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 .
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory 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 nonstatutory 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 nonstatutory 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.
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Claims 1-13, 16, and 20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-12, and 21 of U.S. Patent No. 12,309,577 B2. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the patented claims recite limitations that are narrower in scope than the instant claims, such that the patented claims make obvious the broader scope of the instant independent claims.
Regarding instant claim 1, claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 12,309,577 B2 (hereafter ‘577, where the US patent publication is cited by column and line numbers) recites the same features:
“A system comprising:
one or more sensors of a head-wearable device;
a speaker of the head-wearable device; and
one or more processors configured to perform a method” (see ‘577, claim 1, column 29, lines 26-30).
The instant claim differs in the wording of the various steps of a method performed by the one or more processors, however claim 1 of ‘577 makes obvious the method comprising:
“identifying an audio model associated with a location of the head-wearable device at a first time, wherein the audio model was updated at a second time before the first time” by determining a location of the head-wearable device (HWD) at a first time, and that the audio model was updated at a second time before the first time (see ‘577, claim 1, column 29, lines 31-38);
“in accordance with a determination that a difference between the first time and the second time is not less than a threshold amount of time:
determining, via the one or more sensors of the head-wearable device, one or more acoustic characteristics of an environment of the head-wearable device” by making obvious that these characteristics are determined by the one or more sensor, because patented claim 1 recites determining these characteristics from audio data, where the audio data is received by the one or more sensors of the HWD (see ‘577, claim 1, column 29, lines 39-49); and
“presenting, via the speaker of the head-wearable device, a first audio signal based on an updated audio model, wherein the updated audio model is generated based on the one or more acoustic characteristics of the environment” (see ‘577, claim 1, column 29, lines 53-55); and
“in accordance with a determination that the difference between the first time and the second time is less than the threshold amount of time:
presenting, via the speaker of the head-wearable device, a second audio signal based on the audio model” by making obvious to present the second audio signal based on the non-updated audio model, because patented claim 1 recites similar features (see ‘577, claim 1, column 29, lines 56-64).
Regarding claims 2-9 and 13, see the preceding rejection with respect to claim 1 above and see claims 2-9 and 11, respectively, of ‘577. The instant claims 2-9 and 13 are made obvious by the patented claims 2-9 and 11, respectively, of ‘577 (see ‘577, column 29, line 65 – column 30, line 23, and column 30, lines 29-31).
Regarding claims 10-11, see the preceding rejection with respect to claim 1 above and claim 1 of ‘577. The additional features of the instant claims 10-11 are recited in patented claim 1 of ‘577 (see ‘577, claim 1, column 29, lines 31-41 and lines 53-64).
Regarding claim 12, see the preceding rejection with respect to claim 1 above and claims 1 and 10 of ‘577. The additional features of instant claim 12 is made obvious by patented claims 1 and 10 (see ‘577, claim 1, column 29, lines 39-44 and lines 53-64, in view of claim 10, column 30, lines 24-28).
Regarding claim 16, the instant claim is made obvious for similar reasons as claim 1 above. Patented claim 12 makes obvious these features.
Regarding claim 20, the instant claim is made obvious for similar reasons as claim 1 above. Patented claim 21 makes obvious these features.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 14-15 and 17-19 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claims 1-20 would be allowable by filing a terminal disclaimer 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Amengual Garí et al., US 10,440,498 B1 (hereafter Amengual), teaches a system comprising many features of the instant claim, such as an artificial reality system with a head-mounted display (HMD), such as an HMD connected to a host computer or a standalone HMD, that provides artificial reality content to a viewer including video and audio, such as using HRTFs (head-related transfer functions) and determined acoustic properties of a room to present virtual audio sources to the user of the HMD (see Amengual, abstract, column 3, lines 21-61, column 10, lines 1-15, figure 1, unit 100, and figure 2, units 210a and 230).
Herein, Amengual teaches that the HMD determines a difference between the current position and one or more past positions to determine if the difference is below a threshold in order to determine if the user is substantially in the same location over a time period (see Amengual, column 10, line 60 - column 11, line 2, column 11, lines 22-48, column 12, lines 23-35, and figures 1-3). Here, it is clear that Amengual teaches that the HMDs determine room-impulse responses (RIRs) with better accuracy when the relative location in the room is substantially constant (i.e., when the user is substantially stationary, a calculated RIR will be determined with better accuracy) (see Amengual, column 12, lines 23-35). Amengual further teaches that a RIR model (i.e., the model) comprises several RIRs measured at several, or all, positions within the room, such that the model includes position-dependent RIRs (see Amengual, column 12, line 61 - column 13, line 3), and teaches that the audio output depends on a selected RIR, and the selection depends on the user's position with respect to the stored room model comprising position-dependent RIRs (see Amengual, column 12, line 61 - column 13, line 3).
Peters et al., US 2020/0304935 A1 (hereafter Peters) discloses techniques for rendering metadata to control user movement based audio rendering (see Peters, abstract and 1 0004-0005). In particular, Peters teaches an audio rendering feature to conserve power of the device (see Peters, ¶ 0110), such that audio rendering does not update until the difference between the current location of the head-wearable device and the location used for audio rendering exceeds a threshold in order to save power, so that when the current location of the head-wearable device is within a threshold distance from a rendering audio model location, the head-wearable device saves power by not updating the audio rendering parameters (see Peters, ¶ 0067-0072 and 0110-0113, figure 3A, step 502, and figure 3G).
Walker et al., US 11,032,664 B2 (hereafter Walker), teaches a location based audio signal message processing, where audio content is modified using location specific spatial impulse responses (see Walker, abstract), such that an augmented reality (AR) audio experience can be perceived with spatial acoustic properties that matches the visual scene (see Walker, column 1, lines 20-41). Walker teaches that an environmental impulse response (SIR) is used convolved with an audio signal to provide the natural AR experience, where the SIR is associated with a detected user location (e.g., outdoors, indoors, etc.) and the method monitors the user's changing location, orientation, and/or monitors when the process has exceeded a time limit in order to receive a new SIR for processing the audio signal (see Walker, figure 5 and column 5, lines 34-47). Here, Walker clearly teaches that the process retrieves a new SIR when the time, location, or orientation of the user changes. However, Walker does not teach that a new SIR is determined by one or more sensors of a user wearable device or headphone (e.g., the SIR is retrieved from audio microphones on devices in the environment or is a virtual acoustic representation of the environment) (see Walker, column 2, lines 37-46, column 3, lines 18-35, and column 5, lines 24-33). Walker does not teach that the time threshold is related to when the audio model (SIR) was updated, such that the audio model would be again updated after a time period (i.e., a determination that a difference between the first time and the second time is not less than a threshold amount of time).
However, neither Amengual, Peters, nor Walker, alone or in combination, appear to teach or reasonably suggest the features associated with “a determination that a difference between the first time and the second time is not less than a threshold amount of time” and/or “a determination that a difference between the first time and the second time is less than a threshold amount of time”.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Daniel R Sellers whose telephone number is (571)272-7528. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Fri 10:00-4:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Vivian C Chin can be reached at (571)272-7848. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Daniel R Sellers/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2694
