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
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to claims 1-4, 6-14, and 16-20 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection. Applicant’s arguments are directed to the amended subject matter; new prior art is provided below. In light of the amendments, Konrardy has been removed as a reference and replaced with reference Li, see below.
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.
Claims 1-4, 6-14, and 16-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 12254864 B1 Lajszczak; Mateusz Aleksander et al. (hereinafter Lajszczak) in view of US 20250193343 A1 Li; Zhiyun et al. (hereinafter Li).
Re claim 1, Lajszczak teaches
1. A voice assist method, comprising: (fig. 1)
receiving, by a vehicle controller of a vehicle, audio data, wherein the audio data is indicative of a voice command uttered by a user of the vehicle in natural language; (as in a driver of a vehicle for hands-free or screen-based operation of a vehicle console/control col 40 lines 12-26 and control with voice commands thereof as part of an ASR input col 16 lines 20-65)
encoding, using an encoder of a variational autoencoder, the audio data into a latent space to generate encoded data; (encoder output to a decoder col 3 lines 4-17 and VAE operation on a noise-reduced speech signal col 7 line 47 to col 8 line 11… compression form analogous to latent space col 8 lines 27-57)
generating, using a decoder of the variational autoencoder, an expression from the encoded data and the contextual data, wherein the expression is representative of the audio data; and (encoder output to a decoder col 3 lines 4-17)
commanding, using the vehicle controller, the vehicle to generate a response based on the expression generated by the decoder of the variational autoencoder... (encoder output to a decoder col 3 lines 4-17 and VAE operation on a noise-reduced speech signal col 7 line 47 to col 8 line 11… controlling a vehicle or a console thereof which controls a vehicle per se col 33 line 35 to col 34 line 46 and command logs or information about commands col 18 lines 12-35)
However, while Lajszczak teaches date and time of commands from a user such as someone in a vehicle as in col 39 line 15 to col 40 line 11 with fig. 10, and various buttons for operations of a vehicle thereof, it fails to teach:
receiving, from sensors disposed on the vehicle, contextual data relating to the voice command uttered by the user of the vehicle, wherein the contextual data includes external factors data, wherein the external factors data includes traffic conditions around the vehicle when the user uttered the voice command, a date when the user uttered the voice command, and a time when the user uttered the voice command; (Li timestamps for various user operations of control which can reasonably include voice command for control, further to tie in surroundings of a vehicle, when a switch from an autonomous mode to non-autonomous mode is made, the control circuitry may automatically notify the conference device used by the driver to generate a bookmark and associate it with a timestamp in the video conference call 0096 and 0100-0102 and expressly viewing traffic using vehicle sensors to determine if a driving mode can be safely switched to or remain in autonomous mode 0141 and 0061)
..and to control an actuator of the vehicle based on the response, wherein the response is related to controlling the actuator. (Li viewing traffic using vehicle sensors to determine if a driving mode can be safely switched to or remain in autonomous mode which requires the actuation or operation of brakes, transmission, and general manual mode once autonomous mode is changed out 0141 and 0061)
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 system of Lajszczak to incorporate the above claim limitations as taught by Li to allow for combining prior art elements such as detecting traffic surroundings for safety operations of a vehicle with a hands-free voice operation system, according to known methods to yield predictable results, such as the detection of vehicle obstacles such that the user is made aware, thereby providing a safer driving experience in both manual or autonomous modes, such that the user is notified in the instance a dangerous conditions is present, and similarly to notify the user when either system changes or user-operated changes take effect, thereby increasing safety of the vehicle and user in real time.
Re claim 11, this claim has been rejected for teaching a broader, or narrower claim based on general inclusion of hardware alone (e.g. processor, memory, instructions), representation of claim 1 omitting/including hardware for instance, otherwise amounting to a virtually identical scope.
Re claims 2 and 12, Lajszczak teaches
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the method does not include executing lexical tokenization of the audio data. (fig. 1 no mention or suggestion of lexical tokenization)
Re claims 3 and 13, Lajszczak teaches
3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:
reducing a background noise from the audio data; and (VAE operation on a noise-reduced speech signal col 7 line 47 to col 8 line 11)
recognizing a voice in the audio data. (controlling a vehicle or a console thereof which controls a vehicle per se col 33 line 35 to col 34 line 46 and command logs or information about commands col 18 lines 12-35)
Re claims 4 and 14, Lajszczak teaches
4. The method of claim 3, wherein the encoder of the variational autoencoder is a first neural network that maps the audio data into the latent space, the audio data is in an input space, and the decoder is a second neural network that maps the encoded data into the input space, the contextual data includes user voice data, and the user voice data includes information about a voice tone of the user while the user utters the voice command. (encoder 130 and decoder 150, encoder output to a decoder col 3 lines 4-17 with fig. 1, and VAE operation on a noise-reduced speech signal col 7 line 47 to col 8 line 11… controlling a vehicle or a console thereof which controls a vehicle per se col 33 line 35 to col 34 line 46 and command logs or information about commands col 18 lines 12-35… pitch/tone col 18 line 59 to col 19 line 18 and col 22 lines 21-38)
Re claims 6 and 16, Lajszczak teaches
6. The method of claim 5, wherein the contextual data includes conversational history data, wherein the conversation history data includes information about a conversational history of the user that uttered the voice command. (conversation or interaction history, for controlling a vehicle or a console thereof which controls a vehicle per se col 33 line 35 to col 34 line 46 and command logs or information about commands col 18 lines 12-35)
Re claims 7 and 17, Lajszczak teaches
7. The method of claim 6, wherein the contextual data serves as an input of the second neural network. (encoder 130 and decoder 150, encoder output to a decoder col 3 lines 4-17 with fig. 1)
Re claims 8 and 18, Lajszczak teaches
8. The method of claim 7, wherein the response is generated based on a plurality of constraints. (constraints such as confidence thresholds col 46 line 65 to col 47 line 22)
Re claims 9 and 19, Lajszczak teaches
9. The method of claim 8, wherein the plurality of constraints includes response time and sentence length. (constraints such as frames, speech itself, input length col 46 line 65 to col 47 line 22)
Re claims 10 and 20, while Lajszczak teaches date and time of commands from a user such as someone in a vehicle as in col 39 line 15 to col 40 line 11 with fig. 10, and various buttons for operations of a vehicle thereof, it fails to teach:
wherein the response includes controlling [[an]]the actuator of the vehicle based on the response includes switching to an autonomous driving mode, and the response includes an explanation of a decision made when the vehicle is in the autonomous driving mode. (Li the control circuitry may automatically notify the user and conference device used by the driver to generate a bookmark and associate it with a timestamp in the video conference call 0096 and 0100-0102, viewing traffic using vehicle sensors to determine if a driving mode can be safely switched to or remain in autonomous mode which requires the actuation or operation of brakes, transmission, and general manual mode once autonomous mode is changed out 0141 and 0061)
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 system of Lajszczak to incorporate the above claim limitations as taught by Li to allow for combining prior art elements such as detecting traffic surroundings for safety operations of a vehicle with a hands-free voice operation system, according to known methods to yield predictable results, such as the detection of vehicle obstacles such that the user is made aware, thereby providing a safer driving experience in both manual or autonomous modes, such that the user is notified in the instance a dangerous conditions is present, and similarly to notify the user when either system changes or user-operated changes take effect, thereby increasing safety of the vehicle and user in real time.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20240170003 A1 Le Roux; Jonathan et al.
Speech command and VAE operations
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/MICHAEL COLUCCI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2655 (571)-270-1847
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Michael.Colucci@uspto.gov
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