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 .
Drawings
The drawings are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(5) because they do not include the following reference sign(s) mentioned in the description:
In paragraph [00158], reference number 138 is mentioned, but fails to appear in the Drawings.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities:
Paragraph [0034], section (ii), “the selected moment modal” is objected to, given it appears the selected moment modal should be a model, in conjunction with the other recitations in the Specification.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "a new episode" in section (i). There is no previous mention of an episode, therefore the recitation of a new episode is indefinite. Please clarify what the Applicant intends by “a new episode”.
Please be mindful, if the Applicant intends to amend the term, that “the new episode” is further recited in sections (ii) and (iii), and claims 7, 10, 11 and 14.
A similar rejection can be made in independent claims 15 and 22, with further recitations in claims 19-21.
Claim 1, line 5 of section (v), “a phrase” and “said phase” are recited. Please clarify which term is correct. Said phase is also mentioned in section (vi).
Further, please clarify to which element the phrase/phase relates (i.e. phrase of what)
Still further, please clarify how the step of analyzing the phrase/phase, and the phrase/phase itself, relates to the invention as a whole. As currently presented, there is no connection to the rest of the claimed invention. This also applies to determining a speech quality in section (vi).
Lastly in claim 1, last two lines of section (viii), please clarify whether “an interest score” relates to the interest score presented in preceding section (v).
Claims 3-5, the recitation of “the processor” is indefinite, given a singular processor has not been mentioned in preceding claims 1 and 2, only “one or more processors”.
Further in claim 4, section (c), please consider changing “the second result” to - - the second evaluation result - - to maintain consistency in the claim language.
Claim 7 recites the limitation "the portion of the full episode audio" in section (b). There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim, given there is no previous mention of a portion of the full episode audio.
Claim 9, section (a), please clarify whether “one or more topics of interest” relate to one of the previously recited interest scores.
Claim 13, section (ii), please clarify whether “the selected moment modal” should instead be - - the selected moment model - - .
Claim 14 recites the limitation "the step of creating a summary of said new episode". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim, given there is no previous mention of a step of creating a summary.
Further, it is unclear what the summary consists of (i.e. what elements of the new episode are being summarized), and how said summary relates to the rest of the invention.
Claim 15, section (c) is rejected for similar reasons as discussed above in claim 1 section (i).
Claim 19, section (b) is rejected for similar reasons as discussed above in claim 7.
Claim 21 is rejected for similar reasons as claim 14.
Claim 22, section (i) is rejected for similar reasons as discussed above in claim 1 section (i).
The remaining claims, not specifically addressed, depend from, and therefore include, the rejected limitations outlined above.
Please also be mindful that certain amendments may result in a Double Patenting rejection with US patent 12,431,112 (application 17/672154).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-22 are believed to be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
The Examiner believes the allowability lies in the limitations “said step of analyzing determines how interesting a phrase/phase is and whether said phrase/phase is objective or subjective and assigning an interest and subjectively score to said phrase and then correlating such scores;” and “determining a speech quality of said phrase/phase is based on a correlation coefficient of said interest and subjectively score;”.
Once a better understanding of said limitations, in particular, in relation to the rest of the claimed invention, is received, a further search and consideration of the prior art will be conducted.
Presently, the closet prior art of record are: the US patent application publications to King et al. (US 2007/0300142), Bhatt et al. (US 2019/0026291), Gibbon et al. (US 2004/0078188), Cheng et al. (US 2016/0004911), Nareddy et al. (US 2021/0287683), Silverstein (US 2019/0237051) and Klein et al. (US 2018/0052920).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Christina Schreiber whose telephone number is (571)272-4350. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7-4 PM.
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/CHRISTINA M SCHREIBER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2837 07/02/2026
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