Granted Patent B2

US 12,581,233 · App. 17/581,107 · Granted Mar 17, 2026

Inventors: John Usher (Beer, GB); Steven Goldstein (Delray Beach, FL); Marc Boillot (Plantation, FL)

Assignee: ST Case 1 Tech, LLC

H04R3/005G10L21/0264G10L25/78H04R1/1016H04R3/00H04R5/04H04R25/02H04R25/505H04R29/004H04S1/002G10L2021/02087

Abstract

Claims (37)

1 . An earpiece, comprising:

a sealing element, wherein the sealing element is configured to provide a passive level of sound reduction between a first side of the earpiece and a second side of the earpiece when the earpiece is worn by a user;

an ambient microphone (ASM) configured to measure sound on the first side of the earpiece to generate an ambient signal;

a speaker configured to deliver acoustic energy into the ear canal of the user;

an ear canal microphone (ECM) configured to measure sound on the second side of the earpiece to generate an internal signal;

a memory that stores instructions; and

a processor operatively coupled to the ambient microphone, the ear canal microphone, the memory, and the speaker, wherein the processor executes the instructions to perform operations, the operations comprising:

receiving the ambient signal from the ambient microphone;

receiving the internal signal from the ear canal microphone;

sending an audio signal to the speaker;

analyzing both the ambient signal and the internal signal to detect a voice;

generating a modified audio content when a voice is detected by modifying an audio content signal;

generating the audio signal by mixing the ambient signal with the modified audio content; and

sending the audio signal to the speaker, if a voice is detected after analyzing both the ambient signal and the internal signal.

2 . An earpiece according to claim 1 , wherein the operation of analyzing uses at least one of a correlation, cross-correlation, level detection, spectral analysis, coherence, peak detection, signal ratio or a combination thereof.

3 . An earpiece according to claim 1 , further including the operations of:

extracting a voice signal of the user's voice from at least one of the ambient signal, the internal signal or a combination of both signals.

4 . An earpiece according to claim 3 , further including the operations of:

analyzing the voice signal to determine a voice command; and

initiating an action in response to the voice command.

5 . An earpiece according to claim 4 , where the action is to play audio from a radio station.

6 . An earpiece according to claim 1 , wherein the operation-of generating the audio signal is replaced with

generating the audio signal by mixing a modified ambient signal with the audio content signal, wherein the modified ambient signal is generated by filtering the ambient signal.

7 . An earpiece according to claim 1 , wherein the operation of analyzing uses a non-difference comparison, wherein the non-difference comparison is at least one of the correlation, coherence, cross-correlation, a signal ratio or a combination thereof.

8 . The earpiece according to claim 1 , wherein the operation of stopping the sending of the audio signal to the speaker or sending a modified audio signal to the speaker, if a voice is detected, occurs for a predetermined time, and after the predetermined time the audio signal is sent to the speaker.

9 . The earpiece according to claim 1 , wherein the modified audio signal includes the ambient signal.

10 . The earpiece according to claim 1 , wherein the modified audio signal includes a modified ambient signal.

11 . The earpiece according to claim 10 , where the modified ambient signal is generated by applying an ASM gain to the ambient signal.

12 . The earpiece according to claim 9 , wherein the modified audio signal includes a modified audio content signal.

13 . The earpiece according to claim 8 , wherein the modified audio signal includes the ambient signal.

14 . The earpiece according to claim 8 , wherein the modified audio signal includes a modified ambient signal.

15 . The earpiece according to claim 14 , where the modified ambient signal is generated by applying an ASM gain to the ambient signal.

16 . The earpiece according to claim 13 , wherein the modified audio signal includes a modified audio content signal.

17 . The earpiece according to claim 1 , where the voice is that of the user.

18 . The earpiece according to claim 1 , wherein the operation of generating a modified audio content modifies a spectral distribution of the audio content signal.

19 . The earpiece according to claim 1 , wherein the operation of generating a modified audio content modifies a duration of the audio content signal.

20 . The earpiece according to claim 1 , wherein the operation of generating a modified audio content modifies a volume of the audio content signal.

Assignments (7)

Continuity (8)

References Cited (400)