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 .
Status of Claims
Claims 1-3 and 10-20 are pending in this application.
Claims 4-9 are canceled.
Response to Arguments
Regarding Rejection under 35 U.S.C. 102
Applicant’s amendment and arguments with respect to rejections have been fully considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to any of the references being used in the current rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-3 and 10-20 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Beranek et al., (US Pat. 7,672,845) in view of Surazski et al., (US Pat. 11,128,483) and further in view of Rogynskyy et al., (US Pub. 2019/0361934).
Regarding claim 1, Beranek discloses a communication support system, comprising: circuitry configured to:
manage one or more keywords (Col. 3, lines 37-50, pre-built to order keywords and/or phrases; Figs. 3, step 305 and Fig. 4, step 410, Col. 6, lines 5-16 and lines 48-58, a keyword and/or phrase database is built searchable by keyword and/or phrase);
control a display to display an operation screen including [a setting field] for setting any of the one or more keywords, the operation screen (Col 1, lines 33-67, Col. 5, lines 19-58, Col. 8, lines 31-59, “the speaker may select new topic materials dynamically when presented on the intelligent teleprompter via an optional user input device (e.g., a mouse or keyboard, or similar device; Col. 6, lines 36-40, Col. 7, lines 36-66, activating any new keywords according to the rule for monitoring; Col. 6, lines 48-58, “keywords and/or phrase(s) are predefined and may be listed as part of an application display, e.g., as part of a call center agent display or as part of an intelligent teleprompter display, or the like”);
acquire audio of one or more participants in a communication (Fig. 1 and Col. 4, lines 2-67, receiving voice steam via a user communication device);
determine, by analyzing the audio, whether or not each of the one or more keywords is made in the communication (Figs. 3, steps 315, 320 and Fig. 4, steps 420, 425, Col. 6, lines 17-63, monitoring conversation to recognize pre-defined keywords and/or phrases);
in a case that the circuitry determines that a keyword of the one or more keywords has not been made in the communication, notify a participant of the one or more participants at the predetermined time that the keyword has not been made in the communication (Col. 5, lines 44-58, “the keywords in the list may be marked or grayed-out indicating that the subject area has been covered. In this way any topic area (i.e., keyword or phrase) that remains un-grayed provides a reminder to the speaker or agent that the subject/topic area has not been covered” and Fig. 4, step 445, Col. 6, line 17 – Col. 7, line 14, providing to a user for readily conveying which keywords and/or phrases have been already covered and which have not been covered).
Beranek does not explicitly teach the bracketed limitation however Surazski does explicitly teach including the bracketed limitation:
control a display to display an operation screen including [a setting field] (Surazski, Fig. 5, Col. 9, lines 54-58, displaying a "Settings field 430 includes miscellaneous meeting information and options an option to schedule another meeting").
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the method for keyword detection using voice-recognition as taught by Beranek with the method for providing a meeting scheduling feature in an online meeting as taught by Surazski to improve a meeting experience for all participants, making it more efficient and productive (Surazski, Col. 4, lines 14-24).
Beranek in view of Surazski does not explicitly teach the bracketed limitation however Rogynskyy does explicitly teach including the bracketed limitation:
determine, using a pre-trained machine learning model trained in advance, a predetermined time in accordance with the keywords or the number of keywords, the predetermined time being before a scheduled end time of the communication ([0120] “parse the electronic activity to determine if the electronic activity includes text or strings that match one or more predetermined strings or keywords that are mapped to the person's work”; [0734] “ time-decaying functions can be determined using machine learning techniques identifying time periods that electronic activities may be more or less relevant than other time periods”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the method for keyword detection using voice-recognition as taught by Beranek in view of Surazski with the method of identifying time period using machine learning techniques as taught by Rogynskyy to improve the multi-system of record and individual master systems of record of the data source providers using parsed and normalized activity data received from electronic communications servers of the data source providers (Rogynskyy, [0295]).
Regarding claim 2, Beranek in view of Surazski and further in view of Rogynskyy discloses the communication support system of claim 1, and Beranek further discloses:
wherein the circuitry is further configured to notify the one or more participants that the keyword has not been made in the communication (Col. 5, lines 44-58, “un-grayed provides a reminder to the speaker or agent that the subject/topic area has not been covered”).
Regarding claim 3, Beranek in view of Surazski and further in view of Rogynskyy discloses the communication support system of claim 1, and Beranek further discloses: wherein the communication is made during a meeting between the one or more participants, and the circuitry is further configured to: acquire the audio each participant of the one or more participants in the meeting (Col. 5, lines 1- 58, call path 135 may be delivered during phone conversation); and
notify the participant that the keyword has not been made during the meeting (Col. 5, lines 1- 58, “As the keywords or phrases are detected and matched during a conversation … if any, may be displayed and subsequently removed from the display as the topics of the list are detected and traversed”).
Regarding claim 10, Beranek in view of Surazski and further in view of Rogynskyy discloses the communication support system of claim 1, and Beranek further discloses:
wherein the circuitry is further configured to notify the participant regarding the one or more keywords in a case that a predetermined operation is received on the operation screen (Col. 7, lines 36-66, “new prompts and/or data indicators (or subject data itself) may be presented to the agent on the display device. The agent may choose to navigate to the new data presented on the display device as circumstances dictate during the call”).
Regarding claim 11, Beranek in view of Surazski and further in view of Rogynskyy discloses the communication support system of claim 41, and Beranek further discloses:
wherein the circuitry is further configured to: convert the audio into text (Col. 5, lines 1-9, Col. 6, lines 59-67, recognizing speech by speech recognition analysis); and
notify the participant regarding the keyword before the communication ends in a case that the text does not include the keyword (Col. 3, lines 4-23, Col. 5, lines 44-58, “the keywords in the list may be marked or grayed-out indicating that the subject area has been covered. In this way any topic area (i.e., keyword or phrase) that remains un-grayed provides a reminder to the speaker or agent that the subject/topic area has not been covered” during conversation).
Regarding claim 12, Beranek in view of Surazski and further in view of Rogynskyy discloses the communication support system of claim 1, and Beranek further discloses:
wherein the circuitry is further configured to:
interpret a suggested keyword of the audio by analyzing the audio (Fig. 4, steps 420 and 425, Col. 6, lines 59-65, receiving and parsing words or phrases and identifying candidate words and/or phrases); and
notify the participant of a reminder regarding the suggested keyword before an end of the communication, in a case that the audio does not include the suggested keyword (Col. 6, line 17 – Col. 7, line 14, providing to a user for readily conveying which keywords and/or phrases have been already covered and which have not been covered).
Regarding claim 13, Beranek in view of Surazski and further in view of Rogynskyy discloses the communication support system of claim 1, and Beranek further discloses:
a memory, wherein the circuitry manages the one or more keywords by storing the one or more keywords in the memory (Col. 3, lines 37-50, pre-built to order keywords and/or phrases; Figs. 3, step 305 and Fig. 4, step 410, Col. 6, lines 5-16 and lines 48-58, a keyword and/or phrase database is built searchable by keyword and/or phrase).
Regarding claim 14, Beranek in view of Surazski and further in view of Rogynskyy discloses the communication support system of claim 13, and Beranek further discloses:
wherein the circuitry is further configured to in the memory in association with the one or more keywords (Col. 6, lines 17-20, recording conversation or live speech source).
Regarding claim 15, Beranek in view of Surazski and further in view of Rogynskyy discloses the communication support system of claim 1, and Beranek further discloses:
wherein to notify the participant, the circuitry is configured to control the display to display the keyword (Col. 7, lines 36-66, “The agent may choose to navigate to the new data presented on the display device as circumstances dictate during the call”).
Regarding claim 16, Beranek in view of Surazski and further in view of Rogynskyy discloses the communication support system of claim 1, and Beranek further discloses:
wherein the circuitry is configured to notify each participant of the one or more participants of the keyword in the case that the circuitry determines that the keyword has not been made in the communication (Col. 5, lines 19-31 and Col. 6, line 17 – Col. 7, line 14, providing to a user for readily conveying which keywords and/or phrases have been already covered and which have not been covered during the conversation, monologue or presentation).
Regarding claim 17, Beranek in view of Surazski and further in view of Rogynskyy discloses the communication support system of claim 1, and Beranek further discloses:
wherein the circuitry is further configured to receive the one or more keywords prior to start of the communication (Col. 3, lines 37-50, pre-built to order keywords and/or phrases; Figs. 3, step 305 and Fig. 4, step 410, Col. 6, lines 5-16 and lines 48-58, a keyword and/or phrase database is built searchable by keyword and/or phrase).
Regarding claim 18, Beranek in view of Surazski and further in view of Rogynskyy discloses the communication support system of claim 17, and Beranek further discloses:
wherein the circuitry receives the one or more keywords from a participant of the one or more participants (Col. 5, lines 44-58, “the speaker or agent may select any topic area using an input device (e.g., mouse, keyboard, or even a telephone button, or the like) to override or preempt a current topic”).
Regarding claims 19 and 20, claims 19 and 20 are the corresponding method and medium claims to a system claim 1 respectively. Therefore, claims 19 and 20 are rejected using the same rationale as applied to claim 1 above.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Please see attached form PTO-892.
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 SEONG-AH A. SHIN whose telephone number is (571)272-5933. The examiner can normally be reached 9 AM-3PM.
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Seong-ah A. Shin
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2659
/SEONG-AH A SHIN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2659