DETAILED ACTION
In the response to this office action, the examiner respectfully requests that support be shown for language added to any original claims on amendment and any new claims. That is, indicate support for newly added claim language by specifically pointing to page(s) and line numbers in the specification and/or drawing figure(s). This will assist the examiner in prosecuting this application.
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 1-4, 10-13, and 16-19 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1, 8, 10, and 16 of U.S. Patent No. 12302085. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the present claims are broader versions of the patent’s claims or contain only obvious differences from the patent’s claims.
Claim 1 of present application
Patent 12302085
1. A computer-implemented method to provide spatialized audio in a virtual metaverse, the method comprising:
1. A computer-implemented method of spatialized audio in a virtual metaverse, comprising:
receiving a request to receive audio associated with a metaverse place of the virtual metaverse from a first user, wherein the first user is associated with a receiving avatar at a first location in the metaverse place and participates in the virtual metaverse via a user device, and wherein a plurality of other users associated with a respective avatar participate in the metaverse place;
receiving a request to receive audio associated with a metaverse place of the virtual metaverse from a first user of a plurality of users, wherein the first user is associated with a user device, and wherein each user of the plurality of users is associated with a respective avatar of a plurality of avatars in the metaverse place;
retrieving a data model associated with the metaverse place, wherein the data model includes one or more spatial parameters representative of one or more physical laws that apply to the metaverse place;
extracting avatar information and scene information from the data model, wherein the avatar information includes one or more of: position, velocity, or direction of the plurality of avatars in the metaverse place including a first avatar associated with the first user, and wherein the scene information includes one or more of: occlusions, reverberations, or virtual walls in virtual proximity to the first avatar in the metaverse place;
determining a respective priority for audio streams received from individual users of the plurality of other users, wherein audio streams associated with avatars that are moving towards the receiving avatar have a higher priority than audio streams associated with avatars that are moving away from the receiving avatar;
transforming the audio streams based on the respective priority to create spatialized audio streams;
transforming respective audio streams received from each user of the plurality of users based on the avatar information and the scene information, and one or more audio characteristics of at least one of the respective audio streams based on the one or more spatial parameters to create spatialized audio streams;
determining a set of prioritized audio streams received from each user of the plurality of users, wherein transforming the respective audio streams further comprises transforming the set of prioritized audio streams to create the spatialized audio streams, wherein audio streams associated with avatars that are moving towards a receiving avatar are prioritized over audio streams associated with avatars that are moving away from the receiving avatar;
combining the spatialized audio streams to create a combined spatialized audio stream; and
combining the spatialized audio streams to create a combined spatialized audio stream; and
providing the combined spatialized audio stream to the user device.
providing the combined spatialized audio stream to the user device.
Regarding claim 1 above, claim 1 of patent 12302085 teaches all the limitations as above.
Claim 16 is rejected in an analogus manner to claim 1 as above in light of claim 9 of patent 12302085.
Claim 10 is rejected in an analogous manner to claim 16.
The limitations of claims 2 and 3 are found in claim 1 of patent 12302085.
The limitations of claim 4 are found in claim 8 of patent 12302085.
The limitations of claims 11, 12, 17, and 18 are found in claim 10 of patent 12302085.
The limitations of claims 13 and 19 are found in claim 16 of patent 12302085.
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) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rosedale et al. (US 20150325226 A1).
Regarding claim 16, Rosedale discloses a computing system comprising:
a memory (such as 204 of figure 2, see at least paragraphs [0029] and [0060]) with instructions stored thereon; and
a processing device (such as 202 of figure 2, see at least paragraphs [0029] and [0060]), coupled to the memory, the processing device configured to access the memory and execute the instructions, wherein the instructions cause the processing device to perform operations comprising:
receiving a request to receive audio associated with a metaverse place of a virtual metaverse from a first user (a first 150, “when the interactive client 150 wants to see, here and/or interact with contents of a domain”, paragraph [0039]), wherein the first user is associated with a receiving avatar at a first location in the metaverse place and participates in the virtual metaverse via a user device (instance of 150, paragraph [0028] and [0059]), and wherein a plurality of other users associated with a respective avatar participate in the metaverse place (request to receive audio based on an avatar users (first user) perception location (a metaverse place) in the metaverse corresponding to an interactive client device, see paragraphs [0039], [0041], and [0064]);
determining a respective priority for audio streams received from individual users of the plurality of other users (a set of prioritized audio streams from each user, see paragraphs [0041] and [0044]-[0045], “For example, assuming two sounds generated by two different audio sources have the same intrinsic loudness, the sound originating from the audio source that is farther away from a user's avatar should be heard or perceived as softer than sounds originating from the audio source that is closer to the user's avatar”);
transforming the audio streams based on the respective priority to create spatialized audio streams (mixing weighted audio streams (prioritized audio stream) from each users mixed (transforming) to create the spatialized audio, see paragraphs [0044]-[0045]);
combining the spatialized audio streams to create a combined spatialized audio stream (a combined spatialized audio stream), see paragraphs [0063] and [0083]);
and providing the combined spatialized audio stream to the user device (hear the combined stream at the user device, see paragraphs [0063]-[0064], and [0083]).
Although Rosedale does not expressly disclose the claimed priority setting, they do teach giving avatars that are closer higher priority than farther ([0045], [0053], [0077], and [0085]), and giving avatars that are facing the receiver higher priority than facing away (paragraphs [0045]-[0046] and [0052]). It would have been obvious to the designer that higher or lower priority may be set by any criteria at the designer’s preference and according to their needs. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to further comprise wherein audio streams associated with avatars that are moving towards the receiving avatar have a higher priority than audio streams associated with avatars that are moving away from the receiving avatar in the system of Rosedale for the benefit of giving priority to avatars coming closer, possibly to engage in conversation or combat, over those moving farther away.
Regarding claim 17, Rosedale discloses wherein determining the respective priority for the audio streams is performed based on a respective proximity of the avatars with the receiving avatar in the metaverse place (weighting (prioritizing) audio streams based on virtual proximity and facing direction of avatars, see paragraphs [0045], [0046], [0052], and [0055]), velocities of the avatars in the metaverse place, directions of the avatars in the metaverse place (weighting (prioritizing) audio streams based on virtual proximity and facing direction of avatars, see paragraphs [0045], [0046], [0052], and [0055]), virtual objects in proximity to the avatars within the metaverse place, user preferences of the first user, or a combination thereof.
Regarding claim 18, Rosedale discloses wherein determining the respective priority comprises assigning a first priority to an audio stream associated with a first avatar and a second priority to an audio stream associated with a second avatar (closer avatar streams are weighted higher than (prioritized over) further away avatars, see paragraphs [0045] and [0053]), wherein a first distance between the first avatar and the receiving avatar in the metaverse place is lower than a second distance between the second avatar and the receiving avatar, and wherein the first priority is higher than the second priority (closer avatar streams are weighted higher than (prioritized over) further away avatars, see paragraphs [0045] and [0053])
Regarding claim 19, Rosedale discloses wherein determining the respective priority comprises assigning a first priority to an audio stream associated with a first avatar and a second priority to an audio stream associated with a second avatar, wherein the first avatar is oriented towards the receiving avatar and the second avatar is oriented away the receiving avatar, and wherein the first priority is higher than the second priority (avatar sounds facing (oriented towards) a listening avatar (receiving avatar) are weighted higher than (prioritized over) other avatars sound facing (oriented) away, see paragraphs [0045]-[0046] and [0052]).
Regarding claim 20, Rosedale discloses wherein the virtual metaverse is hosted on the computing system (figure 1 item 100, at least 110, 122, 140, and 150, see figure 2, item 200 is 150 and/or 140), wherein computational resources of the computing system include memory, disk storage space, bandwidth, processor, or a combination thereof (paragraph [0006] refers to limited computational resources, see figure 2, paragraphs [0007] and [0073], “that the computing device is available to contribute at least a portion of its computational resources to support the virtual environment”).
Although Rosedale does not expressly disclose the claimed priority setting, it would have been obvious to the designer that higher or lower priority may be set by any criteria at the designer’s preference and according to their needs. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to further comprise wherein determining the respective priority for the audio streams comprises assigning a respective priority to the audio streams based on available computational resources of the computing system in the system of Rosedale for the benefit of giving priority to streams that will not exceed available resources so that more streams may be generated without problems.
Claims 1-5 are rejected in an analogous manner to claims 16-20 respectively.
Claims 10-14 are rejected in an analogous manner to claims 16-20 respectively.
Regarding claim 6, Rosedale discloses wherein a priority is assigned to at least one audio stream such that the at least one audio stream is not a member of the spatialized audio streams combined to create the combined spatialized audio streams, and wherein the transforming is not performed for the at least one audio stream and the at least one audio stream is excluded from the combining (limited resources means a limit on audio streams or at least a possibility of some streams being excluded, paragraphs [0006], [0007] and [0073], see paragraph [0050], “the domain server 122 (or another service with which the domain server 122 communicates) can monitor and/or estimate latency between various nodes, and match an interactive client 150 with an audio-mixer 124 to minimize latency, or at least keep latency below an acceptable threshold”).
Regarding claim 7, Rosedale discloses wherein the transforming comprises prioritizing a particular number of spatialized audio streams to be combined such that computational resources provided by the server used by the combined spatialized audio stream are less than a threshold amount of computational resources (limited resources means a limit on audio streams or some sort of threshold between possible to output and not possible, paragraphs [0006], [0007] and [0073], see paragraph [0050], “the domain server 122 (or another service with which the domain server 122 communicates) can monitor and/or estimate latency between various nodes, and match an interactive client 150 with an audio-mixer 124 to minimize latency, or at least keep latency below an acceptable threshold”).
Regarding claim 8, Rosedale discloses wherein a set of users participate in the metaverse place, and further comprising selecting the plurality of other users from the set of users based on a threshold radius with respect to the receiving avatar, such that the respective avatar associated with each of the plurality of other users is within the threshold radius from a location of the receiving avatar in the metaverse place (paragraph [0053], ” when an audio-mixer determines that the distance between itself and another audio-mixer (from which a mixed audio feed is received) is greater than a maximum threshold distance, then the mixed audio feed can be discarded or mixed in at a zero loudness”).
Claim 15 is rejected in an analogous manner to claim 8.
Regarding claim 9, Rosedale discloses wherein the transforming comprises prioritizing a particular number of spatialized audio streams to be combined such that computational resources provided by the user device (paragraph [0006] refers to limited computational resources, see figure 2, paragraphs [0007] and [0073], “that the computing device is available to contribute at least a portion of its computational resources to support the virtual environment”) used by the combined spatialized audio stream are less than a threshold amount of computational resources (paragraph [0050], “the domain server 122 (or another service with which the domain server 122 communicates) can monitor and/or estimate latency between various nodes, and match an interactive client 150 with an audio-mixer 124 to minimize latency, or at least keep latency below an acceptable threshold”).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DOUGLAS JOHN SUTHERS whose telephone number is (571)272-0563. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 8 am -5 pm.
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/DOUGLAS J SUTHERS/ Examiner, Art Unit 2695
/VIVIAN C CHIN/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2695
