DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Amendment
This communication is responsive to the Pre-Brief Appeal Conference Decision dated 02/17/2026.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see remarks pages 2-5, filed 01/27/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) claims 1-7 and 9-20 under 35 USC 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Kim in view of O’Donovan.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1, 5, 9, 10, 11, 15, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al. (US 20210158800 A1) in view of O’Donovan et al. (US 20200105273 A1).
Regarding claims 1 and 15, Kim teaches:
“A method for managing a plurality of voice assistants” (par. 0039; ‘The electronic apparatus 100 may include a plurality of voice assistants 110, 120 and 130.’), the method comprising:
“determining a first order of the plurality of voice assistants, wherein the voice assistants of the plurality of voice assistants are on a same computing device as each other” (par. 0039; Apparatus 100 includes multiple voice assistants.; par. 0147; ‘As a separate example, it is also possible to configure the electronic apparatus to provide a user with a ranking list of the plurality of voice assistants and causing a user to select the voice assistance.’ See also par. 0061).
“based at least in part on the first order, activating one or more voice assistants of the plurality of voice assistants” (par. 0147; ‘As a separate example, it is also possible to configure the electronic apparatus to provide a user with a ranking list of the plurality of voice assistants and causing a user to select the voice assistance.’ The selection of the voice assistance reads on activating one voice assistant of the plurality of assistants.).
However, Kim does not expressly teach:
“determining a second order of the plurality of voice assistants”; and
“based at least in part on the second order, performing one or more of: suspending an active voice assistant of the one or more active voice assistants; or activating a suspended voice assistant of the plurality of voice assistants.”
O’Donovan teaches:
“determining a second order of the plurality of voice assistants” (par. 0043, one or more ranking values; ‘Each virtual assistant may have one or more ranking values, such as a ranking value for user preference, a ranking value for popularity, a ranking value for subject or category expertise, a ranking value for confidence, or the like.’; par. 0045; ‘Based on the identified subject or category, virtual assistant identification engine 316 selects one or more virtual assistants of the subset of virtual assistants using the associated set of ranking values and a set of characteristics that indicates which ranking value of the set of ranking values to evaluate. That is, in one embodiment and for some types of question, the user may have configured intelligent service broker 302 to utilize user preference ranking values. In another illustrative embodiment and for other types of questions, the user may have configured intelligent service broker 302 to utilize subject or category expertise ranking values.’; See also par. 0057) and
“based at least in part on the second order, performing one or more of: suspending an active voice assistant of the one or more active voice assistants; or activating a suspended voice assistant of the plurality of voice assistants” (par. 0043; ‘In some implementations, this set may be limited to user devices that have been detected as having a capability of handling a specific group action, while in other implementations, this set may include all of the user devices for all of the users in the group, such that, if for a particular group action, a particular user device is determined to lack an ability to handle the particular group action, that device will simply be ranked lower than other devices capable of handling the group action or filtered out altogether.’ It would be obvious to suspend an active voice assistant if, based on current rank value, the assistant it ranked lower. See also par. 0057).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Kim’s ranking list of the plurality of voice assistants by incorporating O’Donovan’s different ranking values in order to determine a second order of voice assistants and to suspend or activate a voice assistant based on the current order/ranking. The combination would allow the system to select the appropriate subset of voice assistants based on the user’s voice input. (O’Donovan: par. 0057)
Regarding claim 5 (dep. on claim 1), the combination of Kim in view of O’Donovan further teaches:
“wherein determining the second order of the plurality of voice assistants is performed in response to an event, wherein the event is not related to a user input” (O’Donovan: par. 0043; ‘In initializing the ranking value for each of the subset of virtual assistants, virtual assistance confidence engine 310 may initialize the ranking values to zero, virtual assistance confidence engine 310 may access one or more knowledge databases to obtain a ranking value for each of the subset of virtual assistants and utilize the obtained ranking values, virtual assistance confidence engine 310 may initialize the ranking values based on user input from user 308.’).
Regarding claim 9 (dep. on claim 1), the combination of Kim in view of O’Donovan further teaches:
“wherein the first order of the plurality of voice assistants is based at least in part on a user preference; and wherein the second order of the plurality of voice assistants is based at least in part on an updated user preference” (O’Donovan: par. 0043; ‘In initializing the ranking value for each of the subset of virtual assistants, virtual assistance confidence engine 310 may initialize the ranking values to zero, virtual assistance confidence engine 310 may access one or more knowledge databases to obtain a ranking value for each of the subset of virtual assistants and utilize the obtained ranking values, virtual assistance confidence engine 310 may initialize the ranking values based on user input from user 308.’).
Regarding claim 10 (dep. on claim 1), the combination of Kim in view of O’Donovan further teaches:
“wherein the first order of the plurality of voice assistants and the second order of the plurality of voice assistants is based on a popularity of each voice assistant of the plurality of voice assistants” (O’Donovan: par. 0043; ‘Each virtual assistant may have one or more ranking values, such as a ranking value for user preference, a ranking value for popularity, a ranking value for subject or category expertise, a ranking value for confidence, or the like.’).
Regarding claim 11 (dep. on claim 1), the combination of Kim in view of O’Donovan further teaches:
“wherein the first order of the plurality of voice assistants and the second order of the plurality of voice assistants is based on a recent use for each voice assistant of the plurality of voice assistants” (O’Donovan: par. 0043; ‘Each virtual assistant may have one or more ranking values, such as a ranking value for user preference, a ranking value for popularity, a ranking value for subject or category expertise, a ranking value for confidence, or the like.’).
Regarding claim 18 (dep. on claim 15), the combination of Kim in view of O’Donovan further teaches:
“wherein the first order of the plurality of voice assistants and the second order of the plurality of voice assistants are based on a historical usage of each voice assistant of the plurality of voice assistants” (Kim: par. 0011; ‘The use history may include information obtained by counting a processing history of each of the plurality of voice assistants for a predetermined keyword of the utterance.’).
Claim(s) 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim in view of O’Donovan as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Huang et al. (US 20220115012 A1).
Regarding claim 13 (dep. on claim 1), Kim in view of O’Donovan does not expressly teach:
“wherein the first order of the plurality of voice assistants is a random order of the plurality of voice assistants; and wherein the second order of the plurality of voice assistants is a non-random order of the plurality of voice assistants.”
Huang teaches:
“wherein the first order of the plurality of voice assistants is a random order of the plurality of voice assistants; and wherein the second order of the plurality of voice assistants is a non-random order of the plurality of voice assistants” (par. 0117; ‘If a plurality of servers of the other voice assistants which return the acknowledgment information exist, the information of the voice assistant corresponding to one of the servers may be selected as the information of the second voice assistant. The one server may be selected at random or according to a preset priority order. The setting policy of the priority order is not limited in the present application.’).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the ranking/order of the voice assistants as taught by Kim in view of O’Donovan by incorporating Huang’s method of random or preset priority order selection of voice assistant server in order to randomly or non-randomly arrange the plurality of voice assistants. This configuration allows for the better voice assistant to respond to voice requests. (Huang: par. 0047)
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4, 6-7, 12, 14, 16, and 17 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claims 19-20 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claims 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 14, 16, and 17, the prior art of record, whether taken alone or in combination, fails to teach features such as maximum number of active voice assistants; maximum being based on available memory, battery life, etc.; monitoring computer resources; determining whether a called assistant is active; order based on time of day; etc.
Regarding claims 19-20, most of the limitations are similar to claim 1 with the exception of “based at least in part on the first order, grouping the plurality of voice assistants into an active group of voice assistants and a suspended group of voice assistants; activating each voice assistant of the active group of voice assistants; detecting an event; in response to detecting the event, determining a second order of the plurality of voice assistants; based at least in part on the second order, performing one or more of: suspending a voice assistant of the active group of voice assistants; or activating a voice assistant of the suspended group of voice assistants.” The prior art of record, whether taken alone or in combination, fails to teach performing one or more of: suspending a voice assistant of the active group of voice assistants; or activating a voice assistant of the suspended group of voice assistants.
Conclusion
Other pertinent prior art are cited in the PTO-892 for the applicant's consideration.
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MARK . VILLENA
Examiner
Art Unit 2658
/MARK VILLENA/Examiner, Art Unit 2658
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