Patent Document ID: 8625819
Application ID: 12169386

Base Claim:
1. An earpiece, comprising: an Ambient Sound Microphone (ASM) configured to capture ambient sound; an Ear Canal Microphone (ECM) configured to capture internal sound in an ear canal; an Ear Canal Receiver (ECR) configured to deliver audio content to the ear canal; a processor operatively coupled to the ASM, the ECM and the ECR, where the processor is configured to detect a spoken voice generated by a wearer of the earpiece based on a non-difference comparison of the ambient sound captured by the ASM and the internal sound captured by the ECM, where an output signal indicating that the spoken voice is detected is generated when the non-difference comparison is greater than a threshold; and a voice operated control (VOX) operatively coupled to receive the output signal of the processor and configured to mix the ambient sound and the internal sound to produce a mixed signal and control production of the mixed signal based on at least one of one or more aspects of the audio content or one or more aspects of the spoken voice, wherein the VOX is configured to increase a first gain of one of the ambient sound and the internal sound and decrease a second gain of a remaining one of the ambient sound and the internal sound, such that the mixed signal includes a combination of the ambient sound and the internal sound, and wherein the non-difference comparison is at least one among a correlation, a cross-correlation and a comparison that uses coherence.

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Claim 4:
4. The earpiece of claim 1 , wherein the VOX comprises: a level detector configured to compare a sound pressure level (SPL) of the ambient sound and the internal sound for detecting the spoken voice; a correlation unit configured to access the correlation of the ambient sound and the internal sound for detecting the spoken voice; a coherence unit configured to determine whether the spoken voice originates from the wearer; and a spectral analysis unit configured to detect whether spectral portions of the spoken voice are similar in the ambient sound and the internal sound.