DETAILED ACTION
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 . In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
Claims 1-13, 15, 21, 23-27 are pending.
Claims 1, 15 and 24 are amended.
Claims 25-27 are newly added.
Claims 14, 16-20 and 22 are cancelled.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-2, 4-9, 15 and 18-24 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1, 15 and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 and 15 recites “…authenticating audio signals” however, the original filed specification does not describe this feature, nor does it provide sufficient discloser from which one of the ordinary skill in the have any support what so ever to explain what is “audio signals exactly means? How audio signal are being authenticating. It is unclear that does audio signals are being authenticated or the information carries by audio signal are being authenticating.
Furthermore claim 27 recites “…vocal request involves a second user in addition to the user…authentication includes authentication of the second user in addition to the user” however, the original filed specification does not describe this feature, nor does it provide sufficient discloser from which one of the ordinary skill in the have any support what so ever to explain authentication of second user. How the second user is being authenticating.
Dependent claims 2-27 are depends on rejected claim 1 and do not overcome the deficiencies mentioned in the rejection of claim 1. Therefore claims 2-27 are rejected under same rationale as claim 1.
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.
Claim 1 and 15 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 and 15 recites “…authenticating audio signals” however, the broadest reasonable interpretation, the metes and bounds of the claimed invention are not clear, the claim is indefinite. It is unclear, how audio signal are being authenticating? And does audio signals are being authenticated or the information carries by audio signal are being authenticating?
Dependent claims 2-27 are depends on rejected claim 1 and do not overcome the deficiencies mentioned in the rejection of claim 1. Therefore claims 2-27 are rejected under same rationale as claim 1.
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, 2, 4-9, 15 and 21, 23, 25-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over VAN DEN HOVEN (U. S. PGPub. No. 2020/0134147 A1) in view of Chu et al. (U. S. Pat. No 6,813,342 B1) (hereinafter “Chu”) and Narayanan (U. S. Pat. No. 9,286,899 B1) (hereinafter “Narayanan”); and further in view of Liu et al. (U. S. PGPub. No. 2023/0021413 A1) (hereinafter “Liu”)
Regarding Claim 1, VAN DEN HOVEN teaches:
A method for authenticating a user (VAN DEN HOVEN: [0006], methods and apparatus for authentication of a personal voice assistant using an out-of-band credential. For example, a user who wishes to link (sometimes referred to as a “symmetrical pairing” or “symmetrical relationship pairing”) a particular service with a personal voice assistant that serves the user may first authenticate themselves to the service, e.g., with a username/password, biometric input (e.g., fingerprint scan, retinal scan, etc.), and so forth), the method being carried out by a computing system comprising a plurality of microphones, audio processors, and loudspeakers (VAN DEN HOVEN: [0034], audio input devices such as voice recognition systems, microphones, and/or other types of input devices), the Al system being configured to provide voice assistant functionalities, the method comprising (VAN DEN HOVEN: [0010] As used herein, a “personal voice assistant” may take the form of software that executes on one or more computing devices. It may receive natural language input from users in the form of spoken utterances, and in various scenarios may participate in a human-to-computer dialog with the user, may initiate one or more tasks (e.g., set a reminder, set a timer, etc.), and/or interact with one or more services (which may be local or cloud-based). A personal voice assistant may include one or more natural language processors (locally and/or on the cloud) that process natural language input to generate, for instance, annotated output that may be “understandable” by other components… a personal voice assistant may be trained to recognize a particular user's voice…):
receiving from the user a vocal request for using a service, the service being provided by a service provider, the service provider being associated with a service provider platform (VAN DEN HOVEN: [0002], humans (which when they interact with personal voice assistants may be referred to as “users”) may provide commands and/or requests using spoken natural language input (i.e., utterances). [0022], User 100 may also provide (at 118) a request to create a relationship (or “link”) between personal voice assistant 106 that serves user 100 and the targeted voice-actuable service 110 of services library 108. The targeted service may also be voice-actuable, in that it may be possible to access the targeted service 110 by invoking personal voice assistant 106 once a link is established using techniques described herein);
sending … an authentication message (AM) including a pronounceable code (VAN DEN HOVEN: [0024] At 126, authentication backend 114 may provide (e.g., transmit) the speakable credential (=pronounceable code). At 130, client device 104 may then provide, as output using one or more output devices of the client device 104 such as a display, speaker, etc., the speakable credential);
vocally receiving from the user, a pronounced code (VAN DEN HOVEN: [0006], provides for the personal voice assistant may provide (=transmit or send) the uttered credential (=pronounced code) to the service and/or authentication backend. The user may then utter this credential aloud (as an “uttered credential”) (=pronounced code) to a personal voice assistant executing on a second client computing device, such as a standalone interactive speaker or another client computing device that operates one or more aspects of a personal voice assistant);
verifying that the pronounced code corresponds to the pronounceable code (VAN DEN HOVEN: [0027], provides for at 260, authentication backend 114 matches the uttered credential to the speakable credential previously generated at 124 of FIG. 1. [0031], provides for in various embodiments, the data may be speakable data. At block 308, the system may match the data to the speakable credential);
and sending a confirmation message to the service provider platform (VAN DEN HOVEN: [0027], provides for Assuming there's a match, at 262, authentication backend 114 returns some indication of success (=a confirmation message) to services library 108).
VAN DEN HOVEN does not explicitly disclose:
vocally receiving from the user a telephone number of the user, wherein the telephone number is a global coordinated identifier that may be used to authenticate the user to other computing systems,
wherein the computing system and each of the other computing systems correspond to separate unique services, and wherein the voice assistant functionalities support authentication to all of the separate unique services;
cooperating with the service provider platform to verify that the telephone number corresponds to an active subscription to the service;
However, in an analogous art, Chu teaches:
vocally receiving from the user a telephone number of the user (Chu: [Col 11, lines 43-51], (166) Initially, in operation 602, utterances are received from a user during a session via a speech recognition portal. Such speech recognition portal may be accessed during the course of a telephone call. As will soon become apparent, the utterances may be indicative of a third party to which the user desires to be connected. For example, the utterances may take the form a 7 or 10 digit phone number (=vocally receiving a telephone number) of the third party, or a name of the third party which, in turn, can be translated into a phone number utilizing an address book. [Col 12, lines 1-3], In another embodiment, the user identifier (= a user identifier can be a global, coordinated identifier, such as a Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) or a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID). These identifiers are designed to be unique across all systems and applications, making them suitable for tracking users across different platforms or databases) may take the form of a phone number of the user (=receiving a telephone number of the user) for simplicity purposes. [col 13, lines 23-26], (181) If not, the log-in process may further include prompting the user to manually enter the user identifier. See operation 708. This, of course, may be accomplished utilizing a speech recognition process );
wherein the telephone number is a global coordinated identifier that may be used to authenticate the user to other computing systems in addition to the computing system (Chu: [Col 12, lines 1-3], In another embodiment, the user identifier (=global coordinated identifier) may take the form of a phone number of the user (=receiving a telephone number of the user) for simplicity purposes. [Col 12, lines 59-63], In one embodiment where the user identifier includes a phone number of the user, the first three digits (not including the "1" if present) of the user identifier may be used as the area code. [Col 13, lines 4-5], If no confirmation is received, the user may be prompted to verbalize the phone number. [col 12, lines 35-42], (174) In the alternative, it may be determined in decision 608 that the utterances indicative of the third party are representative of a phone number, not a name. See decisions 608 and 614…. [Col 11, lines 65-67-Col 12, lines 1-3], the user identifier is any identifier that is capable being looked up in a database to gain additional information about the user. Such user identifier may be assigned during a registration process that may occur at an earlier time. In another embodiment, the user identifier may take the form of a phone number of the user for simplicity purposes. [Col 1, lines 65-67 [ Col 2, lines 1-4], (10) In one embodiment, a log-in process is initiated. Such log-in process may include collecting a caller identifier. Further, the user may be identified in a database utilizing the caller identifier. It is then determined if the user can be identified (=if the user is authenticated) in the database based on the caller identifier…),
wherein the computing system and each of the other computing systems correspond to separate unique services (Chu: [Col 2, lines 50-55], (2) FIG. 1 illustrates one exemplary platform 150 on which the present invention may be implemented. The present platform 150 is capable of supporting voice applications that provide unique business services (=unique services). Such voice applications may be adapted for consumer services or internal applications for employee productivity),
cooperating with the service provider platform to verify that the telephone number corresponds to an active subscription to the service (Chu: Col. 11, lines 64-Col. 12, lines 3], Moreover, the user identifier is any identifier that is capable being looked up in a database to gain additional information about the user. Such user identifier may be assigned during a registration process that may occur at an earlier time. In another embodiment, the user identifier may take the form of a phone number of the user for simplicity purposes. [Col 13, lines 10-12], FIG. 7 illustrates a method 700 for logging in a user during voice activated dialing, in accordance with operation 604 of FIG. 6);
It would be obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify VAN DEN HOVEN ’s method of requesting a vocal request from a user to perform a task by using speakable code and uttered code by applying Chu’s method of lookup the user identifier (=the user identifier may take the form of a phone number of the user for simplicity purposes) in the database to verify that Such user identifier may be assigned during a registration process that may occur at an earlier time, in order to prevent fraudsters to unauthorized access to the account and prevent from performing fraudulent activities/tasks.
The VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu does not explicitly disclose:
and wherein the voice assistant functionalities comprise authenticating an audio signal corresponding to vocal receipt of the telephone number and support authentication, based on the audio signal, to all of the separate unique services.
However, in an analogous art, Narayanan teaches:
and wherein the voice assistant functionalities comprise authenticating an audio signal corresponding to vocal receipt of the telephone number and support authentication, based on the audio signal, to all of the separate unique services (Narayanan: [Col 2, lines 29-42], the device may identify an audio signature of the generated audio signal. An audio signature may be based, in part, on features such as a frequency of the audio signal, a pitch of the audio signal, a decibel level of the audio signal, and/or other audio features identifiable from the signal. The device may then compare this audio signature to an audio signature previously associated with the user….If, however, the audio signatures match, then the device may proceed to continue a dialog with the user for the purpose of accurately authenticating the user. [Col 3, lines 14-20], (14) If, however, the words match, then the device may again compare an audio signature of the audio signal to the audio signature associated with the user. If the audio signatures do not match, then the device may refrain from initiating the requested transaction. If the audio signatures match, however, then the device may proceed to initiate the requested transaction for the user)
A person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, would have found it obvious to modify VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu by applying the well-known technique as disclosed by Narayanan of identifying audio signature of audio signals and compare this audio signature to an audio signature previously associated with the user in order verify identity of user prior to granting access to the device. The motivation is to prevent a hacker from accessing the devices which can perform certain unauthorized actions by falsifying his or her identity (Narayana: [Col 1, lines 21-23]).
VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu and Narayanan does not explicitly disclose
sending to the telephone number, an authentication message (AM) including a pronounceable code (Liu: [0134], The cloud server may send the verification code to the mobile phone. After receiving a verification code from an operator, the mobile phone may automatically pop up a notification box 601. The notification box 601 may display “Dear user, a verification code of your current payment is 8326 (=pronounceable code) (your dynamic password), and expires after 30 minutes. Do not tell others for security of your account”. After receiving the verification code, the mobile phone may automatically display a GUI shown in FIG. 6(c)).
A person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, would have found it obvious to modify VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu and Narayanan by applying the well-known technique as disclosed by Liu of sending verification code to the mobile phone via notification box (=authentication message), in order to perform authentication process and improve voice payment security by using a well recognize universal identifier such as the user’s telephone number (Liu: [0007]).
Regarding Claim 2, the combination of VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The method of claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1 above),
before the telephone number is vocally provided, vocally prompting provision of the telephone number (Chu: [Col 12, lines 31-34], If no confirmation is received, the user may be prompted to verbalize a 10-digit phone number or simply the area code in operation 624 for subsequent confirmation again in decision 620)
It would be obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify VAN DEN HOVEN ’s method of requesting a vocal request from a user to perform a task by applying Chu’s method of vocally receiving telephone number, in order to prevent fraudsters to unauthorized access to the account and prevent from performing fraudulent activities/tasks. The motivation is to increase computational and memory capacity and decreasing cost of computing hardware improve the commercial viability for simpler applications of speech recognition such as voice-dialing (Chu: [Col 1, lines 37-40]).
Regarding Claim 4, the combination of VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayana and Liu teaches:
The method of claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1 above),
wherein receiving the telephone number further comprises receiving a single pronounceable code correlated to the telephone number (Chu: [Col 12, lines 31-34], If no confirmation is received, the user may be prompted to verbalize a 10-digit phone number or simply the area code (=a single pronounceable code) in operation 624 for subsequent confirmation again in decision 620)
It would be obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify VAN DEN HOVEN ’s method of requesting a vocal request from a user to perform a task by applying Chu’s method of vocally receiving telephone number, in order to prevent fraudsters to unauthorized access to the account and prevent from performing fraudulent activities/tasks. The motivation is to increase computational and memory capacity and decreasing cost of computing hardware improve the commercial viability for simpler applications of speech recognition such as voice-dialing (Chu: [Col 1, lines 37-40]).
Regarding Claim 5, the combination of VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The method of claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1 above),
before the pronounced code is vocally provided, vocally prompting provision of the pronounced code (Chu: [Col 12, lines 31-34], If no confirmation is received, the user may be prompted to verbalize a 10-digit phone number or simply the area code in operation 624 for subsequent confirmation again in decision 620)
It would be obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify VAN DEN HOVEN ’s method of requesting a vocal request from a user to perform a task by applying Chu’s method of vocally receiving telephone number, in order to prevent fraudsters to unauthorized access to the account and prevent from performing fraudulent activities/tasks. The motivation is to increase computational and memory capacity and decreasing cost of computing hardware improve the commercial viability for simpler applications of speech recognition such as voice-dialing (Chu: [Col 1, lines 37-40]) .
Regarding Claim 6, the combination of VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The method of claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1 above),
vocally receiving details associated with the service to be provided (VAN DEN HOVEN: [0004], That way, the user can provide spoken voice commands that will cause the personal voice assistant to order a pizza. [0025], user 100 may invoke personal voice assistant 106A operating on standalone interactive speaker 102 (or on another device such as smart phone 104) to access the targeted Voice-actuable service 110, e.g., by uttering a trigger phrase such as “Hey personal assistant, perform [task].” [0029] FIG. 3 depicts an example method 300 for practicing selected aspects of the present disclosure, in accordance with various embodiments. For convenience, the operations of the flow chart are described with reference to a system that performs the operations. This system may include various components of various computer systems, including personal voice assistant 106, services library 108, and/or authentication backend 114. Moreover, while operations of method 300 are shown in a particular order, this is not meant to be limiting. One or more operations may be reordered, omitted or added).
Regarding Claim 7, The combination of VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The method of claim 6 (see rejection of claim 6 above),
vocally prompting provision of the details (VAN DEN HOVEN: [0025], user 100 may invoke personal voice assistant 106A operating on standalone interactive speaker 102 (or on another device such as smart phone 104) to access the targeted Voice-actuable service 110, e.g., by uttering a trigger phrase such as “Hey personal assistant, perform [task].”)
Regarding Claim 8, the combination of VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The method of claim 7 (see rejection of claim 7 above),
wherein the details are prompted and received after verifying that the pronounced code corresponds to the pronounceable code (VAN DEN HOVEN DEN HOVEN: [0027], provides after services library 108 checks the invocation for correctness, at 258, services library 108 may relay the uttered credential (which as noted above may now by in textual form) to authentication backend 114. At 260, authentication backend 114 matches the uttered credential to the speakable credential previously generated at 124 of FIG. 1).
Regarding Claim 9, the combination of VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The method of claim 6 (see rejection of claim 6 above),
wherein the confirmation message comprises the details (VAN DEN HOVEN: [0027], provides for Assuming there's a match, at 262, authentication backend 114 returns some indication of success (=a confirmation message) to services library 108. [0028], At 266, services library 108 may return some indication of success to personal voice assistant 106, which in turn relays the success indication to the instance of personal voice assistant 106A operating on standalone interactive speaker 102 at 268. At 270, standalone interactive speaker 102 may audibly output some indication of success, such as “A relationship to [targeted service] has been successfully established.” ).
Regarding Claim 15, this claim contains identical limitations found within that of claim 1
above albeit directed to a different statutory category (non-transitory medium). For this reason, the same grounds of rejection are applied to claim 15.
Furthermore, VAN DEN HOVEN teaches:
An computing system, the computing system being configured to provide voice assistant functionalities, the computing system comprising (VAN DEN HOVEN: [0002] Humans may engage in human-to-computer dialogs with interactive software applications referred to herein as “personal voice assistants” (also referred to as “automated assistants,” “digital agents,” “chatbots,” “interactive personal assistants,” “intelligent personal assistants,” “conversational agents,” etc.). For example, humans (which when they interact with personal voice assistants may be referred to as “users”) may provide commands and/or requests using spoken natural language input (i.e., utterances) which may in some cases be converted into text and then processed, and/or by providing textual (e.g., typed) natural language input. Examples of personal voice assistants include “Alexa” by Amazon.com of Seattle, Wash., “Google Assistant” by Google, Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., “Cortana” by Microsoft of Redmond, Wash., and “Siri” by Apple of Cupertino, Calif) one or more processors and memory, storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors cause the computing system: (VAN DEN HOVEN: [0033], Computer system 410 typically includes at least one processor 414 which communicates with a number of peripheral devices via bus subsystem 412. [0036], provides for Memory 425 used in the storage subsystem 424 can include a number of memories including a main random-access memory (RAM) 430 for storage of instructions and data during program execution and a read only memory (ROM) 432 in which fixed instructions are stored).
Regarding Claim 18, VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The AI system of claim 15 (see rejection of claim 15 above),
wherein receiving the telephone number comprises receiving a single pronounceable code correlated to the telephone number (Chu: [Col 12, lines 31-34], If no confirmation is received, the user may be prompted to verbalize a 10-digit phone number or simply the area code (=a single pronounceable code) in operation 624 for subsequent confirmation again in decision 620).
It would be obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify VAN DEN HOVEN ’s method of requesting a vocal request from a user to perform a task by applying Chu’s method of vocally receiving telephone number, in order to prevent fraudsters to unauthorized access to the account and prevent from performing fraudulent activities/tasks. The motivation is to increase computational and memory capacity and decreasing cost of computing hardware improve the commercial viability for simpler applications of speech recognition such as voice-dialing (Chu: [Col 1, lines 37-40]).
Regarding Claim 19, VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The AI system of claim 15 (see rejection of claim 15 above),
wherein the memory stores additional instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computing system to (Chu: [Col 8, lines 39-55], (135) The workstation shown in FIG. 2 includes a Random Access Memory (RAM) 214, Read Only Memory (ROM) 216, an I/O adapter 218 for connecting peripheral devices such as disk storage units 220 to the bus 212, a user interface adapter 222 for connecting a keyboard 224, a mouse 226, a speaker 228, a microphone 232, and/or other user interface devices such as a touch screen (not shown) to the bus 212, communication adapter 234 for connecting the workstation to a communication network (e.g., a data processing network) and a display adapter 236 for connecting the bus 212 to a display device 238. The workstation typically has resident thereon an operating system such as the Microsoft Windows NT or Windows/95 Operating System (OS), the IBM OS/2 operating system, the MAC OS, or UNIX operating system. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the present invention may also be implemented on platforms and operating systems other than those mentioned):
before the pronounced code is vocally provided, vocally prompt provision of the pronounced code (Chu: [Col 12, lines 31-34], If no confirmation is received, the user may be prompted to verbalize a 10-digit phone number or simply the area code in operation 624 for subsequent confirmation again in decision 620).
It would be obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify VAN DEN HOVEN ’s method of requesting a vocal request from a user to perform a task by applying Chu’s method of vocally receiving telephone number, in order to prevent fraudsters to unauthorized access to the account and prevent from performing fraudulent activities/tasks. The motivation is to increase computational and memory capacity and decreasing cost of computing hardware improve the commercial viability for simpler applications of speech recognition such as voice-dialing (Chu: [Col 1, lines 37-40]).
Regarding Claim 20, VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The AI system of claim 15 (see rejection of claim 15 above),
wherein the memory stores additional instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computing system to (Chu: [Col 8, lines 39-55], (135) The workstation shown in FIG. 2 includes a Random Access Memory (RAM) 214, Read Only Memory (ROM) 216, an I/O adapter 218 for connecting peripheral devices such as disk storage units 220 to the bus 212, a user interface adapter 222 for connecting a keyboard 224, a mouse 226, a speaker 228, a microphone 232, and/or other user interface devices such as a touch screen (not shown) to the bus 212, communication adapter 234 for connecting the workstation to a communication network (e.g., a data processing network) and a display adapter 236 for connecting the bus 212 to a display device 238. The workstation typically has resident thereon an operating system such as the Microsoft Windows NT or Windows/95 Operating System (OS), the IBM OS/2 operating system, the MAC OS, or UNIX operating system. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the present invention may also be implemented on platforms and operating systems other than those mentioned):
vocally receive details associated with the service to be provided (Chu: [Col 8, lines 56-64], 136) FIG. 3 illustrates a method 350 for providing a speech recognition process utilizing the utterances collected during use of a voice portal. Initially, a database of the collected utterances is maintained. See operation 352. In operation 354, information associated with the utterances is collected utilizing a speech recognition process. When a speech recognition process application is deployed, audio data and recognition logs may be created. Such data and logs may also be created by simply parsing through the database at any desired time)
It would be obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify VAN DEN HOVEN ’s method of requesting a vocal request from a user to perform a task by applying Chu’s method of vocally receiving telephone number, in order to prevent fraudsters to unauthorized access to the account and prevent from performing fraudulent activities/tasks. The motivation is to increase computational and memory capacity and decreasing cost of computing hardware improve the commercial viability for simpler applications of speech recognition such as voice-dialing (Chu: [Col 1, lines 37-40]).
Regarding claim 21, VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The method of claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1 above),
wherein sending the authentication message is (VAN DEN HOVEN: [0024] At 126, authentication backend 114 may provide (e.g., transmit) the speakable credential (=pronounceable code). At 130, client device 104 may then provide, as output using one or more output devices of the client device 104 such as a display, speaker, etc., the speakable credential)
(Chu: Col. 11, lines 64-Col. 12, lines 3], Moreover, the user identifier is any identifier that is capable being looked up in a database to gain additional information about the user. Such user identifier may be assigned during a registration process that may occur at an earlier time. In another embodiment, the user identifier may take the form of a phone number of the user for simplicity purposes. [Col 13, lines 10-12], FIG. 7 illustrates a method 700 for logging in a user during voice activated dialing, in accordance with operation 604 of FIG. 6) .
Regarding claim 23, VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu , Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The method of claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1 above),
wherein the pronounceable code is generated based on language used for interaction between the user and the computing system (Chu: [Col 6, lines 21-22], provides the interface to speech recognition and synthesis engines 153).
It would be obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify VAN DEN HOVEN ’s method of requesting a vocal request from a user to perform a task by using speakable code and uttered code by applying Chu’s method of performing voice activated dialing by using a speech recognition process in order to increase productivity, time-saving feature by enabling hands-free operation, improving accessibility for people with disabilities, and enhance user experience by automation process and streamlining interaction with devices. The motivation is to increase computational and memory capacity and decreasing cost of computing hardware improve the commercial viability for simpler applications of speech recognition such as voice-dialing (Chu: [Col 1, lines 37-40]).
Regarding Claim 25, the combination of VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The method of claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1 above),
wherein the separate unique services include an audio/vocal press review service, music streaming service, food delivery service, and ticket reservation service (Narayanan: [Col 3, lines 18-22], . If the audio signatures match, however, then the device may proceed to initiate the requested transaction for the user. For instance, the device may place the requested telephone call, play the requested song, place an order for the specified item or the like. [Col 5, lines 1-5], The requests may be for essentially type of operation, such as authentication, database inquires, requesting and consuming entertainment (e.g., gaming, finding and playing music, movies or other content, etc.), personal management (e.g., calendaring, note taking, etc.), online shopping, financial transactions, and so forth).
A person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, would have found it obvious to modify VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu by applying the well-known technique as disclosed by Narayanan of identifying audio signature of audio signals and compare this audio signature to an audio signature previously associated with the user in order verify identity of user prior to granting access to the device. The motivation is to prevent a hacker from accessing the devices which can perform certain unauthorized actions by falsifying his or her identity (Narayana: [Col 1, lines 21-23]).
Regarding Claim 26, the combination of VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The method of claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1 above),
wherein payment for at least one of the separate unique services is provided at a physical point of sale (Liu: [0015] In this embodiment of this application, the second electronic device may authenticate the user through an NFC physical touch (=physical point of sale. In this way, a cumbersome operation performed by the user on the second electronic device can be avoided, and authentication can be completed only by moving the second electronic device close to the first electronic device. This helps simplify an operation performed by the user during voice payment, to improve user experience when voice payment security is ensured. [0029], the second electronic device may authenticate the user through an NFC physical touch)
A person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, would have found it obvious to modify VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu and Narayanan by applying the well-known technique as disclosed by Liu of sending verification code to the mobile phone via notification box (=authentication message), in order to perform authentication process and improve voice payment security by using a well recognize universal identifier such as the user’s telephone number (Liu: [0007]).
Regarding Claim 27, the combination of VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The method of claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1 above),
wherein a vocal interaction including the vocal request involves a second user in addition to the user, and wherein the authentication includes authentication of the second user in addition to the user (Narayanan: [Col 1, lines 50-61], techniques for authenticating users at devices that interact with the users via voice input. For instance, the described techniques may allow a voice-input device to safely verify the identity of a user by engaging in a back-and-forth conversation. The device or another device coupled thereto may then verify the accuracy of the responses from the user during the conversation, as well as compare an audio signature associated with the user's responses to a pre-stored audio signature associated with the user. By utilizing multiple checks, the described techniques are able to accurately and safely authenticate the user based solely on an audible conversation between the user and the voice-input device)
A person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, would have found it obvious to modify VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu by applying the well-known technique as disclosed by Narayanan of identifying audio signature of audio signals and compare this audio signature to an audio signature previously associated with the user in order verify identity of user prior to granting access to the device. The motivation is to prevent a hacker from accessing the devices which can perform certain unauthorized actions by falsifying his or her identity (Narayana: [Col 1, lines 21-23]).
Claim(s) 24 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over VAN DEN HOVEN (U. S. PGPub. No. 2020/0134147 A1) and further in view of Chu et al (U. S. Pat. No 6,813,342 B1) (hereinafter “Chu”), Narayanan (U. S. Pat. No. 9,286,899 B1) (hereinafter “Narayanan”) and Liu et al. (U. S. PGPub. No. 2023/0021413 A1) (hereinafter “Liu”); and further in view of Houseworth et al. (U. S. PGPub. No. 2013/0282455 A1) (hereinafter “Houseworth”).
Regarding Claim 24, VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The method of claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1 above),
wherein a first service of the separate unique services is associated with digital goods and services (Chu: [Col 7, lines 15-25], (103) Streaming Audio (=digital goods and service) (104) The streaming audio server enables static and dynamic audio files to be played to the caller. For instance, a one minute audio news feed would be handled by the streaming audio server. [Col 5, lines 19-22], (57) Billing (174) (58) Provides billing infrastructure such as capturing and processing billable events, rating, and interfaces to external billing systems. (105) Support for standard static file formats such as WAV and MP3. (106) Support for streaming (dynamic) file formats such as Real Audio.RTM. and Windows.RTM. Media.RTM.),
and wherein a second service of the separate unique services is associated with physical goods and services (Chu: [Col 5, lines 47-51], (67) Transactions (=physical goods and service) (198) (68) Provides transaction infrastructure such as shopping cart, tax and shipping calculations, and interfaces to external payment systems),
It would be obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify VAN DEN HOVEN ’s method of requesting a vocal request from a user to perform a task by using speakable code and uttered code by applying Chu’s method of providing access to the different services. The motivation is to increase computational and memory capacity and decreasing cost of computing hardware improve the commercial viability for simpler applications of speech recognition such as voice-dialing (Chu: [Col 1, lines 37-40]).
VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu does not explicitly disclose:
wherein the first service is hosted by the computing system and the second service is hosted by at least one of the other computing systems.
However, in an analogous art, Houseworth teaches:
wherein the first service is hosted by the computing system (Houseworth: [0033], an electronic resource hosted by a social networking service, hereinafter referred to as social network resource 304, with the social network service providing social media feeds for its users)
and the second service is hosted by at least one of the other computing systems (Houseworth: [0033], FIG. 3, that broadly includes an electronic resource hosted by a retailer, hereinafter referred to as retail resource 302, with the retailer being in the business of offering goods and services).
A person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, would have found it obvious to modify VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu , Narayanan and Liu by applying the well-known technique as disclosed by Houseworth of providing retail service hosted by retailer and social network services hosted by social network resources. The motivation is to allow users to refer goods and services via the user's social media feeds and to further provide such users with a benefit for referring the goods and services. As used herein, social media feeds are generally defined to be communications platforms offered by social networking services (Houseworth: [0015]).
Claim(s) 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over VAN DEN HOVEN (U. S. PGPub. No. 2020/0134147 A1) and further in view of Chu et al (U. S. Pat. No 6,813,342 B1) (hereinafter “Chu”), Narayanan (U. S. Pat. No. 9,286,899 B1) (hereinafter “Narayanan”) and Liu et al. (U. S. PGPub. No. 2023/0021413 A1) (hereinafter “Liu”); and further in view of Sathe et al (U. S. PGPub. No. 2017/0195928 A1) (hereinafter “Sathe”).
Regarding Claim 3, VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayana and Liu teaches:
The method of claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1 above),
wherein cooperating with the service provider platform to verify that the telephone number corresponds to the active subscription comprises (Chu: [Col. 11, lines 64-Col. 12], lines 3], Moreover, the user identifier is any identifier that is capable being looked up in a database to gain additional information about the user. Such user identifier may be assigned during a registration process that may occur at an earlier time. In another embodiment, the user identifier may take the form of a phone number of the user for simplicity purposes. [Col 13, lines 10-12], FIG. 7 illustrates a method 700 for logging in a user during voice activated dialing, in accordance with operation 604 of FIG. 6):
It would be obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify VAN DEN HOVEN ’s method of requesting a vocal request from a user to perform a task by using speakable code and uttered code by applying Chu’s method of lookup the user identifier (=the user identifier may take the form of a phone number of the user for simplicity purposes) in the database to verify that Such user identifier may be assigned during a registration process that may occur at an earlier time, in order to prevent fraudsters to unauthorized access to the account and prevent from performing fraudulent activities/tasks.
VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu does not explicitly disclose:
sending the telephone number to the service provider platform
and receiving from the service provider platform a response representative of a comparison between the telephone number and data included in a subscription database of the service provider platform.
However, in analogous art, Sathe teaches:
sending the telephone number to the service provider platform (Sathe: [0051] In one embodiment, international travel data is received at block 304. The international travel data may include, for example, the name of the traveler, the starting and destination points, including any waypoints for upcoming travel, the dates of travel, hotel reservation information, a mobile telephone number associated with the traveler, car rental information, and other such information that may pertain to the traveler or an upcoming trip)
and receiving from the service provider platform a response representative of a comparison between the telephone number and data included in a subscription database of the service provider platform (Sathe: [0053] At block 306, it is verified whether the traveler is a subscriber to services of the carrier. This may be done, for example, by comparing a mobile telephone number associated with the traveler against a database of current subscribers of the carrier's services. [0063] In some embodiments, all or part of the identifying information, such as the traveler's name and cellular phone number, are sent to the carrier servers 110 which, utilizing the customer profile module 116, compare the identifying information to a customer database to determine whether the traveler is a subscriber to the carrier's services and if so, to determine the services and benefits that the traveler has already subscribed to. The decision module 118 may determine if there are services that the traveler would benefit from during the trip and the notification module 120 may inform the traveler of existing benefits and services that the traveler has access to, or inform the traveler of services that may be useful and provide an opportunity for the traveler to acquire additional services).
A person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, would have found it obvious to modify VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu by applying the well-known technique as disclosed by Sathe of comparing the telephone number against a database of current subscribers of the carrier's services to verify that user/traveler is a current subscriber or not. The motivation is to maintain uninterrupted voice and/or data coverage for the wireless device while traveling (Sathe: [abstract]).
Claim(s) 10-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over VAN DEN HOVEN (U. S. PGPub. No. 2020/0134147 A) in view of Chu et al (U. S. Pat. No 6,813,342 B1) (hereinafter “Chu”), Narayanan (U. S. Pat. No. 9,286,899 B1) (hereinafter “Narayanan”) and Liu et al. (U. S. PGPub. No. 2023/0021413 A1) (hereinafter “Liu”); and further in view of Zhao et al (US 2017/0310685 A1).
Regarding Claim 10, the combination of VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The method of claim 1 (see rejection of claim 1 above),
The above cited combination of VAN DEN HOVEN in view of in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu does not disclose:
performing a fallback procedure in case the pronounced code is not provided.
However, in an analogous art, Zhao teaches:
performing a fallback procedure in case the pronounced code is not provided (Zhao: [0066]: if the verification information is invalid, verification on the first terminal fails. The first terminal may also request, by re-sending a verification information obtaining request, to obtain verification information such as a one-time-password again).
A person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, would have found it obvious to modify VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu by applying the well-known technique as disclosed by Zhao of providing the one-time password will be a unique code which can be resend one-time password again in order to serve serves as a proof that the user has access to the provided contact information and verifies the legitimacy of the signup. The motivation is to complete a verification operation, which reduces an input operation of a user, improves efficiency and accuracy of obtaining the verification information, and enhances an interaction capability of the terminals (Zhao: [0006]).
Regarding Claim 11, the combination of VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The method of claim 10 (see rejection of claim 10 above),
wherein the fallback procedure comprises provided (Zhao: [0066]: if the verification information is invalid, verification on the first terminal fails. The first terminal may also request, by re-sending a verification information obtaining request, to obtain verification information such as a one-time-password again):
vocally prompting provision of (Chu: [Col 2, lines 58], prompting the user to enter a user identifier upon it being determined that the user can not be identified in the database based on the caller identifier. [Col 11, lines 54-55], a speech recognition process may be performed on the utterances to interpret the utterances) a fallback code (Zhao: [0066], if the verification information is invalid, verification on the terminal fails. The terminal may also request, by re-sending a verification information obtaining request, to obtain verification information such as a one-time-password again. [0106] B5: Receive a verification information obtaining response fed back by the terminal A, where the verification information obtaining response includes verification information);
receiving a vocal code (Zhao: [0066], if the verification information is invalid, verification on the terminal fails. The terminal may also request, by re-sending a verification information obtaining request, to obtain verification information such as a one-time-password again. [0106] B5: Receive a verification information obtaining response fed back by the terminal A, where the verification information obtaining response includes verification information)
and cooperating with the service provider platform to verify that the vocal code corresponds to the fallback code (Zhao: [0066], the verification information obtained by the first terminal may also be information such as a one-time-password. The verification information may be sent to the server. Because the one-time-password is generated by the second terminal according to an application and is valid within a particular period of time, the server may detect, according to a synchronous time, whether the verification information is valid. If the verification information is valid, verification on the first terminal succeeds).
A person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, would have found it obvious to modify VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu by applying the well-known technique as disclosed by Zhao of providing the one-time password will be a unique code which can be resend one-time password again in order to serve serves as a proof that the user has access to the provided contact information and verifies the legitimacy of the signup. The motivation is to complete a verification operation, which reduces an input operation of a user, improves efficiency and accuracy of obtaining the verification information, and enhances an interaction capability of the terminals (Zhao: [0006]).
Regarding claim 12, the combination of VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The method according to claim 11 (see rejection of claim 11 above),
wherein the fallback code is a unique code associated to the telephone number, preferably associated with the telephone number upon activation of a service subscription with the service provider based on the telephone number (Zhao: [0164], the verification information obtained by the terminal may also be information such as a one-time-password. The verification information may be sent to the server. Because the one-time-password is generated by another terminal according to an application and is valid within a particular period of time, the server may detect, according to a synchronous time, whether the verification information is valid. If the verification information is valid, verification on the terminal succeeds; or if the verification information is invalid, verification on the terminal fails. The terminal may also request, by re-sending a verification information obtaining request, to obtain verification information such as a one-time-password again).
A person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, would have found it obvious to modify VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu by applying the well-known technique as disclosed by Zhao of providing the one-time password will be a unique code which can be resend one-time password again in order to serve serves as a proof that the user has access to the provided contact information and verifies the legitimacy of the signup. The motivation is to complete a verification operation, which reduces an input operation of a user, improves efficiency and accuracy of obtaining the verification information, and enhances an interaction capability of the terminals (Zhao: [0006]).
Regarding claim 13, the combination of VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu teaches:
The method of claim 11 (see rejection of claim 11 above),
wherein the fallback code is a one-time activation code sent from the service provider platform to the telephone number (Zhao: [0003] At present, when a user conducts activities such as online payment, enabling or registering with online banking, logging in to a WeChat application, validity of an identity of the user may be generally checked in the foregoing activities by choosing to use a short message service message verification code or a one-time-password for verification)
A person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, would have found it obvious to modify VAN DEN HOVEN in view of Chu, Narayanan and Liu by applying the well-known technique as disclosed by Zhao of providing the one-time password will be a unique code which can be resend one-time password again in order to serve serves as a proof that the user has access to the provided contact information and verifies the legitimacy of the signup. The motivation is to complete a verification operation, which reduces an input operation of a user, improves efficiency and accuracy of obtaining the verification information, and enhances an interaction capability of the terminals (Zhao: [0006]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Refer to PTO-892, Notice of References Cited for a listing of analogous art.
TUSHINSKIY et al. (U. S. 2021/0217413 A1): The present invention relates to systems and methods of digital interactions with users, and in particular systems and methods operating a voice-activated advertising system for any digital device platform that has connection to Internet and microphone. The systems and methods including the generation and digital insertion of pre-recorded audio advertisements or text-to-speech generated voice ads, followed by recording users' voice response to ad and understanding user's intents, providing ad response to user based on intents internal ad logic, and analysis of the end-user device and user data for further user engagement with the voice-activated audio advertisement. User interaction data is captured and analyzed in an Artificial Intelligence core to improve selection and delivery of interactions.
KOTHARI et al. (U. S. 2020/0312317 A1): Coordinating signal processing among computing devices in a voice-driven computing environment is provided. A first and second digital assistant can detect an input audio signal, perform a signal quality check, and provide indications that the first and second digital assistants are operational to process the input audio signal. A system can select the first digital assistant for further processing. The system can receive, from the first digital assistant, data packets including a command. The system can generate, for a network connected device selected from a plurality of network connected devices, an action data structure based on the data packets, and transmit the action data structure to the selected network connected device.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/R.D./ Examiner, Art Unit 2437
/ALEXANDER LAGOR/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2437