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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on March 12, 2026 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 4-7, 10, 12 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Siohan et al., WO 2021/101510 A1 (hereafter referred to as Siohan) in view of McKnight et al., US 20210160242 A1 (hereafter referred to as McKnight).
Claim 1, Siohan teaches an information processing system (p. 54, “The computing device 400 is intended to represent various forms of digital computers, such as laptops, desktops, workstations, personal digital assistants, servers, blade servers, mainframes, and other appropriate computers”) comprising:
at least one memory that is configured to store instructions (p. 55, “including instructions stored in the memory 420 or on the storage device 430…”); and
at least one processor that is configured to execute the instructions (p. 55, “The processor 410 can process instructions for execution within the computing device 400, including instructions stored in the memory 420 or on the storage device 430 to display graphical information for a graphical user interface (GUI) on an external input/output device, such as display 480 coupled to high speed interface 440.”) to:
obtain conversation data including speech information on a plurality of people (p. 24, “Generally as a space for communication, the environment hosts multiple participants. Here, each participant may contribute audio content (e.g., audible utterances by speaking) and/or visual content (e.g., actions of a participant) while present in the environment. With more than one participant in the environment, there are benefits to track and/or to record the participation of any or all participants.” And p. 26, “a transcription device is present in the environment that generates transcripts for the content that occurs within the environment (e.g., in real time). When generating the transcript, the device can identify speakers (i.e., participants who generate audio content) and/or associate content with participants also present within the environment. “ See also p. 35, “For instance, in order to process audio content, the transcriptor 200 includes an audio capturing device 216, 216a (e.g., a microphone) that captures a sound (e.g., a speech utterance) about the transcriptor 200 and converts the sound into an audio signal 218 (FIGS. 2A and 2B) (or audio data 218).”)
convert into text the speech information in the conversation data (p. 35, “The audio signal 218 may then be used by the transcriptor 200 to generate the transcript 202.”);
obtain information about a confidential target included in the conversation data (p. 38, “Here, one or more participants 10 communicate a privacy request 14 that indicates a privacy condition for a participant 10 during participation in the video conference environment 100. In some examples, the privacy request 14 corresponds to configuration settings for the transcriptor 200. The privacy request 14 may occur before, during, or at the onset of a meeting or communication session with the transcriptor 200. In some configurations, the transcriptor 200 includes a profile (e.g., profile 500 as shown in FIG. 5) that indicates one or more privacy requests 14 for the participant 10 (e.g., the individual profiles 510, 510a-n of FIG. 5).”); and
conceal a part of text of the conversation data on the basis of the information about the confidential target (p. 41, “In contrast, FIG. ID illustrates an example where a privacy request 14 from the third participant 10c requests that the transcriptor 200 not track either a visual representation of the third participant 10c or speech information of the third participant 10c.” “This approach may preserve the participant’s 10c privacy by having no record of any speech information of the participant 10c in the transcript 202 or any identifier 204 identifying the participant 10c in the transcript 202. For instance, the transcriptor 200 may omit portions of text in the transcript 202 altogether that transcribe utterances 12 spoken by the participant 10c,…”).
obtain first biometric information that is biometric information about the plurality of people, while the plurality of people are speaking, from which the conversation data are originated (p. 36, “the image capturing device 216b (e.g., one or more cameras) may capture image data 217 (FIGS. 2 A and 2B) as an additional source of input (e.g., a visual input) that, in combination with an audio signal 218, aids in identifying which participant 10 in the multi-participant environment 100 is speaking (i.e., a speaker)…”) …
Siohan does not specifically teach obtain second biometric information that is biometric information about a user who later browses the conversation data and collate/verify the first biometric information with the second biometric information; and cancel concealment of the part of text of the conversation data on the basis of a result of the collation/verification. However, in the same field of endeavor, McKnight teaches obtain first biometric information that is about a user that will participant in the conference (p. 58, “The registration process may include the creation or recording of a voice profile. The voice profile may be of a participant speaking certain standard words or phrases.” And p. 60, “Each of the participants' authentication credentials and voice profiles may be retrieved from, or stored in, a data store (not depicted) through the network 420.”); obtain second biometric information that is biometric information about a user who uses later browses the conversation data (p. 68, “At 536 a participant of the meeting session 510 may connect with the PDTS at 552 in the first follow-up session 520-1. During the first follow-up session 520-1 the participant may again provide authentication credentials and may request the transcript of the meeting session 510 …” “The PDTS at 552 may operate to provide a transcript to the participant based on the profile of the participant.” Because this is during the follow-up providing credentials and voice profile are second biometrics.); and collate/verify the first biometric information with the second biometric information (p. 68, “The PDTS at 552 may operate to provide a transcript to the participant based on the profile of the participant.” Access to follow-up transcript by authorization before seeing redacted transcript. Using authentication technique in p. 91, “The authorization of a user may include authentication through the voice profile. For example, Alice logs in using her credential, the service prompts her to say some words, some phrases, a sentence, or other speech. The PDTS may use the speech of Alice to compare with the previously-saved voice profile.”); and
cancel concealment of the part of text of the conversation data on the basis of a result of the collation/verification (p. 68, “The transcript may be a snippet or subset of the entire meeting transcript.” Because the user does not have permission to the full transcript. And p. 65, “This user may only have permissions to portions of the meeting upon which he was an active consenting participant unless explicitly granted permissions later …” … [A]ccess could be granted to the entirety of the meeting by any of the other participants.” by another participant access to a larger portion of the transcript.). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to modify Siohan by incorporating second biometric information from McKnight and selectively unlocking the transcripts. The motivation would have been protect information from participants not designated to access the transcript.
Claim 4, Siohan-McKnight teaches the information processing system according to claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to execute the instructions to:
classify the speech information in the conversation data for each speaker (Siohan, p. 38, “participants 10 communicate a privacy request 14 that indicates a privacy condition for a participant 10 during participation in the video conference environment 100. In some examples, the privacy request 14 corresponds to configuration settings for the transcriptor 200.” Classified as opt-in or opt-out privacy.),
the information about the confidential target includes information indicating a word that is the confidential target (Siohan, p. 42, “In some implementations, the transcriptor 200 is configured to receive a privacy request 14 that identifies a type of content that one or more participants 10 do not want included in the transcript 202 (e.g., by keywords) and to determine when that type of content occurs during the communication session in order to exclude it from the transcript 202.”), and
the at least one processor is configured to execute the instructions conceal a part of the text of the conversation data for each speaker (Siohan, p. 38, “With an individual profile 510, the participant’s privacy settings may be applied during each communication session in which the participant 10 participates.”).
Claim 5, Siohan-McKnight teaches the information processing system according to claim 1, wherein the information about the confidential target includes information indicating a word that is the confidential target (Siohan, p. 42, “In some implementations, the transcriptor 200 is configured to receive a privacy request 14 that identifies a type of content that one or more participants 10 do not want included in the transcript 202 (e.g., by keywords) and to determine when that type of content occurs during the communication session in order to exclude it from the transcript 202.”), and
the at least one processor is configured to execute the instructions to conceal a spot related to the word that is the confidential target included in the conversation data (Siohan, p. 42, “In these implementations, not all audio content 218 from a particular participant 10 is excluded from the transcript 202, only content-specific audio such that the particular participant still may discuss other types of content and be included in the transcript 202.”).
Claim 6, Siohan-McKnight teaches the information processing system according to claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to execute the instructions to:
present information encouraging at least one of the plurality of people, to input the information about the confidential target (Siohan, p. 42, “For instance, the third participant 10c communicates a privacy request 14 that requests that the transcriptor 200 does not transcribe audio content about Mike.”), after a conversation by the plurality of people is finished (p. 9, “applying the privacy condition to the corresponding segment includes deleting the corresponding segment of the audio data after determining the transcript.”), and
obtain content inputted by the at least one of the plurality of people, as the information about the confidential target (Siohan, p. 42, “For instance, the third participant 10c communicates a privacy request 14 that requests that the transcriptor 200 does not transcribe audio content about Mike. In this instance, when the third participant 10c discusses Mike, the transcriptor 200 does not transcribe this audio content 218, but when the third participant talks about other topics (e.g., the weather), the transcriptor 200 does transcribe this audio content 218.”).
Claim 7, Siohan-McKnight teaches the information processing system according to 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to execute the instructions to:
set a spot to be concealed in the conversation data, in accordance with content of operation by at least one of the plurality of operators (Siohan, p. 42, “the transcriptor 200 is configured to receive a privacy request 14 that identifies a type of content that one or more participants 10 do not want included in the transcript 202 (e.g., by keywords) and to determine when that type of content occurs during the communication session in order to exclude it from the transcript 202. In these implementations, not all audio content 218 from a particular participant 10 is excluded from the transcript 202, only content-specific audio such that the particular participant still may discuss other types of content and be included in the transcript 202.”), and
obtain information indicating the spot set as the information about the confidential target (Siohan, p. 42, “For instance, the third participant 10c communicates a privacy request 14 that requests that the transcriptor 200 does not transcribe audio content about Mike. In this instance, when the third participant 10c discusses Mike, the transcriptor 200 does not transcribe this audio content 218…”).
Claim 10 is an information processing method executed by at least one computer comprising steps similar to the operations of claim 1. Claim 10 is rejected on a similar rationale as claim 1 above.
Claim 12, Siohan-McKnight teaches he information processing system according to claim 1, wherein the second biometric information is obtained data (McKnight, p. 68, “The PDTS at 552 may operate to provide a transcript to the participant based on the profile of the participant.” The participant profile is based on the voiceprint and used to provide the transcript. And p. 65, “This user may only have permissions to portions of the meeting upon which he was an active consenting participant unless explicitly granted permissions later …” … [A]ccess could be granted to the entirety of the meeting by any of the other participants.” by another participant access to a larger portion of the transcript.) after a file of the conversation data is opened by the user (p. 68, “At 536 a participant of the meeting session 510 may connect with the PDTS at 552 in the first follow-up session 520-1. During the first follow-up session 520-1 the participant may again provide authentication credentials and may request the transcript of the meeting session 510 …” “The transcript may be a snippet or subset of the entire meeting transcript.” And p. 100, “functions noted in the blocks may occur out of the order …”).
Claim 14, Siohan-McKnight the information processing method according to claim 10, wherein the second biometric information is obtained after a file of the conversation data is opened by the user (McKnight, p. 68, “At 536 a participant of the meeting session 510 may connect with the PDTS at 552 in the first follow-up session 520-1. During the first follow-up session 520-1 the participant may again provide authentication credentials and may request the transcript of the meeting session 510 …” “The transcript may be a snippet or subset of the entire meeting transcript.” And p. 100, “functions noted in the blocks may occur out of the order …”).
Claim(s) 3 and 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Siohan and McKnight as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Roks, US 20200193086 A1 (hereafter referred to as Roks).
Claim 3, Siohan-McKnight teaches the information processing system according to claim 2, wherein a concealment level is set in a spot concealed in the conversation data (Siohan, p. 42, “the transcriptor 200 is configured to receive a privacy request 14 that identifies a type of content that one or more participants 10 do not want included in the transcript 202 (e.g., by keywords) and to determine when that type of content occurs during the communication session in order to exclude it from the transcript 202….” And p. 44, “the diarization module 220 may advantageously resolve a privacy request 14 that corresponds to an identity-based privacy request 14.” “When the label 226 for a segment 222 matches an identity of the participant 10 corresponding to the request 14, the diarization module 220 may prevent the transcriptor 200 from applying the label 226 or identifier 204 to a corresponding portion of the resulting transcription 202 that transcribes the particular segment 222 into text.” Also omits the based on the matched label.),
a browse level is set for the user who uses the conversation data (Siohan, p. 43, “Here, the diarization results 224 provide time-stamped speaker labels 226, 226a-e for the received audio data 218 that not only identify who is speaking during a given segment 222, but also identify when speaker changes occur between adjacent segments 222. Here, the speaker labels 226 may serve as identifiers 204 within the transcript 202.” See also p. 34, “the transcriptor 200 may generate the transcript 202 and transmit the transcript 202 over the network 120 to the display device 110 for display thereon. The transcriptor 200 may similarly transmit the transcript 202 to computing devices/ display devices associated with the participants 10g-i corresponding to the first feed and/or the participant 10j corresponding to the second feed 10j.”). Siohan-McKnight does not specifically teach the at least one processor is configured to execute the instructions to cancel the concealment of the spot of the concealment level corresponding to the browse level of the user who uses the conversation data. However, in the same field of endeavor, Roks teaches at least one processor is configured to execute the instructions to cancel the concealment of the spot of the concealment level (p. 55, “Redaction archive 825 can contain name of redaction session, date, time, user identification, candidate words, equivalent words, etc. Redaction archive 825 can also contain unredacted portions of the media that have been redacted.”) corresponding to the browse level of the user who uses the conversation data (p. 55, “As mentioned, circumstances may change and the statements (information) made with respect to or in reference to Jane Doe may no longer be privileged. Accordingly, archive database 825 provides a way for the user to retrieve archived redaction procedures for edit and/or restoration of the redacted portion. In this way, the user may recall all of the redactions made with respect to Jane Doe.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Siohan-McKnight to substitute accessing the full transcript from Roks for transcript from Siohan-McKnight to increase access to the confidential information as appropriate and thereby facilitate further participation by conference attendees.
Claim 8, Siohan-McKnight teaches the information processing system according to claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to execute the instructions to:
follows a conversation by the plurality of people and displays the conversation data in text (Siohan, p. 43, “The diarization module 220 is configured to receive audio data 218 that corresponds to the utterances 12 from the participants 10 of the communication session” … “and generate diarization results 224 that include a corresponding speaker label 226 assigned to each segment 222 using a probability model (e.g., a probabilistic generative model) based on the audio data 218 and the image data 217.” “the diarization module 220 includes a series of speaker recognition tasks with short utterances (e.g., segments 222) and determines whether two segments 222 of a given conversation were spoken by the same participant 10.”);
display a confidential part to be concealed and a non-confidential part not to be concealed, in different aspects (Siohan, p. 34, “the transcriptor 200 may generate the transcript 202 and transmit the transcript 202 over the network 120 to the display device 110 for display thereon. The transcriptor 200 may similarly transmit the transcript 202 to computing devices/ display devices associated with the participants 10g-i corresponding to the first feed and/or the participant 10j corresponding to the second feed 10j.”).
Siohan-McKnight does not specifically teach change the confidential part to the non-confidential part in accordance with content of operation by at least one of the plurality of people. However, in the same field of endeavor, Roks teaches change the confidential part to the non-confidential part in accordance with content of operation by at least one of the plurality of people (p. 55, “Redaction archive 825 can contain name of redaction session, date, time, user identification, candidate words, equivalent words, etc. Redaction archive 825 can also contain unredacted portions of the media that have been redacted.”) corresponding to the browse level of the user who uses the conversation data (p. 55, “As mentioned, circumstances may change and the statements (information) made with respect to or in reference to Jane Doe may no longer be privileged. Accordingly, archive database 825 provides a way for the user to retrieve archived redaction procedures for edit and/or restoration of the redacted portion. In this way, the user may recall all of the redactions made with respect to Jane Doe.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Siohan-McKnight to substitute accessing the full transcript from Roks for accessing versions of transcript from Siohan-McKnight to increase access to the confidential information as appropriate and thereby facilitate further participation by conference attendees.
Claim(s) 13 and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Siohan and McKnight as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Le Chevalier, US 10891947 B1).
Claim 13, Siohan-McKnight teaches he information processing system according to claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to execute the instructions to, as cited above. Siohan-McKnight does not specifically teach after obtaining the first biometric information and the second biometric information:
obtain a browse level of the user, after obtaining the first biometric information and the second biometric information: cancel concealment of the part of text of the conversation data in accordance with the browse level. However, in the same field of endeavor, Le Chevalier obtain a browse level of the user (Le Chevalier, column 13, lines 2-9; “The privacy settings may include an option to for authenticating (e.g., via username/password, biometrics, etc.) the user before transmitting output. In an example, portions of the messages transmitted may be encrypted using a set of rules to provide security for confidential information. In an example, a portion of the message may include a lock feature that may request the recipient to authenticate before unlocking.”); and
cancel concealment of the part of text of the conversation data in accordance with the browse level (Le Chevalier, column 13, lines 2-9; “portions of the messages transmitted may be encrypted using a set of rules to provide security for confidential information. In an example, a portion of the message may include a lock feature that may request the recipient to authenticate before unlocking.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Siohan-McKnight by incorporating browse level and cancel concealment from Le Chevalier to provide graded access to the transcript. The motivation would have been maintain privacy when the participant is not authorized.
Claim 15, Siohan-McKnight teaches the information processing method according to claim 10, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to execute the instructions to as cited above. Siohan-McKnight does not specifically teach after obtaining the first biometric information and the second biometric information: obtain a browse level of the user; and cancel concealment of the part of text of the conversation data in accordance with the browse level. However, in the same field of endeavor, Le Chevalier teaches after obtaining the first biometric information and the second biometric information: obtain a browse level of the user (Le Chevalier, column 13, lines 2-9; “The privacy settings may include an option to for authenticating (e.g., via username/password, biometrics, etc.) the user before transmitting output. In an example, portions of the messages transmitted may be encrypted using a set of rules to provide security for confidential information. In an example, a portion of the message may include a lock feature that may request the recipient to authenticate before unlocking.”); and
cancel concealment of the part of text of the conversation data in accordance with the browse level (Le Chevalier, column 13, lines 2-9; “In an example, portions of the messages transmitted may be encrypted using a set of rules to provide security for confidential information. In an example, a portion of the message may include a lock feature that may request the recipient to authenticate before unlocking.”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Siohan-McKnight by incorporating browse level and cancel concealment from Le Chevalier to provide graded access to the transcript. The motivation would have been maintain privacy when the participant is not authorized.
Claim(s) 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over
Merkel, US 20210295851 A1 (hereafter referred to as Merkel) in view of “official notice”.
Claim 16, Merkel teaches an information processing method executed by at least one computer (abstract), the information processing method comprising:
obtaining conversation data including speech information on a plurality of people (p. 14, “For example, an audio signal from a first speaker can be received from: a first meeting during a first time period, a second meeting during a second time period, and a third meeting during a third time period. The policy permission corresponding to the audio profile determined during the first meeting can be different from the policy permission corresponding to the second meeting. “ And p. 27, “.. [T]he audio signals received from the plurality of speakers can be partitioned to homogeneous segments to determine the identity of a speaker by comparing the received audio signals with previously registered audio profiles.”);
converting into text the speech information in the conversation data (p. 14, “Based on the generic nature of the meeting, a speaker can include a policy permission to transcribe the entire meeting into text format. Additionally, the content generated from each meeting can be different for the first speaker in response to his/her security profile being different in each meeting.”);
obtaining information about a confidential target included in the conversation data (p. 22, “In some examples, the policy permission can include a policy to redact specific topics that can be identified using trigger words. In such instances, content can be redacted in response to recognizing trigger words and/or recognizing specific audio profiles.” “In some examples, a user can include a policy permission to redact content for all audio profiles that include a sensitive topic (stock options for employees in the organization).”);
concealing a part of text of the conversation data on the basis of the information about the confidential target (p. 22, “In some examples, a user can include a policy permission to redact content for all audio profiles that include a sensitive topic (stock options for employees in the organization).”),
wherein the confidential target is automatically determined from a profile (p. 11, “A policy permission can be adopted based on the security profile associated with a user. A policy permission can be adopted and/or altered based on the preferences of the user. The user can adjust the policy permission of his/her audio profile based on his/her preferences.” “Generating content for a plurality of users based on the policy permissions of each of the users allows the users to generate content based on their preferences and prevents unauthorized access of unintended parties.”) and at least a portion of the text to be concealed is determined in advance of the obtaining the conversation data (p. 46, “… the speaker can adjust the policy permission of his/her audio profile based on his/her preferences. For example, a user can include a policy permission to encrypt and/or redact his/her audio profile to prevent unauthorized access.”) and the confidential target is automatically determined from a pre-stored profile (p. 46, “At 429-3 the system 440 can include instruction to select a profile policy permission to redact the content of the speaker 412.”). Merkel does not specifically teach a pre-stored database. However, Markel taught a plurality of pre-stored profile. Official notice is taken that a prestored database is well known in the art. It would have been obvious to modify Merkel to incorporate well known prestored database for the plurality of prestored profiles for privacy permissions in Merkel to as an improved access that mechanism capable of access matching search constraints.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Chhabra et al., US 2020/0374146 A1: teaches the techniques disclosed herein can access permissions with respect to various aspects of a summary and control the content of the summary based on those permissions. At operation 1010, the system can cause the display of a summary having a description of select portions the content and/or the contents of the file. In some configurations, the system may utilize direct quotes from the selected portions 50 and any associated files. Alternatively, a combination of computer-generated sentences and direct quotes from the selected portions of the file may be utilized. In addition, the system can restrict the display of some sections based on permissions for the shared content 12. For instance, a system can determine permissions for a file related to the shared content 12, wherein the permissions can restrict access to a person or a group of people.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PATRICE L WINDER whose telephone number is (571)272-3935. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10am-6pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, KAMAL B DIVECHA can be reached at (571)272-5863. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Patrice L Winder/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2453
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