DETAILED ACTION
This examination is in response to the communication filed on 01/31/2023. Claims 16-35 are currently pending, where claims 16, 25 and 34 are independent.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDSs) submitted on 01/31/2023, 03/24/2023, 02/17/2025, 08/27/2025, 02/24/2026 and 04/03/2026 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or non-obviousness.
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.
Claims 16-35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Osowski et al. (US 2014/0200894 A1; herein “Osowski”) further in view of Bakis et al. (US 2003/0046077 A1; herein “Bakis”).
Regarding claims 16, 25 and 34, Osowski teaches a device (Fig. 2, TTS device 202), computer-implemented method, and computer storage medium, the device comprising: a processor (Fig. 2, controller/processor 208); and a memory (Fig. 2, memory 210) comprising a cache (Fig. 2, TTS Storage and Fig. 1 Local TTS Unit Database) and computer program code, the memory and the computer program code configured to, with the processor, cause the processor to:
receive textual data from a user application (Fig. 5 Step 504 “Receive text for TTS processing” );
send the received textual data to both a remote text to speech (TTS) engine and to a TTS engine in the device (Fig. 5, step 508 “Perform speech synthesis with units in local database” and step 510 “Obtain units from remote TTS device”. In addition, ¶[0040] teaches “local TTS processing may also be combined with distributed TTS processing. Where a portion of text to be converted uses units available in a local database, that portion of text may be processed locally. Where a portion of text to be converted uses units not available in a local database, the local device may obtain the units from a remote device. The units from the remote device may then concatenated with the local units for construction of the audio speech for output to a user” );
receive speech data from both the remote TTS engine and the TTS engine in the device, the received speech data corresponding to the received textual data (¶[0040] teaches “Where a portion of text to be converted uses units available in a local database, that portion of text may be processed locally. Where a portion of text to be converted uses units not available in a local database, the local device may obtain the units from a remote device. The units from the remote device may then concatenated with the local units for construction of the audio speech for output to a user” );
select, based on a selection policy, the received speech data from the remote TTS engine, the TTS engine in the device, or both (¶[0040] teaches “Where a portion of text to be converted uses units available in a local database, that portion of text may be processed locally. Where a portion of text to be converted uses units not available in a local database, the local device may obtain the units from a remote device. The units from the remote device may then concatenated with the local units for construction of the audio speech for output to a user” and ¶[0041] teaches “selection of units from input text may be performed by a remote device where the remote device is aware of what units are available on a local device. The remote device may determine the desired units to use in synthesizing the text and send the local device the unit sequence, along with the unit speech segments that are unavailable on the local device. The local device may then take the unit speech segments sent to it by the remote device, along with the unit speech segments that are available locally, and perform unit concatenation and complete the speech synthesis based on those unit segments and the unit sequence sent from the remote device”); and
transmit the selected speech data to the user application (¶[0040] teaches “…The units from the remote device may then concatenated with the local units for construction of the audio speech for output to a user”).
Osowski fails to disclose the device is configured to determine that the received textual data is missing from the cache.
Bakis teaches a method and system for text-to-speech (TTS) caching that includes inter alia,“ receiving a text input and comparing the received text input to at least one entry in a text-to-speech cache memory…In the text input matches one of the entries in the text-to-speech cache memory, the cached speech output specified by the matching entry can be provided” More specifically, Bakis teaches determining that the received textual data is missing from the cache (Fig. 2, steps 220 and 230 and ¶[025] teaches “In step 230, a determination can be made as to whether a match for the received text input was located within the TTS cache…If not, the method can continue to step 250.”)
Osowski differs from the claimed invention, as defined in claims 1, 25 and 34, in that Osowski fails to disclose or suggest TTS caching, e.g., determining whether or not a TTS output has been previously cached. TTS caching is known in the art as evidenced by Bakis. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to have modified the TTS system of Osowski to further include TTS caching in order to increase TTS efficiency but reducing redundant processing. (Bakis, ¶[0005])
Regarding claims 17 and 26, the combination of Osowski and Bakis teaches all of the elements of claims 16 and 25 (see detailed element mapping above). In addition, Osowski further teaches the selection policy includes rules to prioritize at least one of a cognition-driven policy, a performance-driven policy, or a quality- driven policy (¶[0043] teaches “The local device may be configured to adjust the local unit database based on a variety of factors such as available local storage, network connection quality, bandwidth used in communicating with the network, frequency of TTS requests, desired TTS quality or domain of use…”; ¶[0044] teaches “the local unit database may also be configured based on a user of the device…to provide faster TTS output…to include frequently used speech units”; and ¶[0045] teaches “the local device may cache a certain local unit database configured for a particular application…” and ¶[0047] teaches “…the size of a unit database is variable, and ultimately may be a result of a design choice between resources (i.e., storage or bandwidth) consumption and desired TTS quality. The choice may be configured by a device manufacturer, application designer, or user”. Furthermore, ¶[0051] teaches “ In certain aspects, it may be desirable to have the local device be aware of which speech synthesis units it can handle to provide a sufficient quality result (such as those units that are locally stored with a number of robust examples), and which units are better handled by a remote TTS device (such as those units that are locally stored with a limited number of examples). For example, if a local unit database includes at least one example of each speech synthesis unit, the local device may not be aware when it should use its locally stored units for synthesis and when it should turn to the remote device. In this aspect, the local device may also be configured with a list of units and their corresponding acoustic features that are available at a remote TTS device and whose audio files should be retrieved from the remote device for speech synthesis.” The teachings of ¶[0051] in combination with the teachings in ¶[0046]-[0047] would lead one skilled in the art to configured the system to determine whether to utilize the local database or the remoted database based on resource consumption, i.e., performance, desired quality, and/or user preference).
Regarding claims 18 and 27, the combination of Osowski and Bakis teaches all of the elements of claims 16 and 25 (see detailed element mapping above). In addition, Osowski further teaches the selection policy is a reactive selection policy (the “or” language makes this limitation optional ) or a proactive selection policy (¶[0011] teaches the selection process is proactive in as much as either the local device or the remote device determines whether the local database has sufficient information to complete the speech process, thereby making the selection of local or remote data proactive).
Regarding claims 19 and 28, the combination of Osowski and Bakis teaches all of the elements of claims 16 and 25 (see detailed element mapping above). In addition, Osowski further teaches the processor is further configured to:
select, based on the selection policy, the speech data generated from both the remote TTS engine and the TTS engine in the device (¶[0011] teaches “…When the text is received by the local device 104 for TTS processing, the local device checks to see if the local unit database 108 include the units to perform speech synthesis for the input text If the units are available locally, the local device 104 performs TTS processing, as shown in block 112. If the units are not available locally, the local device contacts the remote device 116 over the network 114.The remote device 116 then sends the units to the local device 104 which completes the speech synthesis using the units obtained from the remote device 116. In another aspect the text may be sent directly to the remote device 116 which may then perform the check 110 to see if the local unit database 108 includes the units to perform speech synthesis for the input text. The remote device 116 may then send the local device 104 the unit sequence from the text along with any units not stored in the local TTS unit database 108 and instructions to concatenate the locally available units with the received units to complete the speech synthesis”);
combine the selected speech data into comprehensive speech data (¶[0011] teaches “…In another aspect the text may be sent directly to the remote device 116 which may then perform the check 110 to see if the local unit database 108 includes the units to perform speech synthesis for the input text. The remote device 116 may then send the local device 104 the unit sequence from the text along with any units not stored in the local TTS unit database 108 and instructions to concatenate the locally available units with the received units to complete the speech synthesis”),
wherein the comprehensive speech data includes at least a portion of the speech data generated from the remote TTS engine and at least a portion of the speech data generated from the TTS engine in the device (¶[0011] teaches “…and instructions to concatenate the locally available units with the received units to complete the speech synthesis ); and
transmit the comprehensive speech data (¶[0034] teaches “Audio waveforms including the speech output from the TTS module 214 may be sent to an audio output device 204 for playback to a user or may be sent to the input/output device 206 for transmission to another device, such as another TTS device 202, for further processing or output to a user.”).
Regarding claims 20 and 29, the combination of Osowski and Bakis teaches all of the elements of claims 16 and 25 (see detailed element mapping above). In addition, Osowski further teaches the processor is further configured to: determine to send the received textual data to the remote TTS engine and the TTS engine in the device based on a transmission policy and wherein the transmission policy is based at least in part on the selection policy (The broadest reasonable interpretation of this limitation is that selection of the which data to use and such the need to transmit the text information to both the local and remote devices includes selection based on latency, bandwidth, and processing load, such an interpretation is supported by ¶[0053] of the application as filed; ¶[0043] teaches “The local device may be configured to adjust the local unit database based on a variety of factors such as available local storage, network connection quality, bandwidth used in communicating with the network, frequency of TTS requests, desired TTS quality or domain of use…”)¶[0043] teaches “The local device may be configured to adjust the local unit database based on a variety of factors such as available local storage, network connection quality, bandwidth used in communicating with the network, frequency of TTS requests, desired TTS quality or domain of use…”).
Regarding claims 21 and 30, the combination of Osowski, Bakis and XXX teaches all of the elements of claims 20 and 29 (see detailed element mapping above). In addition, Osowski further teaches the remote TTS engine is a TTS engine executed and stored in a cloud (Fig. 1, TTS device 116 and ¶[0017] teaches that “the TTS device 202 may connect to a network, such as the Internet or private network, which may include a distributed computing environment”).
Regarding claims 22 and 31, the combination of Osowski and Bakis teaches all of the elements of claims 16 and 25 (see detailed element mapping above). In addition, Osowski further teaches the selected speech data is an audio version of the received textual data (¶[0018] teaches “includes a TTS module 214 for processing textual data into audio waveforms including speech…The textual data may originate from an internal component of the TTS device 202 or may be received by the TTS device 202 from an input device such as a keyboard or may be sent to the TTS device 202 over a network connection” Thus, the output corresponding to the selected speech data is an audio version of the received textual data).
Regarding claims 23 and 32, the combination of Osowski and Bakis teaches all of the elements of claims 16 and 25 (see detailed element mapping above). In addition, Bakis further teaches to determine whether the received textual data is stored in the cache, the processor is further configured to identify whether the received textual data matches a keyword stored in the cache (¶[0025] teaches “In Step 220, the received text can be compared to the entries within the TTS cache to determine whether a match exists… in addition to comparing text, whether plain text or annotated text, the attributes of received text inputs can be compared to the attributes of the TTS cache entries.” Comparing plain or annotated text is interpreted as matching keywords, i.e., text).
Osowski differs from the claimed invention, as defined in claims 1, 25 and 34, in that Osowski fails to disclose or suggest TTS caching, e.g., determining whether or not a TTS output has been previously cached. TTS caching is known in the art as evidenced by Bakis. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to have modified the TTS system of Osowski to further include TTS caching in order to increase TTS efficiency but reducing redundant processing. (Bakis, ¶[0005])
Regarding claims 24 and 33, the combination of Osowski and Bakis teaches all of the elements of claims 16 and 25 (see detailed element mapping above). In addition, Bakis further teaches the processor is further configured to, in response to identifying the received textual data is stored in the cache: identify corresponding speech data to the received textual data identified in the cache (¶[0026] teaches “In step 240, when a match exists within the TTS cache, the TTS System can retrieve the spoken output specified by the matched entry…”); and
bypass the remote TTS engine and the TTS engine in the device and transmit the corresponding speech data to the user application (¶[0026] teaches “In step 240, when a match exists…rather than continuing to process the received text input to construct a spoken output, the Spoken output Specified by the matched TTS cache entry can be provided as an output.”).
Osowski differs from the claimed invention, as defined in claims 1, 25 and 34, in that Osowski fails to disclose or suggest TTS caching, e.g., determining whether or not a TTS output has been previously cached. TTS caching is known in the art as evidenced by Bakis. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to have modified the TTS system of Osowski to further include TTS caching in order to increase TTS efficiency but reducing redundant processing. (Bakis, ¶[0005])
Regarding claim 35, the combination of Osowski and Bakis teaches all of the elements of claim 34 (see detailed element mapping above). In addition, XXX further teaches the selection policy includes rules to prioritize at least one of a cognition-driven policy, a performance-driven policy, or a quality-driven policy, the rules are selected by a user (¶[0043] teaches “The local device may be configured to adjust the local unit database based on a variety of factors such as available local storage, network connection quality, bandwidth used in communicating with the network, frequency of TTS requests, desired TTS quality or domain of use…”; ¶[0044] teaches “the local unit database may also be configured based on a user of the device…to provide faster TTS output…to include frequently used speech units”; ¶[0045] teaches “the local device may cache a certain local unit database configured for a particular application…” and ¶[0047] teaches “…the size of a unit database is variable, and ultimately may be a result of a design choice between resources (i.e., storage or bandwidth) consumption and desired TTS quality. The choice may be configured by a device manufacturer, application designer, or user”. Furthermore, ¶[0051] teaches “ In certain aspects, it may be desirable to have the local device be aware of which speech synthesis units it can handle to provide a sufficient quality result (such as those units that are locally stored with a number of robust examples), and which units are better handled by a remote TTS device (such as those units that are locally stored with a limited number of examples). For example, if a local unit database includes at least one example of each speech synthesis unit, the local device may not be aware when it should use its locally stored units for synthesis and when it should turn to the remote device. In this aspect, the local device may also be configured with a list of units and their corresponding acoustic features that are available at a remote TTS device and whose audio files should be retrieved from the remote device for speech synthesis.” The teachings of ¶[0051] in combination with the teachings in ¶[0046]-[0047] would lead one skilled in the art to configured the system to determine whether to utilize the local database or the remoted database based on resource consumption, i.e., performance, desired quality, and/or user preference), and the selection policy is a reactive selection policy (the “OR” language make this limitation optional) or a proactive selection policy (¶[0011] teaches the selection process is proactive in as much as either the local device or the remote device determines whether the local database has sufficient information to complete the speech process, thereby making the selection of local or remote data proactive ).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PENNY L CAUDLE whose telephone number is (703)756-1432. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th 8:00 am to 5:00 pm eastern.
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/PENNY L CAUDLE/Examiner, Art Unit 2657
/DANIEL C WASHBURN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2657
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