Appeal No. 2003-2116
Application No. 09/306,954
digital convertors 19 and 23 to digital transmitters 20
and 24 for supplying digitized signals indicative of
the triangulation or location of the principal listener
10, back through the transceivers 14 and 16,
respectively, to the surround sound signal processor
12. This information is supplied to the microprocessor
30 which then supplies signals back to the surround
sound signal processor 12 for automatically adjusting
the “balance” of the audio signals to be reproduced by
the loudspeakers of the transceivers 14 and 16. The
utilization of the infrared sensors 18 and 22 permits
the system continually to triangulate on the principal
listener 10 and, essentially, report the position of
the principal listener 10 in the room to effect
automatic adjustment of the balance of the speakers to
the desired level initially set by the principal
listener 10 for some initial starting position when the
system first is turned on [column 3, lines 28 through
47].
As indicated above, independent claim 14 recites a method to
adjust an audio output signal comprising, inter alia, the step of
modifying “the intensity and at least another component of the
audio output signal” based on first and second distances from
first and second range devices to a listener. In the face of
Stevenson’s apparent disclosure of modifying only the balance
(i.e., the intensity) of the audio output signal based on first
and second distances from first and second range devices to a
listener, the examiner submits that “the claim does not
patentably differentiate over Stevenson’s adjusting of the
balance of the speakers from a first setting to a second setting,
since the second setting would read upon the claimed ‘another
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