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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to the Applicants’ communication filed on 06/18/2025. In virtue of this communication, claims 25-48 are currently pending in the instant application.
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 of this title, 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 25-28, 30-48 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Uppala et al. (US 2019/0391541 A1) in view of Wouhaybi et al. (US 2024/0127177 A1).
Regarding Claim 25 Uppala teaches the limitations "A medium range speech communication system, comprising: an par. 0019 showing “The communication circuitry 128 may be configured to use any one or more communication technology (e.g., wireless or wired communications) and associated protocols (e.g., Ethernet, Bluetooth®, Wi-Fi®, WiMAX, Zigbee, Zwave, etc.) to effect such communication.” Also see par. 0022 showing building sensors);
a plurality of computing devices within the plurality of buildings of the facility, each of the plurality of computing devices including a respective processor and respective memory; and (see fig. 1 (104 home automation controller) and par. 0023 “As such, the network 114 may include any number of additional devices, such as additional computers, routers, and switches, to facilitate communications among the devices of the system 100.”));
a plurality of portable human interface devices within the plurality of buildings of the facility, each comprising a respective microphone and a respective speaker, and each being associated with a respective user of the facility, (see fig. 1 (computing device 102), fig. 2 and par. 0017));
wherein each of the plurality of portable human interface devices is configured to: receive a voice instruction from the respective user via the respective microphone; (see par. Fig. 2 (202) text to speech module and par. 0020 “The audio sensor 132 may be embodied as any sensor capable of capturing audio signals such as a microphone.”);
create a voice instruction data file based on the voice instruction; communicate the voice instruction data file via the 202 is configured to perform automated speech recognition on audio input data to generate input text.”) and par. 0030 “Although illustrated as being established by the computing device 102, it should be understood that in some embodiments part or all of the environment 200 may be established by one or more computing devices distributed over a network such as the Internet.”;
wherein the respective memory stores instructions executable by the respective processor to: receive the voice instruction data file; translate the voice instruction data file to a text instruction data file; (see claim 1 “…the audio signal data to be used to generate respective text associated with respective of the multiple users, the respective text being indicative of the voice commands, the voice commands including one or more voice commands by one or more of the multiple users, the respective text including certain text indicative of the one or more voice commands…”);
search a database for an appropriate response to the voice instruction; (see par. 0026 “the controller module 206 is further configured to present a text response to the user of the computing device 102 and perform the system control command. In some embodiments, the system control command may be embodied as a home automation command including home automation parameters such as a location (e.g., a room within the home), a home automation device 106, and/or a requested device state (e.g., on or off)... the system control command may be embodied as a data exploration command including data exploration parameters such as a data query parameter.” Also see par. 0062 “The data exploration language model 210 may include dialog patterns and dictionaries relating to a particular data set, including potential queries of the dataset, available tables and data items in the data set, and other attribute of the data set. Parameters of the system control commands may include, for example, variables for comparison and selection of data records, filter commands, relational commands such as joins, aggregations, and other relational commands.”);
create a text response data file; translate the text response data file to a voice response data file; and (see fig. 2 (text to speech module 204) and par. 0016 “After resolving the parameters of the command, the computing device 102 may generate a natural language response and a home automation command based on the language model,” and par. 0025 “the text-to-speech module 204 is configured to generate audio speech output based on response text using a text-to-speech engine.”).
communicate the voice response data file via the
wherein each of the plurality of portable human interface devices is further configured to: receive the voice response data file; and play the voice response data file via the respective speaker to the respective user" (see par. 0020 “The audio device 130 may be used by the computing device 102 to output speech responses to the user.” and par. 0025 “the text-to-speech module 204 is configured to generate audio speech output based on response text using a text-to-speech engine.”).
Further Uppala shows “The communication circuitry 128 may be configured to use any one or more communication technology (e.g., wireless or wired communications) and associated protocols (e.g., Ethernet, Bluetooth®, Wi-Fi®, WiMAX, Zigbee, Zwave, etc.) to effect such communication. In some embodiments, the communication circuitry 128 may use special-focus communication protocols to provide interconnectivity to member devices in a local Internet of Things (IoT).” (see par. 0019) but does not explicitly disclose the limitation the network is a “802.11 ah.”
In the same field of endeavor Wouhaybi discloses an apparatus including a memory and a processor configured to: identify an item located within the environment based on sensor data, wherein the sensor data represents one or more sensor detections of the environment; determine a metric representative of a likelihood of the item becoming lost the within the environment based on information about the item; and select, based on the metric, at least one monitoring method to monitor the item within the environment from a plurality of monitoring methods (see abstract, fig. 2 and 3). The “communication processor 218 may be configured to operate via a third RF transceiver of the one or more RF transceivers(s) 108 in accordance with a Wireless Local Area Network communication protocol or standard such as, e.g., in accordance with … 802.11ah.” (see par. 0051).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to operate the network using 802.11ah as taught by Wouhaybi in the system network of Uppala, in order to improve tracking in warehouse environments (see par. 0002 of Wouhaybi).
Claims 31, 38 and 48 are rejected for the same reasons set forth above as the similar limitations have been addressed in rejecting claim 25.
Claim 37 is met for the same reasons above in claim 25 except the limitation “utilize a machine learning algorithm to search a database for an appropriate response to the voice instruction based on the text instruction data file.” (see Uppala par. 0027 “ The conversational interface module 208 is configured to match the input text against a language model 210 to identify a matching pattern. The language model 210 includes several domain-specific dialog patterns, and each pattern may be associated with a corresponding system control command.”).
Regarding Claim 26 Uppala and Wouhaybi teach the limitations "The system of claim 25, wherein the voice instruction is to locate a different user of the facility on the 802.11 ah medium range network; and
wherein the instructions are executable to connect the portable human interface device associated with the respective user for voice communication with the portable human interface device associated with the different user of the facility" (see par. 0038 “Each pattern may be associated with a home automation command and one or more associated parameters of the home automation command. Each parameter may correspond to particular matching words, phrases, or other values of the input text. Parameters of the command may include any data necessary to perform the command, including parameters identifying the specified home automation devices 106, requested device states, and/or locations.” Also see par. 0026 “After the computing device 102 processes the input text as described further below, the controller module 206 is further configured to present a text response to the user of the computing device 102 and perform the system control command. In some embodiments, the system control command may be embodied as a home automation command including home automation parameters such as a location (e.g., a room within the home), a home automation device 106, and/or a requested device state (e.g., on or off).” Here, the different home automation devices are equated to the users of the network and by executing control command the home controller connects to them).
Claim 42 is rejected for the same reasons set forth above because similar limitations have been addressed above.
Regarding Claim 27 Uppala and Wouhaybi teach the limitations "The system of claim 26, wherein the voice response data file includes a confirmation that the portable human interface device associated with the different user of the facility is a correct device for the voice communication" (see par. 0027 “The conversational interface module 208 may be further configured to generate an error message for the text response using the language model 210 if the system control command is not valid based on the state of the home automation device 106 context data.” And par. 0043 showing valid confirmation).
Regarding Claim 28 Uppala and Wouhaybi teach the limitations "The system of claim 27, wherein the confirmation that the portable human interface device associated with the different user of the facility is the correct device for the voice communication includes a name of the different user" (see par. 0043 “ For example, if the input text is “turn on the kitchen lights,” the computing device 102 may determine whether the kitchen lights are currently turned off (i.e., that the request to turn on the kitchen lights is consistent with their current state of being turned off and therefore valid.” Here, the user is again the automation device and naming “kitchen lights” confirms valid commands).
Claim 43 is rejected for the same reasons set forth above because similar limitations have been addressed above.
Regarding Claim 30 Uppala and Wouhaybi teach the limitations "The system of claim 25, wherein the voice instruction is to locate a different user of the facility on the 802.11 ah medium range network; wherein the voice response data file includes a description of a location of the portable human interface device associated with the different user within the facility" (see par. 0043 “ For example, if the input text is “turn on the kitchen lights,” the computing device 102 may determine whether the kitchen lights are currently turned off (i.e., that the request to turn on the kitchen lights is consistent with their current state of being turned off and therefore valid).”).
Regarding Claim 32 Uppala and Wouhaybi teach the limitations "The system of claim 31, wherein the facility data is quantity inventory data indicating a quantity of items in an inventory at the facility" (see Wouhaybi par. 0055 “current available quantity of the item within the inventory.”). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to request quantity of items as taught by Wouhaybi in the system network of Uppala, in order to improve tracking in warehouse environments (see par. 0002 of Wouhaybi).
Regarding Claim 33 Uppala and Wouhaybi teach the limitations "The system of claim 32, wherein the quantity inventory data is selected from the group including: an item name, a description of what the item is, a description of what the item does, a set of item physical dimensions, an item weight, an item location history" (see par. 0055 of Wouhaybi “information about an item may include i) an item description, such as descriptive information about the item such as name, type, category, or SKU (Stock Keeping Unit); ii) physical item attributes, such as size, dimensions, weight, color, material, and any specific characteristics of the item; iii) location information, such as a designated storage location within the storage facility which may include an indication of a designated aisle, rack, shelf, or specific coordinates and/or current location of the item; iv) current available quantity of the item within the inventory.”) It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to request quantity of items as taught by Wouhaybi in the system network of Uppala, in order to improve tracking in warehouse environments (see par. 0002 of Wouhaybi).
Claim 34-36 are rejected for the same reasons set forth above as the limitations have been met by par. 0055 as shown above.
Regarding Claim 39 Uppala and Wouhaybi teach the limitations "The method of claim 38, wherein when the query is determined to be in the speech format, a speech-to-text module is initiated to convert the speech format query to a text format query"
Regarding Claim 40 Uppala and Wouhaybi teach the limitations "The method of claim 38, wherein when the query is determined to be in a text format, a query module is initiated to determine the action to take" (see par. Fig. 2 (202) text to speech module and par. 0020 “The audio sensor 132 may be embodied as any sensor capable of capturing audio signals such as a microphone…The audio sensor 132 may be used by the computing device 102 to detect speech commands uttered by the user.” Also see par. 0026 “receive input text” for commands).
Regarding Claim 41 Uppala and Wouhaybi teach the limitations "The method of claim 38, wherein, if the result of the query is in a text format, initiating a text-to-speech module that converts the text format result of the query to a speech format result of the query" (see par. 0020 “The audio device 130 may be used by the computing device 102 to output speech responses to the user.” and par. 0025 “the text-to-speech module 204 is configured to generate audio speech output based on response text using a text-to-speech engine.”).
Regarding Claim 44 Uppala and Wouhaybi teach the limitations "The method of claim 38, wherein the determined action is requesting inventory characteristic data" (see par. 0055 of Wouhaybi “information about an item may include i) an item description, such as descriptive information about the item such as name, type, category, or SKU (Stock Keeping Unit); ii) physical item attributes, such as size, dimensions, weight, color, material, and any specific characteristics of the item.”). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to request characteristic data as taught by Wouhaybi in the system network of Uppala, in order to improve tracking in warehouse environments (see par. 0002 of Wouhaybi).
Regarding Claim 45 Uppala and Wouhaybi teach the limitations "The method of claim 38, wherein the determined action is a request to add inventory" (see par. 0055 of Wouhaybi “item movements, including receipts, transfers, adjustments, and shipments.”). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to request adding to inventory as taught by Wouhaybi in the system network of Uppala, in order to improve tracking in warehouse environments (see par. 0002 of Wouhaybi).
Regarding Claim 46 Uppala and Wouhaybi teach the limitations "The method of claim 38, wherein the determined action is a request to subtract inventory" (see par. 0055 of Wouhaybi “item movements, including receipts, transfers, adjustments, and shipments.”). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to request subtracting inventory as taught by Wouhaybi in the system network of Uppala, in order to improve tracking in warehouse environments (see par. 0002 of Wouhaybi).
Regarding Claim 47 Uppala and Wouhaybi teach the limitations "The method of claim 38, wherein the method further includes determining whether the result of the query needs to be converted before the query is returned to the portable human interface device from which it was received" (see par. 0020 “The audio device 130 may be used by the computing device 102 to output speech responses to the user.” and par. 0025 “the text-to-speech module 204 is configured to generate audio speech output based on response text using a text-to-speech engine.”).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 29 is 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 (i.e. claims 25-28). Claim 29 recites "The system of claim 28, wherein the voice response data file includes a request that the different user provide a voice or text confirmation that the name of the different user is correct.” Uppala shows the user may voice command to turn on kitchen lights by name and confirmation of valid command but does not include a request in the command that the different user provide a voice or text confirmation that the name of the different user is correct.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID BILODEAU whose telephone number is (571)270-3192. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 6:00am-4:00pm Eastern Standard Time. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, Applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Wesley Kim can be reached at (571) 272-7867. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/David Bilodeau/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648
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