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 § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites “to separate the single-channel acoustic data into at least two parts consisting of a direct sound part and at least one of an early reflection part and a late
reverberation part". According to this definition, the early reflection part is
optional. Later it is defined e.g. to "segment the early reflection part into a
plurality of segments" It is rendered unclear, whether the features related to the
later defined segmentation, association and calculation for the early reflection
part is to be considered optional, as well, for the case that the two parts after
separation does not comprise an early reflection part.
Claim 1 describes "sound generator for generating the two-channel audio signal
from an audio signal and the two-channel acoustic data" and broadly "a two-channel
synthesizer for synthesizing two-channel acoustic data from the single-channel
acoustic data". Later in the claim it is described to separate and further
segment the single-channel acoustic data. However, it cannot be determined
from the wording of the claim how from this plurality of pieces of the single-channel
acoustic data the two-channel acoustic data is derived that is used in
the sound generator for generating the two-channel audio signal.
Claim 1, how the "two-channel acoustic data for the direct
sound" are calculated "using the image source positions associated to the
segments". The segments contain acoustic data of the early reflection part, thus
representing data that arrives at the user at a later point in time than the direct
sound. It is unclear how this later data can be used to determine the two-channel
acoustic data for the direct sound. The image source positions
associated with the segments are related to early reflections and not directly
related to the source position for the direct sound. No embodiment was found
describing what is meant by determining two channel acoustic data for the direct sound using the image source positions of the early reflections. Thus, the wording of claim 1 is
unclear and not supported by the original application.
Claims 18 and 19 are rejected for the same reasons as noted above for claim 1.
Claims 2-17 are rejected due to dependency on claim 1.
Claim 13 is unclear. It is unclear what is meant by "to maintain". The wording of the claim does e.g. not define a change of image
source position and the listener position. Thus, it is unclear why it is highlighted
"to maintain" if nothing is changed.
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, 18, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vilkamo et al. (WO 2021069794) in view of Porschmann et al. (BINAURALIZATION OF OMNIDIRECTIONAL ROOM IMPULSE RESPONSES -ALGORITHM AND TECHNICAL EVALUATION).
Regarding claim 1, Vilkamo teaches an audio signal processor for generating a two-channel audio signal (123 in Fig. 3), comprising:
an input interface for providing single-channel acoustic data describing an acoustic environment (124 in Fig. 3 and 401 in Fig. 4);
a two-channel synthesizer for synthesizing two- channel acoustic data from the single-channel acoustic data using a listener position or rotation (Steps 403 to 406 in Fig. 4); and
a sound generator for generating the two-channel audio signal from an
signal and the two-channel acoustic data (steps 407 to 411 in Fig. 4),
wherein the two-channel synthesizer is configured to separate the single-channel acoustic data into at least two parts comprising a direct sound part and at least one of an early reflection part and a late reverberation part ("Figure 5 shows an example early - late part divider according to some embodiments" in page 12, lines 9-10), and to individually process the at least two parts for generating two-channel acoustic data for each part ( steps 405 to 406 in Fig. 4).
Vilkamo fails to explicitly teach wherein the two-channel synthesizer is configured to segment the early reflection part into a plurality of segments, to determine a plurality of image source positions representing source positions of reflecting sound, to associate the image source positions to the segments using a matching operation, wherein the matching operation comprises calculating a time of sound arrival for each image source to the listener position and associating the image source positions to corresponding segments that have time delays in the corresponding segments best matching with the time of sound arrival of the corresponding image source positions and to calculate the two-channel acoustic data for the direct sound using the image source positions associated to the segments.
Porschmann teaches wherein the two-channel synthesizer is configured to segment the early reflection part into a plurality of segments (section 2. 2: "A windowed
section (raised cosine, 5 ms ramp) around each of the peaks is
considered as one reflection, “small windowed sections of the
omnidirectional RIR are extracted describing the early
reflections"),
to determine a plurality of image source positions representing source
positions of reflecting sound (section 2. 2: "incidence directions";
figure 3),
to associate the image source positions to the segments using a matching
Operation (section 2. 2: "Amplitude, incidence direction, delay and
the envelope of each of the reflections are stored"; figure 3),
wherein the matching operation comprises calculating a time of sound
arrival for each image source to the listener position and associating the
image source positions to corresponding segments that have time delays
in the corresponding segments best matching with the time of sound
arrival of the corresponding image source positions (section 2. 2: implied
by "Amplitude, incidence direction, delay and the envelope of each
of the reflections are stored"; see particularly "delay"), and
to calculate the two-channel acoustic data for the direct sound using the
image source positions associated to the segments (figure 1, "+" signs
at the arrows leading to the synthesized BRIR; see also item 4.3).
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Vilkamo with the features of Porschmann for the benefit of providing enhanced spatial audio to a user in a less costly manner.
Regarding claim 2, Vilkamo in view of Porschmann discloses the audio signal processor of claim 1, wherein the two-channel synthesizer is configured to determine the plurality of image source positions using an initial source position and an initial sink position of an initial measurement for the generation of the single-channel acoustic data for the acoustic environment and geometric data on the acoustic environment (Porschmann; Figure 3: "initial position (grey)" of the receiver (sink) and the loudspeaker-symbol representing the (initial) source position).
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Vilkamo with the features of Porschmann for the benefit of providing enhanced spatial audio to a user in a less costly manner.
Regarding claim 3, Vilkamo in view of Porschmann discloses he audio signal processor of claim 1, in which the two-channel synthesizer is configured to determine the image source positions using an image source method modelling specular reflections in the acoustic environment (Porschmann; see Figure 3 with section 2.4).
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Vilkamo with the features of Porschmann for the benefit of providing enhanced spatial audio to a user in a less costly manner.
Claims 18 and 19 are rejected using the same rationale as applied to claim 1.
Claim 19 recites the additional feature of a non-transitory digital storage medium. Vilkamo teaches a non-transitory computer readable medium (page 10, lines 18-20).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-17 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DEVONA E FAULK whose telephone number is (571)272-7515. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th on campus.
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/DEVONA E FAULK/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2618
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