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 .
The present Office Action responsive to communication received 8/21/2025.
Claims 1 and 15 have been amended.
Claims 1-13 and 15-21 have been examined and are pending in this application.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 10/25/2025 was filed after the mailing date of the application no. 18/086,549 on 12/21/2022. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement has been considered by the examiner.
Response to Arguments
Applicant should submit an argument under the heading “Remarks” pointing out disagreements with the examiner’s contentions. Applicant must also discuss the references applied against the claims, explaining how the claims avoid the references or distinguish from them. In response to the newly amended independent claims 1 and 15, the examiner introduces reference Tony to disclose the claim limitation “applying at least one filter to the detected airborne acoustic waves and the detected vibrations of tissue to reduce noise” as [0072] discloses the vibrations and acoustic signals being filtered.
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.
Claims 1-7 and 15-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ady et al. (US 20170116995) in view of Zelenko et al. (US 20210201913) and in further view of Tong et al. (US 20200135230).
Regarding claim 1,
Ady teaches a method comprising:
detecting, via a microphone array, airborne acoustic waves corresponding to a vocalization of a user;
[one or more input components 160 such as speech and text input facilities including audio microphones and surface microphones (Ady et al., paragraph 29)]
[the acoustic microphone response received during an authentication attempt (Ady et al., paragraph 14)]
[the direct voice microphone is able to detect a voice signal from the user through the air (Ady et al., paragraph 45)]
detecting, via a vibration measurement assembly, vibrations of tissue of the user caused by the vocalization;
[one or more input components 160 such as speech and text input facilities including audio microphones and surface microphones (Ady et al., paragraph 29)]
[The device enables the acoustic and surface microphones in response at stage 509, and collects acoustic and surface microphone data for a user utterance at stage 509. (Ady et al., paragraph 50)]
[the surface microphone is able to detect an audio signal related to the voice signal but conducted through the user's tissues (Ady et al., paragraph 45)]
identify the predefined [wake] word
[Thus at stage 501, the device samples signals from both microphones during an utterance by the authorized user. The utterance may be a predetermined word or phrase or may be selected by the user. (Ady et al., paragraph 46, the utterance being the predefined word)]
In response to identifying the predefined [wake] word, generating an authentication dataset based on a combination of the detected airborne acoustic waves and the detected vibrations of tissue;
[a user is able to be authenticated via a spoken utterance that is received by both an acoustic microphone and a surface vibration microphone (also known as a “bone conduction” microphone). Both signals are analyzed to verify that the utterance was made by an authorized user. (Ady et al., paragraph 13)]
[At stage 607 the surface microphone data is processed in view of the acoustic microphone data to generate a user transform. (Ady et al., paragraph 54)]
and authenticating the user based in part on the authentication dataset.
[At stage 607 the surface microphone data is processed in view of the acoustic microphone data to generate a user transform. The user transform is compared to the stored authenticated user transform at stage 609, and the device refuses authorization at stage 611 if there are differences greater than a predetermined tolerance between the compared transforms. If, however, the compared transforms match within the predetermined tolerance, then the device unlocks at stage 613. (Ady et al., paragraph 54)]
Ady fails to explicitly disclose a wake word and applying at least one filter to the detected airborne acoustic waves and the detected vibrations of tissue to reduce noise;
However in an analogous art Zelenko discloses
A wake word;
[The user utterance may be a word or multiple words. The user utterance may be a command, request, or any other spoken utterance. As described above, a trigger word may be spoken to indicate that the user utterance following the trigger word should be captured. (Zelenko et al., paragraph 99)]
[After receiving the user utterance, the user utterance may be modified for speech to text processing. Filters may be applied to the user utterance, such as to reduce background noise. The user utterance may be split into multiple segments, such as to separate the user utterance into individual words and/or sentences. If multiple speakers are detected in the recorded audio, the user utterance from an individual speaker may be isolated in the audio. (Zelenko et al., paragraph 100)]
Applying a filter to the detected airborne acoustic waves
[Filters may be applied to the user utterance, such as to reduce background noise. (Zelenko et al., paragraph 100)]
Ady and Zelenko are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of voice-based user authentication. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the instant application effective filing date to have modified the teachings of Ady to incorporate the teachings of Zelenko et al. to include a wake word and applying a filter to the detected airborne acoustic waves, in order to help reduce background noise and help split the utterance into individual words to help with speech to text processing. (Zelenko et al., paragraph 100)
Ady in view of Zelenko fails to explicitly disclose applying at least one filter to the detected airborne acoustic waves and the detected vibrations of tissue to reduce noise.
However in an analogous art Tong discloses applying at least one filter to the detected airborne acoustic waves and the detected vibrations of tissue to reduce noise.
[subsequent vibrations and acoustic signals acquired by sensor 501 and microphone 503 may be sent to ADC and filter 507 and 509 respectively. After finish filtering, the vibrations and acoustic signals may be sent to processor 511 for keyword detection. (Tong et al., paragraph 72)]
Ady , Zelenko and Tong are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of voice-based user authentication. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the instant application effective filing date to have modified the teachings of Ady and Zelenko to incorporate the teachings of Tong et al. to include applying at least one filter to the detected airborne acoustic waves and the detected vibrations of tissue to reduce noise, in order to help reduce background noise and help increase the accuracy of voice activity detection. (Tong et al., paragraph 49)
Regarding claim 15,
Ady teaches a system comprising:
a microphone array;
[the direct voice microphone is able to detect a voice signal from the user through the air (Ady et al., paragraph 45)]
a vibration measurement assembly;
[the surface microphone is able to detect an audio signal related to the voice signal but conducted through the user's tissues (Ady et al., paragraph 45)]
and a controller configured to: detect, by the microphone array, airborne acoustic waves corresponding to a vocalization of a user,
[one or more input components 160 such as speech and text input facilities including audio microphones and surface microphones (Ady et al., paragraph 29)]
[the acoustic microphone response received during an authentication attempt (Ady et al., paragraph 14)]
[the direct voice microphone is able to detect a voice signal from the user through the air (Ady et al., paragraph 45)]
[the components of the user device 110 include a display screen 120, applications (e.g., programs) 130, a processor 140, a memory 150 (Ady et al., paragraph 29)]
detect, by the vibration measurement assembly, vibrations of tissue of the user caused by the vocalization,
[one or more input components 160 such as speech and text input facilities including audio microphones and surface microphones (Ady et al., paragraph 29)]
[The device enables the acoustic and surface microphones in response at stage 509, and collects acoustic and surface microphone data for a user utterance at stage 509. (Ady et al., paragraph 50)]
[the surface microphone is able to detect an audio signal related to the voice signal but conducted through the user's tissues (Ady et al., paragraph 45)]
Identify a predefined [wake] word (Ady et al., paragraph 46)]; in response to identifying the predefined [wake] word, generate an authentication dataset based on a combination of the detected airborne acoustic waves and the detected vibrations of tissue;
[a user is able to be authenticated via a spoken utterance that is received by both an acoustic microphone and a surface vibration microphone (also known as a “bone conduction” microphone). Both signals are analyzed to verify that the utterance was made by an authorized user. (Ady et al., paragraph 13)]
[At stage 607 the surface microphone data is processed in view of the acoustic microphone data to generate a user transform. (Ady et al., paragraph 54)]
and authenticate the user based in part on the authentication dataset.
[At stage 607 the surface microphone data is processed in view of the acoustic microphone data to generate a user transform. The user transform is compared to the stored authenticated user transform at stage 609, and the device refuses authorization at stage 611 if there are differences greater than a predetermined tolerance between the compared transforms. If, however, the compared transforms match within the predetermined tolerance, then the device unlocks at stage 613. (Ady et al., paragraph 54)]
Ady fails to explicitly disclose a wake word and applying at least one filter to the detected airborne acoustic waves and the detected vibrations of tissue to reduce noise;
However in an analogous art Zelenko discloses
A wake word;
[The user utterance may be a word or multiple words. The user utterance may be a command, request, or any other spoken utterance. As described above, a trigger word may be spoken to indicate that the user utterance following the trigger word should be captured. (Zelenko et al., paragraph 99)]
[After receiving the user utterance, the user utterance may be modified for speech to text processing. Filters may be applied to the user utterance, such as to reduce background noise. The user utterance may be split into multiple segments, such as to separate the user utterance into individual words and/or sentences. If multiple speakers are detected in the recorded audio, the user utterance from an individual speaker may be isolated in the audio. (Zelenko et al., paragraph 100)]
Applying a filter to the detected airborne acoustic waves
[Filters may be applied to the user utterance, such as to reduce background noise. (Zelenko et al., paragraph 100)]
Ady and Zelenko are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of voice-based user authentication. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the instant application effective filing date to have modified the teachings of Ady to incorporate the teachings of Zelenko et al. to include a wake word and applying a filter to the detected airborne acoustic waves, in order to help reduce background noise and help split the utterance into individual words to help with speech to text processing. (Zelenko et al., paragraph 100)
Ady in view of Zelenko fails to explicitly disclose applying at least one filter to the detected airborne acoustic waves and the detected vibrations of tissue to reduce noise.
However in an analogous art Tong discloses applying at least one filter to the detected airborne acoustic waves and the detected vibrations of tissue to reduce noise.
[subsequent vibrations and acoustic signals acquired by sensor 501 and microphone 503 may be sent to ADC and filter 507 and 509 respectively. After finish filtering, the vibrations and acoustic signals may be sent to processor 511 for keyword detection. (Tong et al., paragraph 72)]
Ady , Zelenko and Tong are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of voice-based user authentication. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the instant application effective filing date to have modified the teachings of Ady and Zelenko to incorporate the teachings of Tong et al. to include applying at least one filter to the detected airborne acoustic waves and the detected vibrations of tissue to reduce noise, in order to help reduce background noise and help increase the accuracy of voice activity detection. (Tong et al., paragraph 49)
Regarding claims 2 and 16,
Ady in view of Zelenko and in further view of Tong discloses the method of claim 1 and the system of claim 15,
wherein generating the authentication dataset using the detected airborne acoustic waves and the detected vibration of tissue comprises:
generating a transfer function indicating a relationship between amounts of the vibrations of tissue and frequencies of the airborne acoustic waves.
[stored and validated surface microphone response collected during setup and calibration or analyzed against the incoming acoustic response to generate a transfer function between them that can then be compared against the transfer function generated either during setup and calibration or through other recorded vocal activity performed after the speaker had been authenticated as the authorized user (Ady et al., paragraph 15)]
Regarding claims 3 and 17,
Ady in view of Zelenko and in further view of Tong discloses the method of claim 1 and the system of claim 15,
wherein authenticating the user based in part on the authentication dataset comprises: comparing the authentication dataset with a reference authentication dataset to determine a similarity; and responsive to determining that the similarity is within a threshold, determining that the user is authentic.
[At stage 607 the surface microphone data is processed in view of the acoustic microphone data to generate a user transform. The user transform is compared to the stored authenticated user transform at stage 609, and the device refuses authorization at stage 611 if there are differences greater than a predetermined tolerance between the compared transforms. If, however, the compared transforms match within the predetermined tolerance, then the device unlocks at stage 613. (Ady et al., paragraph 54)]
Regarding claims 4 and 18,
Ady in view of Zelenko and in further view of Tong discloses the method of claim 3 and the system of claim 17, further comprising generating the reference authentication dataset, generating the reference authentication dataset including:
[At stage 505, the device stores the calculated transform as the authenticated user's transform. (Ady et al., paragraph 48)]
authenticating the user via a different method;
[an utterance of a user may need to be validated, i.e., to meet certain minimum requirements, before it can serve as the basis for a comparison of actual and expected data or a comparison of transforms. The validation may be an iterative process that ensures that the utterance is sufficiency complex and unique to serve as an identifier for the intended user. The qualifier or validating criteria may be a statistical confidence level over a certain predetermined threshold for example. (Ady et al., paragraph 56)]
[an authentication step wherein the user supplies an utterance, this activity may occur either during setup or through other recorded vocal activity performed after the speaker is authenticated via another mechanism as the authorized user. (Ady et al., paragraph 57)]
detecting, via the microphone array, airborne acoustic waves corresponding to a vocalization of the user;
[one or more input components 160 such as speech and text input facilities including audio microphones and surface microphones (Ady et al., paragraph 29)]
[the acoustic microphone response received during an authentication attempt (Ady et al., paragraph 14)]
[the direct voice microphone is able to detect a voice signal from the user through the air (Ady et al., paragraph 45)]
detecting, via the vibration measurement assembly, vibrations of tissue of the user caused by the vocalization;
[one or more input components 160 such as speech and text input facilities including audio microphones and surface microphones (Ady et al., paragraph 29)]
[The device enables the acoustic and surface microphones in response at stage 509, and collects acoustic and surface microphone data for a user utterance at stage 509. (Ady et al., paragraph 50)]
[the surface microphone is able to detect an audio signal related to the voice signal but conducted through the user's tissues (Ady et al., paragraph 45)]
generating an authentication dataset using the detected airborne acoustic waves and the detected vibrations of tissue;
[At stage 607 the surface microphone data is processed in view of the acoustic microphone data to generate a user transform. (Ady et al., paragraph 54)]
and storing the authentication dataset as the reference authentication dataset.
[At stages 501 through 505 of the illustrated process 500, the device stores authentication information usable to identify an authorized user. Thus at stage 501, the device samples signals from both microphones during an utterance by the authorized user. The utterance may be a predetermined word or phrase or may be selected by the user. The device correlates the sampled audio data from the different microphones at stage 503 to determine a transform of the user's tissue that affects the signal gathered at the surface mic, e.g., the transform that must be applied to the signal gathered at the first microphone to result in the signal gathered at the second mic. (Ady et al., paragraph 46)]
[At stage 505, the device stores the calculated transform as the authenticated user's transform. (Ady et al., paragraph 48)]
Regarding claims 5 and 19,
Ady in view of Zelenko and in further view of Tong discloses the method of claim 3 and the system of claim 17,
further comprising receiving the reference authentication dataset from a server.
[At stage 505, the device stores the calculated transform as the authenticated user's transform. (Ady et al., paragraph 48)]
Regarding claims 6 and 20,
Ady in view of Zelenko and in further view of Tong discloses the method of claim 3 and the system of claim 17,
Wherein identifying the predetermined wake word comprises: monitoring, via the microphone array, surrounding airborne acoustic waves; detecting a wake word uttered by the user based on the monitored surrounding airborne acoustic waves;
[the direct voice microphone is able to detect a voice signal from the user through the air (Ady et al., paragraph 45, detecting voice signal (acoustic waves))]
[(Zelenko paragraph 99-100)] and generating the authentication dataset comprises:
extracting the airborne acoustic waves associated with the wake word;
[the direct voice microphone is able to detect a voice signal from the user through the air (Ady et al., paragraph 45, detecting voice signal (acoustic waves))]
[The audio signal 401 produced by the user's vocal tract V (411) is received at a first microphone 405 (the audio mic) after travelling through the air between the user's mouth and the first microphone 405. (Ady et al., paragraph 41; Zelenko paragraph 99-100, see claim 1 for motivation to combine]
extracting the vibrations of tissue of the user associated with the wake word;
[the surface microphone is able to detect an audio signal related to the voice signal but conducted through the user's tissues (Ady et al., paragraph 45, detecting tissue vibration using surface microphone (vibration measurement assembly) caused by a voice signal )]
[a surface microphone 309 which generates a response based on the audio vibration travelling through the user's head 203 and neck. (Ady et al., paragraph 38, tissue vibration based on audio)]
and generating the authentication dataset using the vocalization of the user and the vibrations of tissue of the user associated with the wake word.
[At stage 607 the surface microphone data is processed in view of the acoustic microphone data to generate a user transform. (Ady et al., paragraph 54, user transform being interpreted as an authentication dataset)]
Regarding claim 7,
Ady in view of Zelenko and in further view of Tong discloses the method of claim 6,
further comprising responsive to authenticating the user based on the wake word, unlocking a device.
[At stage 607 the surface microphone data is processed in view of the acoustic microphone data to generate a user transform. The user transform is compared to the stored authenticated user transform at stage 609, and the device refuses authorization at stage 611 if there are differences greater than a predetermined tolerance between the compared transforms. If, however, the compared transforms match within the predetermined tolerance, then the device unlocks at stage 613. (Ady et al., paragraph 54)]
Regarding claim 21,
Ady in view of Zelenko and in further view of Tong discloses the method of claim 1, wherein authenticating the user based in part on the authentication dataset comprises:
applying a first reference transfer function to the detected airborne acoustic waves to generate expected vibration data, and comparing the expected vibration data with the detected vibrations of tissue; and applying a second reference transfer function to the detected vibrations of tissue to generate expected sound data, and comparing the expected sound data with the detected airborne acoustic waves.
[the transfer function and checks it against the authorized user's stored transfer function in an embodiment. However, as an additional or alternative embodiment, the device may simply perform speech and speaker identification on the acoustic signal and the surface vibration signal in parallel. The second voice recognition/speaker recognition process using the surface vibration pickup to augment the acoustic voice recognition/speaker recognition process makes authentication more secure than the single process alone. (Ady et al., paragraph 22)]
Claims 8-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ady et al. (US 20170116995) in view of Zelenko et al. (US 20210201913).
Regarding claim 8,
Ady discloses a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising stored instructions, the instructions when executed by a processor of a device, causing the device to:
[The operating system and applications are typically implemented via executable instructions stored in a non-transitory computer readable medium (e.g., memory 150) to control basic functions of the electronic device 110. Such functions may include, for example, interaction among various internal components and storage and retrieval of applications and data to and from the memory 150. (Ady et al., paragraph 31)]
[the components of the user device 110 include a display screen 120, applications (e.g., programs) 130, a processor 140, a memory 150 (Ady et al., paragraph 29)]
detect, via a microphone array, airborne acoustic waves corresponding to a vocalization of a user;
[one or more input components 160 such as speech and text input facilities including audio microphones and surface microphones (Ady et al., paragraph 29)]
[the acoustic microphone response received during an authentication attempt (Ady et al., paragraph 14)]
[the direct voice microphone is able to detect a voice signal from the user through the air (Ady et al., paragraph 45)]
detect, via a vibration measurement assembly, vibrations of tissue of the user caused by the vocalization;
[one or more input components 160 such as speech and text input facilities including audio microphones and surface microphones (Ady et al., paragraph 29)]
[The device enables the acoustic and surface microphones in response at stage 509, and collects acoustic and surface microphone data for a user utterance at stage 509. (Ady et al., paragraph 50)]
[the surface microphone is able to detect an audio signal related to the voice signal but conducted through the user's tissues (Ady et al., paragraph 45)]
Identify a [redefined [wake] word [Ady et al., paragraph 46)] ; in response to identifying the predefined wake word, generating an authentication dataset based on the detected airborne acoustic waves and the detected vibrations of tissue;
[a user is able to be authenticated via a spoken utterance that is received by both an acoustic microphone and a surface vibration microphone (also known as a “bone conduction” microphone). Both signals are analyzed to verify that the utterance was made by an authorized user. (Ady et al., paragraph 13)]
[At stage 607 the surface microphone data is processed in view of the acoustic microphone data to generate a user transform. (Ady et al., paragraph 54)]
and authenticate the user based in part on the authentication dataset.
[At stage 607 the surface microphone data is processed in view of the acoustic microphone data to generate a user transform. The user transform is compared to the stored authenticated user transform at stage 609, and the device refuses authorization at stage 611 if there are differences greater than a predetermined tolerance between the compared transforms. If, however, the compared transforms match within the predetermined tolerance, then the device unlocks at stage 613. (Ady et al., paragraph 54)]
Ady fails to explicitly disclose applying at least one filter to at least one of the detected airborne acoustic waves or the detected vibrations of tissue to reduce noise and identify a predefined wake word.
However in an analogous art Zelenko discloses
applying at least one filter to at least one of the detected airborne acoustic waves or the detected vibrations of tissue to reduce noise and identify a predefined wake word;
[The user utterance may be a word or multiple words. The user utterance may be a command, request, or any other spoken utterance. As described above, a trigger word may be spoken to indicate that the user utterance following the trigger word should be captured. (Zelenko et al., paragraph 99)]
[After receiving the user utterance, the user utterance may be modified for speech to text processing. Filters may be applied to the user utterance, such as to reduce background noise. The user utterance may be split into multiple segments, such as to separate the user utterance into individual words and/or sentences. If multiple speakers are detected in the recorded audio, the user utterance from an individual speaker may be isolated in the audio. (Zelenko et al., paragraph 100)]
Ady and Zelenko are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of voice-based user authentication . Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the instant application effective filing date to have modified the teachings of Ady to incorporate the teachings of Zelenko et al. to include applying at least one filter to at least one of the detected airborne acoustic waves or the detected vibrations of tissue to reduce noise and identifying a predefined word, in order to help reduce background noise and help split the utterance into individual words to help with speech to text processing. (Zelenko et al., paragraph 100)]
Regarding claims 9,
Ady in view of Zelenko discloses the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8,
wherein generating the authentication dataset using the detected airborne acoustic waves and the detected vibration of tissue comprises:
generating a transfer function indicating a relationship between amounts of the vibrations of tissue and frequencies of the airborne acoustic waves.
[stored and validated surface microphone response collected during setup and calibration or analyzed against the incoming acoustic response to generate a transfer function between them that can then be compared against the transfer function generated either during setup and calibration or through other recorded vocal activity performed after the speaker had been authenticated as the authorized user (Ady et al., paragraph 15)]
Regarding claims 10,
Ady in view of Zelenko discloses the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8,
wherein authenticating the user based in part on the authentication dataset comprises: comparing the authentication dataset with a reference authentication dataset to determine a similarity; and responsive to determining that the similarity is within a threshold, determining that the user is authentic.
[At stage 607 the surface microphone data is processed in view of the acoustic microphone data to generate a user transform. The user transform is compared to the stored authenticated user transform at stage 609, and the device refuses authorization at stage 611 if there are differences greater than a predetermined tolerance between the compared transforms. If, however, the compared transforms match within the predetermined tolerance, then the device unlocks at stage 613. (Ady et al., paragraph 54)]
Regarding claims 11,
Ady in view of Zelenko discloses the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, further comprising generating the reference authentication dataset, generating the reference authentication dataset including:
[At stage 505, the device stores the calculated transform as the authenticated user's transform. (Ady et al., paragraph 48)]
authenticating the user via a different method;
[an utterance of a user may need to be validated, i.e., to meet certain minimum requirements, before it can serve as the basis for a comparison of actual and expected data or a comparison of transforms. The validation may be an iterative process that ensures that the utterance is sufficiency complex and unique to serve as an identifier for the intended user. The qualifier or validating criteria may be a statistical confidence level over a certain predetermined threshold for example. (Ady et al., paragraph 56)]
[an authentication step wherein the user supplies an utterance, this activity may occur either during setup or through other recorded vocal activity performed after the speaker is authenticated via another mechanism as the authorized user. (Ady et al., paragraph 57)]
detecting, via the microphone array, airborne acoustic waves corresponding to a vocalization of the user;
[one or more input components 160 such as speech and text input facilities including audio microphones and surface microphones (Ady et al., paragraph 29)]
[the acoustic microphone response received during an authentication attempt (Ady et al., paragraph 14)]
[the direct voice microphone is able to detect a voice signal from the user through the air (Ady et al., paragraph 45)]
detecting, via the vibration measurement assembly, vibrations of tissue of the user caused by the vocalization;
[one or more input components 160 such as speech and text input facilities including audio microphones and surface microphones (Ady et al., paragraph 29)]
[The device enables the acoustic and surface microphones in response at stage 509, and collects acoustic and surface microphone data for a user utterance at stage 509. (Ady et al., paragraph 50)]
[the surface microphone is able to detect an audio signal related to the voice signal but conducted through the user's tissues (Ady et al., paragraph 45)]
generating an authentication dataset using the detected airborne acoustic waves and the detected vibrations of tissue;
[At stage 607 the surface microphone data is processed in view of the acoustic microphone data to generate a user transform. (Ady et al., paragraph 54)]
and storing the authentication dataset as the reference authentication dataset.
[At stages 501 through 505 of the illustrated process 500, the device stores authentication information usable to identify an authorized user. Thus at stage 501, the device samples signals from both microphones during an utterance by the authorized user. The utterance may be a predetermined word or phrase or may be selected by the user. The device correlates the sampled audio data from the different microphones at stage 503 to determine a transform of the user's tissue that affects the signal gathered at the surface mic, e.g., the transform that must be applied to the signal gathered at the first microphone to result in the signal gathered at the second mic. (Ady et al., paragraph 46)]
[At stage 505, the device stores the calculated transform as the authenticated user's transform. (Ady et al., paragraph 48)]
Regarding claims 12,
Ady in view of Zelenko discloses the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10,
further comprising receiving the reference authentication dataset from a server.
[At stage 505, the device stores the calculated transform as the authenticated user's transform. (Ady et al., paragraph 48)]
Regarding claims 13,
Ady in view of Zelenko discloses the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10,
Wherein identifying the predetermined wake word comprises: monitoring, via the microphone array, surrounding airborne acoustic waves; detecting a wake word uttered by the user based on the monitored surrounding airborne acoustic waves;
[the direct voice microphone is able to detect a voice signal from the user through the air (Ady et al., paragraph 45, detecting voice signal (acoustic waves))]
[(Zelenko paragraph 99-100)] and generating the authentication dataset comprises:
extracting the airborne acoustic waves associated with the wake word;
[the direct voice microphone is able to detect a voice signal from the user through the air (Ady et al., paragraph 45, detecting voice signal (acoustic waves))]
[The audio signal 401 produced by the user's vocal tract V (411) is received at a first microphone 405 (the audio mic) after travelling through the air between the user's mouth and the first microphone 405. (Ady et al., paragraph 41; Zelenko paragraph 99-100, see claim 1 for motivation to combine]
extracting the vibrations of tissue of the user associated with the wake word;
[the surface microphone is able to detect an audio signal related to the voice signal but conducted through the user's tissues (Ady et al., paragraph 45, detecting tissue vibration using surface microphone (vibration measurement assembly) caused by a voice signal )]
[a surface microphone 309 which generates a response based on the audio vibration travelling through the user's head 203 and neck. (Ady et al., paragraph 38, tissue vibration based on audio)]
and generating the authentication dataset using the vocalization of the user and the vibrations of tissue of the user associated with the wake word.
[At stage 607 the surface microphone data is processed in view of the acoustic microphone data to generate a user transform. (Ady et al., paragraph 54, user transform being interpreted as an authentication dataset)]
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Lin et al. (US 20140270215) discloses applying two or more filters to the audio input signal .
Applicant’s amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 extension fee 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL ELAHIAN whose telephone number is (703) 756-1284. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday – Friday from 7:30am to 5pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Catherine Thiaw can be reached at telephone number 571-270-1138. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/D.E./DANIEL ELAHIAN, Examiner, Art Unit 2407
/Catherine Thiaw/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2407 1/9/2026