DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 10/20/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The examiner respectfully disagrees, and in the combination of previously cited prior art, Lemelson makes obvious the amended features of claims 1, 15, and 18.
Regarding claim 1, the combination of Blair, Lemelson, and Tupler makes obvious the features of the claim. Lemelson makes obvious:
“detecting an event by analyzing both the first portion of a modified microphone signal and the sensor data, wherein an event is detected if the sensor data exceeds a threshold , if an event is detected by analyzing the sensor data then the event is identified by matching at least a second portion of the first signal to a predefined sound”.
First, Lemelson teaches that an analysis of the sensor data is used to detect an event, such as determining that the event occurs when the sensor data indicates abnormal rapid changes in acceleration or deceleration (see Lemelson, column 7, lines 9-16, and column 11, lines 49-52, and figure 2, units 42 and 53). In order for Lemelson to determine the event occurred, the changes in acceleration or deceleration, or sensor data, would be compared to a predefined threshold of motion. Next, Lemelson makes obvious that the system uses a combined speech or sound analysis with the detected motion event to determine the existence of danger (see Lemelson, column 11, lines 56-59 and column 15, lines 19-22), where it is obvious that Lemelson teaches a sound analysis, such as matching detected sounds with sounds stored in a library, to determine whether to activate an alarm, where the sound analysis is combined with the motion analysis to determine the type of emergency situation when activating an alarm (see Lemelson, column 6, line 58 - column 7, line 16, column 14, lines 27-61, and column 15, lines 19-22).
The claim language does not exclude the analysis of speech or sound data happening prior to the event detection, and only makes clear that the speech or sound analysis is used when an event is detected. Therefore, the claim language reads on a sound analysis that is performed at any time with respect to the sensor data analysis, and the results of the sound analysis is used when an event is detected by the analysis of the sensor data in order to identify the event. Therefore, the combination of Blair, Lemelson, and Tupler makes obvious the features of claim 1.
Regarding claims 15 and 18, the claims are amended with similar language with respect to claim 1. In the combination of prior art, Lemelson makes obvious the amended features for the same reasons as stated above.
Therefore, the combination of prior art makes obvious the pending claims as shown below in the 35 USC 103 Claim Rejections. Claims 1-2, 4-8, 10, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Blair, Lemelson, and Tupler. Claims 3, 11, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, and Vensko. Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, and Odinak. Claims 12-13 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, Vensko, and Lee. Claims 15-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, Lee, Vensko, and Odinak. Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, Vensko, and Odinak.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-2, 4-8, 10, and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blair, US 2003/0050776 A1 (previously cited), in view of Lemelson et al., US 6,028,514 A (previously cited and hereinafter Lemelson, also cited in IDS received 5/4/2024), and further in view of Tupler et al., US 2005/0151642 A1 (previously cited and hereinafter Tupler).
Regarding claim 1, Blair discloses a message capturing device that records spoken messages and automatically translates the recorded messages into text format (see abstract and figure 1). Blair teaches various embodiments of the message capturing system, for example a combination handheld recording and translation device (e.g., a cell phone) records spoken messages and automatically translates the recorded messages into text format (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012, 0021, and 0030, figure 1, items 20, 25, and 30, and figure 3, item 25).
Herein, Blair anticipates a “communication system” by teaching a message capturing system including a combination handheld recording and translation device, such as a cell phone, and a remote presentation device, such as a desktop computer, handheld device, cell phone, etc. (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012, 0021, and 0030, figure 1, items 20, 25, 30, and 40, and figure 3, items 25 and 40B-C),
“comprising:
a loudspeaker” by teaching the combination handheld recording and translation device, such as a cell phone, and the cell phone is well-known to comprise a loudspeaker at least for telephonic communication (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012 and 0030, figure 1, items 20, 25, and 30, and figure 3, item 25); and
“a microphone configured to measure the ambient environment and generate a microphone signal” by teaching that the microphone of the cell phone (i.e., Blair’s recording device) is used to detect voice commands that direct the cell phone to start recording a voice message, and further teaches that the cell phone stops recording when the user’s voice is no longer detected or another voice command is recognized, wherein the features to detect voice commands to start and stop recording anticipates a microphone generating a microphone signal when only the ambient environment is audible (see Blair, ¶ 0012, 0015-0016, and 0027 and figure 1, items 20 and 25, and figure 3, items 24-25).
Blair does not appear to teach that the communication system comprises “an accelerometer that generates sensor data”.
However, Blair does teach the communication system further comprising:
“a memory that is configured to store program code as instructions” by teaching the cell phone with voice recognition software (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012 and 0015-0017); and
“a processing unit that executes the instructions to perform operations” by teaching that the voice recognition software is executed on a processor (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012, 0015, and 0017).
As stated previously, Blair does not appear to teach “an accelerometer that generates sensor data” of the communication system, and therefore Blair does not teach the operations comprising “receiving the” [accelerometer] “sensor data” and/or “analyzing the sensor data to generate a sensor value”.
Lemelson teaches a warning system with a portable, personal warning unit for a user to carry (see Lemelson, abstract, column 3, lines 4-5, column 11, lines 1-5, and figures 1-2, unit 12,), with a motion detector (e.g., an accelerometer) that is used to detect ‘abnormal rapid changes in movement’ of the user carrying the personal warning unit (see Lemelson, column 11, lines 24-30 and lines 49-52, and figure 2, units 42, 44, and 53). Lemelson also teaches speech recognition features to detect specific preprogrammed speech (see Lemelson, column 4, lines 60-67), and also teaches sound recognition features to detect certain types of sounds that indicate an emergency, such as riot sounds, gunshots, or other loud noises (see Lemelson, column 4, line 67 – column 5, line 4). Specifically, Lemelson teaches the combination of motion analysis and sound analysis to determine alarm conditions (see Lemelson, column 15, lines 19-22). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective date to modify Blair with the teachings of Lemelson for the purpose of providing automated emergency features for cell phone users (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012, 0021, and 0030, and figure 3, unit 25, in view of Lemelson, column 9, line 63 – column 10, line 21, column 11, lines 24-59, and figures 1-2, unit 12).
Therefore, the combination of Blair and Lemelson makes obvious the communication system comprising:
“an accelerometer that generates sensor data” where Lemelson makes obvious the wireless device, such as a personal warning unit carried by the user, that has an accelerometer sensor that generates and sends sensor data to the processor of the device (see Blair, ¶ 0030 in view of Lemelson, column 11, lines 49-52 and figure 2, unit 53);
and the combination further makes obvious the operations comprising:
“receiving the sensor data;” because the processor of the device receives the accelerometer sensor data and/or signals (see Lemelson, column 15, lines 14-15, figure 2, unit 53, and figure 4A, step 163);
“analyzing the sensor data to generate a sensor value” because Lemelson makes it obvious to analyze the sensor data in order to determine if the sensor output indicates a rapid and/or unusual change, and Lemelson makes obvious the use of fuzzy logic to determine sensor values (see Lemelson, column 5, lines 16-38, column 11, lines 49-56, and column 15, lines 14-42);
“receiving a first signal, wherein the first signal is the microphone signal or a modified version of the microphone signal” because Blair teaches that the cell phone is listening for voice commands in order to perform certain tasks, such as starting and stopping a voice message recording, and the cell phone records the voice message, wherein the received first signal is anticipated by any one of the received voice command and/or voice message transduced from the cell phone’s microphone (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012 and 0015-0017);
“detecting speech in the first signal using the signature sound ID system” because Blair teaches that speech is detected in the received microphone signal in order to starting and stopping a voice message recording (see Blair, ¶ 0015-0016);
“converting the speech to text” because Blair teaches that the cell phone translates, or converts, the speech to text (see Blair, ¶ 0017 and 0027, figure 1, items 20, 22, 25, 30, and 32, and figure 3, items 25 and 32);
“inserting the text into a text transcript as the speech is converted to text” because Blair teaches known voice-recognition software, that allows user control over punctuation and message formatting where this reads on inserting text into a text transcript (i.e., a text file) while responding to both user voice commands for punctuation and/or message formatting embedded in the voice message (see Blair, ¶ 0015-0017 and 0020); [and]
“detecting an event by analyzing both the first signal and the sensor data, wherein an event is detected if the sensor data exceeds a threshold , if an event is detected by analyzing the sensor data then the event is identified by matching at least a portion of the first signal to a predefined sound” because Lemelson teaches that an analysis of the sensor data is used to detect an event, such as determining that the event occurs when the sensor data indicates abnormal rapid changes in acceleration or deceleration have occurred, and this makes obvious that the changes in acceleration or deceleration, or sensor data, exceeds a predefined threshold of motion (see Lemelson, column 7, lines 9-16, and column 11, lines 49-52, and figure 2, units 42 and 53), and Lemelson makes obvious that the system uses a combined speech or sound analysis with the detected motion event to determine the existence of danger (see Lemelson, column 11, lines 56-59 and column 15, lines 19-22), where it is obvious that Lemelson teaches a sound analysis, such as matching detected sounds with sounds stored in a library, to determine whether to activate an alarm, where the sound analysis is combined with the motion analysis to determine the type of emergency situation when activating an alarm (see Lemelson, column 6, line 58 - column 7, line 16, column 14, lines 27-61, and column 15, lines 19-22).
However, the combination of Blair and Lemelson does not appear to teach or reasonably suggest the features of “sending the text transcript and a second portion of the sensor data and a third portion of the first signal to a remote device if an event is detected and verified, wherein the remote device is associated with a health service”.
Tupler discloses methods, systems, and/or apparatuses for providing notification of emergency services, such as providing notification of emergency situations to emergency services using wireless communication (see Tupler, figures 1 and 5-6, and ¶ 0001). Tupler teaches similar features as Lemelson, where an “accelerometer” sensor in a wireless device is used to detect when a user falls, such as falling off a bicycle and/or when a hard impact event occurs (see Tupler, ¶ 0023 and 0025, and figure 1, units 122 and 134). The wireless device uses one or more sensors, including the accelerometer sensor, to detect actual and/or potential emergencies (see Tupler, ¶ 0023, 0025, and 0033-0035, figure 1, units 122 and 134, and figure 3). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date to modify the combination of Blair and Lemelson with the teachings of Tupler for the purpose of providing automated emergency features for cell phone users (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012, 0021, and 0030, and figure 3, unit 25, in view of Tupler, ¶ 0023, 0025, and 0033 and figure 1, unit 122).
Therefore, the combination of Blair, Lemelson, and Tupler makes obvious the communication system comprising:
“sending the text transcript and a second portion of the sensor data and a third portion of the first signal to a remote device if an event is detected and identified, wherein the remote device is associated with a health service” because Blair teaches that the user designates a destination of the text transcript (see Blair, ¶ 0014-0015, 0021, and 0026-0027, figure 1, items 32, 40, and 42, and figure 3, items 32, 38, 40B-C, and 42B-C), Lemelson makes obvious that an event is detected by motion analysis and verified with combined motion and sound analysis (see Lemelson, column 6, line 58 - column 7, line 16, column 11, lines 56-59, column 14, lines 27-61, and column 15, lines 19-42), and Tupler, similarly, teaches that a user may verify, or the user’s device may automatically determine, an emergency situation after an emergency situation occurs (e.g., a user falling, a car crash, other hard impact, etc.), where when the emergency situation is detected (i.e., the analyzed accelerometer sensor data indicated the emergency situation occurred), the user’s wireless communication device sends a message that is a combination of text and audio to a processing center, where the processing center analyzes the message to provide advanced notice to a specific one or more emergency service (e.g., ambulance, hospital, physician, etc.), and these teachings make it obvious to send both the text transcript, a portion of the first signal from the microphone, and the accelerometer data to the processing center in order to make the determination to forward the message to at least one or more emergency service (e.g., ambulance, hospital, physician, etc.) (see Blair, ¶ 0014-0015, 0021, and 0026-0027, in view of Lemelson, column 6, line 58 - column 7, line 16, column 11, lines 56-59, column 14, lines 27-61, and column 15, lines 19-42, and further in view of Tupler, ¶ 0018-0020, 0023-0026, and 0033-0035, and figure 1, units 122, 132, and 136).
Regarding claim 2, see the preceding rejection with respect to claim 1 above. The combination makes obvious the “communication system according to claim 1, wherein the remote device is used by a second party different from a user of the communication system” because the user’s wireless communication device sends the message to a processing center, or second party (see Blair, ¶ 0011, 0014, 0026-0027, and 0030, in view of Tupler, ¶ 0023-0025).
Regarding claim 4, see the preceding rejection with respect to claim 1 above. The combination makes obvious the “communication system according to claim 1, wherein prior to the operations, of detecting speech, converting the speech, inserting the text and sending the text, a speech to text mode is activated” (emphasis added, see claim objections above) by teaching user inputs to start recording a voice memo for translation to text (see Blair, ¶ 0014, 0017, and 0027 and figure 3, items 25-26, and also see Tupler, ¶ 0023).
Regarding claim 5, see the preceding rejection with respect to claim 1 above. The combination makes obvious the “communication system according to claim 4, where the speech to text mode is manually activated” by teaching user input to send a voice message to a translation software (see Blair, ¶ 0014, 0017, and 0027).
Regarding claim 6, see the preceding rejection with respect to claim 4 above. The combination makes obvious the “communication system according to claim 4, where the speech to text mode is verbally activated” by teaching a user voice command to send a voice message to a translation software (see Blair, ¶ 0015-0017 and 0027).
Regarding claim 7, see the preceding rejection with respect to claim 1 above. The combination makes obvious the “communication system according to claim 1, wherein the operation of sending is initiated manually” by teaching user input to send the text to a remote device (see Blair, ¶ 0014, 0017, and 0027).
Regarding claim 8, see the preceding rejection with respect to claim 1 above. The combination makes obvious the “communication system according to claim 1, wherein the operation of sending is initiated verbally” by teaching a user voice command to send the text to a remote device (see Blair, ¶ 0016-0017, and 0027) .
Regarding claim 10, see the preceding rejection with respect to claim 1 above. The combination makes obvious the “communication system according to claim 1, wherein the text transcript is a text message to a party, where the party is not the user of the communication device, wherein the party is using the remote device” because the user’s wireless communication device sends the message to a processing center, or second party (see Tupler, ¶ 0018-0019 and 0023, and figure 1, units 122, 134, and 132).
Regarding claim 14, see the preceding rejection with respect to claim 1 above. The combination makes obvious the “communication system according to claim 1, wherein the communication device is a mobile phone” by teaching a cell phone (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012 and 0027, figure 1, items 20, 25, and 30, and figure 3, item 25, and see Tupler, ¶ 0023 and 0033).
Claim(s) 3, 11, and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Blair, Lemelson, and Tupler as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Vensko et al., US 4,624,008 A (previously cited and hereinafter Vensko).
Regarding claim 3, see the preceding rejection with respect to claim 1 above. The combination of Blair, Lemelson, and Tupler makes obvious the communication system according to claim 1, wherein speech is detected by analysis of the input signal using the voice recognition software is executed on a processor (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012, 0015, and 0017). The combination does not appear to teach storing a portion of the first signal in a circular buffer.
Vensko teaches an apparatus for automatic speech recognition (see Vensko, abstract). In particular, Vensko teaches a circular sentence buffer that allows the recognition algorithm to trail the input speech to the system and provide word recognition (see Vensko, column 4, line 30 – column 5, line 43). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date to modify the combination of Blair, Lemelson, and Tupler with the teachings of Vensko for the purpose of performing word recognition in a continuous speech recognition method (see Vensko, column 1, lines 40-56).
Therefore, the combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, and Vensko makes obvious the “communication system according to claim 1, wherein the operations further include:
storing a portion of the first signal in a circular buffer, wherein the operation of detecting speech in the first signal is accomplished by using the signature sound ID system to analyze the portion” because Vensko makes obvious the use of a circular buffer to store portions of the input speech signal to then perform speech recognition on the stored portions (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012, 0015, and 0017, in view of Vensko, column 4, line 30 – column 5, line 43, figure 4, and figure 5, unit 522).
Regarding claim 11, see the preceding rejection with respect to claim 1 above. The combination of Blair, Lemelson, and Tupler makes obvious the communication system according to claim 1, where the microphone signal is processed to perform speech recognition (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012 and 0017). However, the combination does not teach the feature “wherein the modified microphone signal is generated by applying a gain to the microphone signal”.
Vensko teaches an apparatus for automatic speech recognition (see Vensko, abstract). Herein, Vensko teaches a microphone preamplifier circuit and a pre-emphasis amplifier that provides gain to the microphone signal to provide more gain in higher frequencies (see Vensko, column 2, lines 63-68, column 3, lines 35-44, figure 1, units 104 and 106, and figure 2, units 112, 200, and 202).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date to modify the combination of Blair, Lemelson, and Tupler with the teachings of Vensko to try conventional speech recognition methods to perform the speech recognition and expect similar or better voice recognition results (see Vensko, column 3, lines 35-44).
Therefore, the combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, and Vensko makes obvious the “communication system according to claim 1, wherein the modified microphone signal is generated by applying a gain to the microphone signal” because Vensko makes obvious to use conventional methods, such as using a pre-emphasis amplifier that provides gain to the microphone signal to provide more gain in higher frequencies (see Vensko, column 3, lines 35-44 and figure 2, units 112, 200, and 202).
Regarding claim 18, the combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, and Vensko makes obvious the instant claim.
First, Blair discloses a message capturing device that records spoken messages and automatically translates the recorded messages into text format (see abstract and figure 1). Blair teaches various embodiments of the message capturing system, for example a combination handheld recording and translation device (e.g., a cell phone) records spoken messages and automatically translates the recorded messages into text format (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012 and 0030, figure 1, items 20, 25, and 30, and figure 3, item 25).
Herein, Blair anticipates a “method of sending communication comprising:
activating a speech-to-text mode” by teaching a user input to enable a translation device to translate a voice message (i.e., speech) into a text format (see Blair, ¶ 0014-0015 and figure 1, item 20).
Blair teaches receiving a microphone signal by teaching that the cell phone is listening for voice commands in order to perform certain tasks, such as starting and stopping a voice message recording, and the cell phone records the voice message, wherein a received microphone signal is anticipated by any one of the received voice command and/or voice message transduced from the cell phone’s microphone (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012 and 0015-0017).
However, Blair does not appear to teach the features with respect to an “accelerometer”.
Lemelson teaches a warning system with a portable, personal warning unit for a user to carry (see Lemelson, abstract, column 3, lines 4-5, column 11, lines 1-5, and figures 1-2, unit 12,), with a motion detector (e.g., an accelerometer) that is used to detect ‘abnormal rapid changes in movement’ of the user carrying the personal warning unit (see Lemelson, column 11, lines 24-30 and lines 49-52, and figure 2, units 42, 44, and 53). Lemelson also teaches speech recognition features to detect specific preprogrammed speech (see Lemelson, column 4, lines 60-67), and also teaches sound recognition features to detect certain types of sounds that indicate an emergency, such as riot sounds, gunshots, or other loud noises (see Lemelson, column 4, line 67 – column 5, line 4). Specifically, Lemelson teaches the combination of motion analysis and sound analysis to determine alarm conditions (see Lemelson, column 15, lines 19-22). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective date to modify Blair with the teachings of Lemelson for the purpose of providing automated emergency features for cell phone users (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012, 0021, and 0030, and figure 3, unit 25, in view of Lemelson, column 9, line 63 – column 10, line 21, column 11, lines 24-59, and figures 1-2, unit 12).
However, the combination of Blair and Lemelson does not appear to teach or reasonably suggest the features of “sending the text message and the sensor data and a third portion of the modified microphone signal to a remote communication device if an event is detected and verified, wherein the remote communication device is operated by a party that is not the user of the communication system”.
Tupler discloses that the wireless device of a user has an “accelerometer” sensor to detect when a user falls, such as falling off a bicycle and/or when a hard impact event occurs (see Tupler, ¶ 0023 and 0025). The wireless device uses one or more sensors, including the accelerometer sensor, to detect actual and/or potential emergencies (see Tupler, ¶ 0023, 0025, and 0033-0035, figure 1, units 122 and 134, and figure 3). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date to modify the combination of Blair and Lemelson with the teachings of Tupler for the purpose of providing automated emergency features for cell phone users (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012, 0021, and 0030, and figure 3, unit 25, in view of Tupler, ¶ 0023, 0025, and 0033 and figure 1, unit 122).
However, the combination of Blair, Lemelson, and Tupler does not explicitly disclose features such as “receiving a first portion of a modified microphone signal; [and] storing the first portion into a circular buffer as data”.
Vensko teaches an apparatus for automatic speech recognition (see Vensko, abstract). Herein, Vensko teaches a microphone preamplifier circuit and a pre-emphasis amplifier that provides gain to the microphone signal to provide more gain in higher frequencies (see Vensko, column 2, lines 63-68, column 3, lines 35-44, figure 1, units 104 and 106, and figure 2, units 112, 200, and 202). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date to modify the combination of Blair, Lemelson, and Tupler with the teachings of Vensko to try conventional speech recognition methods to perform the speech recognition and expect similar or better voice recognition results (see Vensko, column 3, lines 35-44).
Therefore, the combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, and Vensko makes obvious the additional features:
“receiving a first portion of a modified microphone signal” because Blair teaches that the cell phone is listening for voice commands in order to perform certain tasks, such as starting and stopping a voice message recording, and the cell phone records the voice message, and Vensko makes obvious modifying the microphone signal through the application of a microphone preamplifier circuit and a pre-emphasis amplifier that provides gain to the microphone signal to provide more gain in higher frequencies according to the prior art’s conventional practice (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012 and 0015-0017, in view of Vensko, column 2, lines 63-68, column 3, lines 35-44, figure 1, units 104 and 106, and figure 2, units 112, 200, and 202), and Vensko further makes obvious the steps of receiving a portion of the modified signal by teaching that the speech recognition steps of generating and/or receiving frames of digitized speech (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012, 0015, and 0017, in view of Vensko, column 4, lines 30-56, column 5, lines 3-17, figure 4, unit 402, and figure 5, units 114, 228, 230, 502, 504, 506, and 508);
“receiving sensor data” because the processor of the device receives the accelerometer sensor data and/or signals (see Lemelson, column 15, lines 14-15, figure 2, unit 53, and figure 4A, step 163, and also see Tupler, ¶ 0033 and 0052);
“analyzing the sensor data to generate a sensor value” because Lemelson makes it obvious to analyze the sensor data in order to determine if the sensor output indicates a rapid and/or unusual change, and Lemelson makes obvious the use of fuzzy logic to determine sensor values (see Lemelson, column 5, lines 16-38, column 11, lines 49-56, and column 15, lines 14-42);
“storing the first portion into a circular buffer as data” by making obvious the use of a circular buffer to store portions of the input speech signal to then perform speech recognition on the stored portions (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012, 0015, and 0017, in view of Vensko, column 4, line 30 – column 5, line 43, figure 4, and figure 5, unit 522);
“detecting speech by analyzing the data” by teaching that the translation device uses voice recognition software to convert a digital voice signal into a text file (see Blair, ¶ 0017 and figure 1, items 22 and 30, and also see Lemelson, column 14, lines 28-40 and figure 4A, step 154);
“converting the speech to text” where the translation device translates, or converts, the speech to text (see Blair, ¶ 0017 and figure 1, items 22, 30, and 32);
“detecting an event by analyzing both the first portion of a modified microphone signal and the sensor data, wherein an event is detected if the sensor data exceeds a threshold , if an event is detected by analyzing the sensor data then the event is identified by matching at least a second portion of the first signal to a predefined sound” because Lemelson teaches that an analysis of the sensor data is used to detect an event, such as determining that the event occurs when the sensor data indicates abnormal rapid changes in acceleration or deceleration have occurred, and this makes obvious that the changes in acceleration or deceleration, or sensor data, exceeds a predefined threshold of motion (see Lemelson, column 7, lines 9-16, and column 11, lines 49-52, and figure 2, units 42 and 53), and Lemelson makes obvious that the system uses a combined speech or sound analysis with the detected motion event to determine the existence of danger (see Lemelson, column 11, lines 56-59 and column 15, lines 19-22), where it is obvious that Lemelson teaches a sound analysis, such as matching detected sounds with sounds stored in a library, to determine whether to activate an alarm, where the sound analysis is combined with the motion analysis to determine the type of emergency situation when activating an alarm (see Lemelson, column 6, line 58 - column 7, line 16, column 14, lines 27-61, and column 15, lines 19-22);
“inserting the text into a text message as the speech is converted to text” by teaching known voice-recognition software, that allows user control over punctuation and message formatting where this reads on inserting text into a text transcript (i.e., a text file) while responding to both user voice commands for punctuation and/or message formatting embedded in the voice message (see Blair, ¶ 0015-0017 and 0020); and
“sending the text message and the sensor data and a third portion of the modified microphone signal to a remote communication device if an event is detected and identified, wherein the remote communication device is operated by a party that is not the user of the communication system” because Blair teaches that the user designates a destination of the text transcript (see Blair, ¶ 0014-0015, 0021, and 0026-0027, figure 1, items 32, 40, and 42, and figure 3, items 32, 38, 40B-C, and 42B-C), Lemelson makes obvious that an event is detected by motion analysis and verified with combined motion and sound analysis (see Lemelson, column 6, line 58 - column 7, line 16, column 11, lines 56-59, column 14, lines 27-61, and column 15, lines 19-42), and Tupler, similarly, teaches that a user may verify, or the user’s device may automatically determine, an emergency situation after an emergency situation occurs (e.g., a user falling, a car crash, other hard impact, etc.), where when the emergency situation is detected (i.e., the analyzed accelerometer sensor data indicated the emergency situation occurred), the user’s wireless communication device sends a message that is a combination of text and audio to a processing center, where the processing center analyzes the message to provide advanced notice to a specific one or more emergency service (e.g., ambulance, hospital, physician, etc.), and these teachings make it obvious to send both the text transcript, a portion of the first signal from the microphone, and the accelerometer data to the processing center in order to make the determination to forward the message to at least one or more emergency service (e.g., ambulance, hospital, physician, etc.) (see Blair, ¶ 0014-0015, 0021, and 0026-0027, in view of Lemelson, column 6, line 58 - column 7, line 16, column 11, lines 56-59, column 14, lines 27-61, and column 15, lines 19-42, and further in view of Tupler, ¶ 0018-0020, 0023-0026, and 0033-0035, and figure 1, units 122, 132, and 136).
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Blair, Lemelson, and Tupler as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Odinak et al., US 2003/0177009 A1 (previously cited and hereinafter Odinak).
Regarding claim 9, see the preceding rejection with respect to claim 1 above. The combination of Blair, Lemelson, and Tupler makes obvious the communication system according to claim 1 for sending the text transcript to a user’s email account (see Blair, ¶ 0030). However, the combination does not expressly teach the features of “adding a time stamp” to the text transcript prior to sending.
Odinak teaches a system and method for providing a message-based communications infrastructure for automated call center operation (see Odinak, abstract and figure 1). Similar to Blair, Odinak teaches automatic machine translation of speech to text annotation (see Odinak, ¶ 0070 and 0072-0073, and figure 4, units 54 and 56-57). Additionally, Odinak teaches adding time stamps to the transcript (see Odinak, ¶ 0079 and figure 5, unit 73).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date to modify the combination of Blair, Lemelson, and Tupler with the teachings of Odinak for the purpose of keeping records related to the translated text transcript, such as keeping record of the time and/or date of the text translation transcript (see Blair, ¶ 0014-0017 and 0030 in view of Odinak, ¶ 0072 and 0079, figure 4, units 54 and 56-57, and figure 5, unit 73).
Therefore, the combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, and Odinak makes obvious the “communication system according to claim 1, wherein the operations further include:
adding a time stamp to the text transcript prior to the operation of sending the text transcript” because Blair teaches recording voice messages and translating the voice messages into a text transcript before sending the text transcript, and Odinak makes it obvious to add a time stamp to the audio and/or text transcript in order to keep records of the translation (see Blair, ¶ 0012, 0014-0017, and 0030, and Tupler, ¶ 0033, in view of Odinak, ¶ 0072 and 0079, figure 4, units 54 and 56-57, and figure 5, unit 73).
Claim(s) 12-13 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, and Vensko as applied to claims 11 and 18 above, and further in view of Lee, US 2005/0099400 A1 (previously cited).
Regarding claim 12, see the preceding rejection with respect to claim 11 above. The combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, and Vensko makes obvious the communication system according to claim 11 with physical and voice input features. However, the combination does not appear to teach a touch-sensitive screen.
Lee discloses an apparatus and method for providing virtual graffiti, where providing virtual graffiti includes a touch-screen display for user touch input (see Lee, abstract, ¶ 0003, 0007, and 0022, figure 3A, units 300, 302, and 304, and figure 4A, units 400, 402, and 404). Lee teaches that the graffiti data entry method is used in the PALM OS using a touchpad adjacent to a touch-screen display (see Lee, ¶ 0005-0006 and figure 1, units 100, 102, and 108), and Lee teaches that prior art provided a virtual graffiti area to allow more efficient use of the touchscreen (see Lee, ¶ 0007, figure 3A, units 300, 302, and 304, and figure 3B, units 300 and 302).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date to modify the combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, and Vensko with the teachings of Lee for the purpose of providing an additional method of user input and improving the efficiency of a touchscreen display (see Blair, ¶ 0002, 0012, and 0014 in view of Lee, ¶ 0007, 0022, and 0037 and figures 3A-4B).
Therefore the combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, Vensko, and Lee makes obvious the “communication system according to claim 11, wherein the communication device further comprises: a touch-sensitive screen” by teaching a recording and translating device, such as a cell phone or other ‘palm pilot’ device (see Blair, ¶ 0002, 0012, and 0027) and Lee makes obvious to use a touch-screen input of a cell phone to provide an additional method of user input (see Blair, ¶ 0014-0016 in view of Lee, ¶ 0007, 0022, and 0037 and figures 3A-4B).
Regarding claim 13, see the preceding rejection with respect to claim 12 above. The combination makes obvious the “communication system according to claim 12, wherein the communication device further comprises: a button” (see Blair, ¶ 0011 and 0027, and figure 3, items 25-26).
Regarding claim 20, see the preceding rejection with respect to claim 18 above. The combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, and Vensko makes obvious the method of claim 18, where the step of activating the speech-to-text mode is accomplished via user physical or voice input (see Blair, ¶ 0014-0016 and figure 1, item 20). The combination does not appear to teach that the step of activating uses a touch-sensitive screen.
Lee discloses an apparatus and method for providing virtual graffiti, where providing virtual graffiti includes a touch-screen display for user touch input (see Lee, abstract, ¶ 0003, 0007, and 0022, figure 3A, units 300, 302, and 304, and figure 4A, units 400, 402, and 404). Lee teaches that the graffiti data entry method is used in the PALM OS using a touchpad adjacent to a touch-screen display (see Lee, ¶ 0005-0006 and figure 1, units 100, 102, and 108), and Lee teaches that prior art provided a virtual graffiti area to allow more efficient use of the touchscreen (see Lee, ¶ 0007, figure 3A, units 300, 302, and 304, and figure 3B, units 300 and 302).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date to modify the combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, and Vensko with the teachings of Lee for the purpose of providing an additional method of user input and improving the efficiency of a touchscreen display (see Blair, ¶ 0002, 0012, and 0014, and in view of Lee, ¶ 0007, 0022, and 0037 and figures 3A-4B).
Therefore the combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, Vensko, and Lee makes obvious the “method according to claim 18, wherein the step of activating is accomplished by manual activation using a touch-sensitive screen” because it is obvious to provide a touch-screen input for a cell phone to provide an additional method of user input, where manual activation using the touch-sensitive screen activates the speech-to-text mode (see Blair, ¶ 0014-0016 in view of Lee, ¶ 0007, 0022, and 0037 and figures 3A-4B).
Claim(s) 15-17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blair in view of Lemelson, Tupler, Lee, Vensko, and Odinak.
Regarding claim 15, the combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tupler, Lee, Vensko, and Odinak makes obvious the instant claim.
First, Blair discloses a message capturing device that records spoken messages and automatically translates the recorded messages into text format (see abstract and figure 1). Blair teaches various embodiments of the message capturing system, for example a combination handheld recording and translation device (e.g., a cell phone, palm pilot device, etc.) records spoken messages and automatically translates the recorded messages into text format (see Blair, ¶ 0002, 0011-0012, and 0030, figure 1, items 20, 25, and 30, and figure 3, item 25).
Blair teaches many of the following features of the communication system as discussed below. However, Blair does not appear to teach the features with respect to an “accelerometer”.
Lemelson teaches a warning system with a portable, personal warning unit for a user to carry (see Lemelson, abstract, column 3, lines 4-5, column 11, lines 1-5, and figures 1-2, unit 12,), with a motion detector (e.g., an accelerometer) that is used to detect ‘abnormal rapid changes in movement’ of the user carrying the personal warning unit (see Lemelson, column 11, lines 24-30 and lines 49-52, and figure 2, units 42, 44, and 53). Lemelson also teaches speech recognition features to detect specific preprogrammed speech (see Lemelson, column 4, lines 60-67), and also teaches sound recognition features to detect certain types of sounds that indicate an emergency, such as riot sounds, gunshots, or other loud noises (see Lemelson, column 4, line 67 – column 5, line 4). Specifically, Lemelson teaches the combination of motion analysis and sound analysis to determine alarm conditions (see Lemelson, column 15, lines 19-22). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective date to modify Blair with the teachings of Lemelson for the purpose of providing automated emergency features for cell phone users (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012, 0021, and 0030, and figure 3, unit 25, in view of Lemelson, column 9, line 63 – column 10, line 21, column 11, lines 24-59, and figures 1-2, unit 12).
However, the combination of Blair and Lemelson does not appear to teach or reasonably suggest the features of “sending a text message and a second portion of the sensor data and a third portion of the first signal to a remote communication device if an event is detected and verified, wherein the remote communication device is operated by a party that is not the user of the communication system”.
Tupler discloses that the wireless device of a user has an “accelerometer” sensor to detect when a user falls, such as falling off a bicycle and/or when a hard impact event occurs (see Tupler, ¶ 0023 and 0025). The wireless device uses one or more sensors, including the accelerometer sensor, to detect actual and/or potential emergencies (see Tupler, ¶ 0023, 0025, and 0033-0035, figure 1, units 122 and 134, and figure 3). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date to modify the combination of Blair and Lemelson with the teachings of Tupler for the purpose of providing automated emergency features for cell phone users (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012, 0021, and 0030, and figure 3, unit 25, in view of Tupler, ¶ 0023, 0025, and 0033 and figure 1, unit 122).
Herein, the combination of Blair, Lemelson, and Tupler makes obvious a communication system comprising wireless devices, such as cell phones and handheld devices, etc. However, the combination of Blair, Lemelson, and Tupler does not appear to teach a touch-sensitive screen.
Lee discloses an apparatus and method for providing virtual graffiti, where providing virtual graffiti includes a touch-screen display for user touch input (see Lee, abstract, ¶ 0003, 0007, and 0022, figure 3A, units 300, 302, and 304, and figure 4A, units 400, 402, and 404). Lee teaches that the graffiti data entry method is used in the PALM OS using a touchpad adjacent to a touch-screen display (see Lee, ¶ 0005-0006 and figure 1, units 100, 102, and 108), and Lee teaches that prior art provided a virtual graffiti area to allow more efficient use of the touchscreen (see Lee, ¶ 0007, figure 3A, units 300, 302, and 304, and figure 3B, units 300 and 302).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date to modify the combination of Blair, Lemelson, and Tupler with the teachings of Lee for the purpose of providing an additional method of user input and improving the efficiency of a touchscreen display (see Blair, ¶ 0002, 0012, and 0014 in view of Lee, ¶ 0007, 0022, and 0037 and figures 3A-4B).
Therefore the combination of Blair, Lemelson, Tuple, and Lee makes obvious:
“A communication system, comprising:
a touch-sensitive screen configured to accept user input to generate an input signal” by teaching a recording and translating device, such as a cell phone or other ‘palm pilot’ device (see Blair, ¶ 0002, 0012, and 0027) and Lee makes obvious that the cell phone uses a touch-screen input device to providing an additional method of user input (see Blair, ¶ 0014-0016 in view of Lee, ¶ 0007, 0022, and 0037 and figures 3A-4B);
“a loudspeaker” by teaching the combination handheld recording and translation device, such as a cell phone, and the cell phone is well-known to comprise a loudspeaker at least for telephonic communication (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012 and 0030, figure 1, items 20, 25, and 30, and figure 3, item 25);
“a microphone configured to measure the ambient environment and generate a microphone signal” by teaching that the microphone of the cell phone (i.e., Blair’s recording device) is used to detect voice commands that direct the cell phone to start recording a voice message, and further teaches that the cell phone stops recording when the user’s voice is no longer detected or another voice command is recognized, wherein the features to detect voice commands to start and stop recording anticipates a microphone generating a microphone signal when only the ambient environment is audible (see Blair, ¶ 0012, 0015-0016, and 0027 and figure 1, items 20 and 25, and figure 3, items 24-25);
“an accelerometer that generates sensor data” where Lemelson makes obvious the wireless device, such as a personal warning unit carried by the user, that has an accelerometer sensor that generates and sends sensor data to the processor of the device (see Blair, ¶ 0030 in view of Lemelson, column 11, lines 49-52 and figure 2, unit 53, and also see Tupler, ¶ 0023, 0025, 0033, and 0052, and figure 5, units 122, 512, and 516);
“a memory that is configured to store program code as instructions” by teaching the cell phone with voice recognition software (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012 and 0015-0017); and
“a processing unit that executes the instructions to perform operations” by teaching that the voice recognition software is executed on a processor (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012, 0015, and 0017),
“the operations comprising:
receiving the sensor data” because the processor of the device receives the accelerometer sensor data and/or signals (see Lemelson, column 15, lines 14-15, figure 2, unit 53, and figure 4A, step 163, and also see Tupler, ¶ 0033 and 0052);
“analyzing the sensor data to generate a sensor value” because Lemelson makes it obvious to analyze the sensor data in order to determine if the sensor output indicates a rapid and/or unusual change, and Lemelson makes obvious the use of fuzzy logic to determine sensor values (see Lemelson, column 5, lines 16-38, column 11, lines 49-56, and column 15, lines 14-42);
“receiving a speech-to-text mode activation input signal” by teaching user inputs to start recording a voice memo for translation to text (see Blair, ¶ 0014, 0017, and 0027 and figure 3, items 25-26);
“receiving a first signal, wherein the first signal is a modified version of the microphone signal” by teaching that the cell phone is listening for voice commands in order to perform certain tasks, such as starting and stopping a digital voice message recording, and the cell phone records the voice message, wherein the received modified version of the microphone signal is anticipated by any one of the received digital voice command and/or voice message transduced from the cell phone’s microphone (see Blair, ¶ 0011-0012 and 0015-0017).
However, the combination of Blair,