range, using a time domain concealment. The error concealment unit also combines the first error concealment audio information component and the second error concealment audio information component, to obtain the error concealment audio information. Other embodiments of the invention relate to a decoder including the error concealment unit, as well as related encoders, methods, and computer programs for decoding and/or concealing.
Ullmann et al. (US 20190311723 A1) teaches method which involves receiving the packets of an audio stream. The received audio stream is in a non-lapped transform domain format. The received packets are decoded to a sequence of blocks of a raw audio signal. Each missing packet in the sequence is replaced with a reduced-energy signal block. The sequence of blocks of the raw audio signal is provided with one reduced-energy signal block. Each reduced-energy signal block of the raw audio signal is modified at one of a beginning boundary and an ending boundary. The raw audio signal is shifted by a predetermined delay such that a start and end of each reduced energy block of the raw audio signal is not coincided with a peak of a transform window of a lapped transform domain format. The raw audio signal is encoded into transform windows having the lapped transform domain format by a server. The encoded audio signal is transmitted to an endpoint by the audio communication system.
Nagel et al. (US 20110173006 A1) teaches an audio signal synthesizer generates a synthesis audio signal having a first frequency band and a second synthesized frequency band derived from the first frequency band and comprises a patch generator, a spectral converter, a raw signal processor and a combiner. The patch generator performs at least two different patching algorithms, each patching algorithm generating a raw signal. The patch generator is adapted to select one of the at least two different patching algorithms in response to a control information. The spectral converter converts the raw signal into a raw signal spectral representation. The raw signal processor processes the raw signal spectral representation in response to spectral domain spectral band replication parameters to obtain an adjusted raw signal spectral representation.
Ragot et al. (US 9269361 B2 ) teaches a method and apparatus for the parametric encoding of a stereo digital-audio signal. The method includes encoding a mono signal produced by downmixing applied to the stereo signal and encoding spatialization information of the stereo signal. Downmixing includes determining, for a predetermined set of frequency sub-bands, a phase difference between two stereo channels; obtaining an intermediate channel by rotating a first predetermined channel of the stereo signal through an angle obtained by reducing the phase difference; determining the phase of the mono signal from the phase of the signal that is the sum of the intermediate channel and the second stereo signal, and from a phase difference between, on the one hand, the signal that is the sum of the intermediate channel and the second channel and, on the other hand, the second channel of the stereo signal. Also provided are a decoding method, an encoder and a decoder.
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/NADIRA SULTANA/Examiner, Art Unit 2653
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