DETAILED ACTION
This is the initial Office action based on the application filed February 12, 2024.
Claims 21-40 are pending and have been examined.
Claims 1-20 have been canceled, claim 21 has been amended, and claims 22-40 have been added by preliminary amendments dated 04/29/2024 and 05/29/2024.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statements filed 02/12/2024 and 07/02/2024 have been considered. Note that most of the NPL documents are found in the parent application. Initialed copies of Form 1449 are enclosed herewith.
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 21, 23-28, 30-35, 37-40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Iwase (US 2021/0035554) in view of Fay (US 2015/0310865).
Regarding claim 21, Iwase discloses:
utilizing, by the dialog-driven application management service, the one or more timing-related settings to determine a boundary of a first end user utterance of the particular dialog-driven application (see at least paragraph 212, speech utterance detection specifies starts and end timings of the user utterance; paragraph 213, VAD differentiates the user utterance speech and specifies a period during which the user speech is uttered); and
utilizing, by the dialog-driven application management service, the interruptibility setting to determine whether, in response to an end user interruption detected during presentation of output generated by the dialog-driven application management service, the dialog- driven application management service is to terminate presentation of the output, wherein the output is generated based at least in part on analysis of the first end user utterance (see at least figure 7; paragraphs 36-40; user barge-in during system utterance, determine whether to stop system utterance, and stops the system utterance; figure 1 and paragraph 103)
However, Iwase does not explicitly disclose, but Fay discloses:
obtaining, via one or more programmatic interfaces of a dialog-driven application management service, (a) an interruptibility setting of a particular dialog- driven application, and (b) one or more timing-related settings of the particular dialog-driven application, including a first timing-related setting pertaining to a final silence of an end user utterance (see at least paragraph 21, adaptive voice recognition system includes rules and metrics related to timeouts and use of barge-in and speed of speech of users for end of utterance; paragraph 42, user expertise evaluations including metrics can be used to cause settings in voice recognition settings or to update user specific voice recognition settings; paragraph 22, user feedback override adaptation settings for example manual selection; paragraph 7, end of utterance timing adjustment);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Iwase by adapting the teachings of Fay to include adjustable voice recognition settings. The combination allows for a more customizable user experience with the voice recognition system adjusting for speed of user speech among other things (Fay ¶27).
Regarding claim 23, the rejection of claim 21 is incorporated, and Iwase further discloses:
performing the analysis of the first end user utterance at the dialog-driven application management service using one or more [NLUs] (see at least paragraph 218, the utterance semantic analysis unit has a natural language understanding and estimates the intent of the user utterance)
However, Iwase does not explicitly disclose, but Fay discloses:
one or more neural network models (see at least paragraph 29, adaptive voice recognition system is configured as part of a neural network system)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Iwase by adapting the teachings of Fay to include a neural network model. The combination allows for a more robust and context-aware interactive system.
Regarding claim 24, the rejection of claim 21 is incorporated, and Iwase further discloses:
in response to obtaining a tuning request via the one or more programmatic interfaces, modifying, by the dialog-driven application management service, at least one timing-related setting of the one or more timing-related settings, wherein said modifying is based at least in part on analysis of records of interactions with end users of the particular dialog-driven application (see at least paragraphs 194, 196-197, user adjustable configurations settings for timing, including duration of fade processing for a user who talks slowly)
Regarding claim 25, the rejection of claim 21 is incorporated. However, Iwase does not explicitly disclose, but Fay discloses:
presenting, by the dialog-driven application management service via the one or more programmatic interfaces, at least one metric pertaining to interruptions initiated by one or more end users of the particular dialog-driven application during presentation of output by the dialog-driven application management service (see at least paragraph 21, timeout metrics, adjustable settings; paragraph 42, updating settings, storing rules and metrics in the expertise database; paragraph 22 and 26, manually adjusting settings)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Iwase by adapting the teachings of Fay to include providing access to the metrics related to timing and barge-ins. The combination allows for increased user flexibility in interacting with the voice recognition system.
Regarding claim 26, the rejection of claim 21 is incorporated, and Iwase further discloses:
establishing a network connection which enables bi-directional streaming of data between an end user device and the dialog-driven application management service, wherein the first end user utterance is obtained at the dialog-driven application management service from the end user device via the network connection (see at least figure 2; paragraph 111, information processing apparatus when connecting to a server via a network acquires information to generate a response to the user utterance from the server)
Regarding claim 27, the rejection of claim 26 is incorporated, and Iwase further discloses:
wherein the end user device comprises at least a portion of one or more of: (a) a voice-activated assistant, (b) a virtual reality device, (c) an augmented reality device, (d) an intelligent home appliance, (e) an automated vehicle, (f) a phone, (g) a game device, (h) a laptop, (i) a tablet, or (j) a desktop computer (see at least figure 2; paragraphs 107, 108, 231, smart speaker, agent device, smartphone, PC)
Regarding claims 28, 30-35, 37-40, the scope of the instant claims does not differ substantially from that of claims 21 and 23-27. Accordingly, claims 28 and 30-34 are rejected for the same reasons as set forth in the rejections of claims 21 and 23-27, respectively, and claims 35 and 37-40 are rejected for the same reasons as set forth in the rejections of claims 21 and 23-26, respectively.
Claims 22, 29, and 36 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Iwase (US 2021/0035554), in view of Fay (US 2015/0310865), and further in view of Kalns (US 2014/0310001).
Regarding claim 22, the rejection of claim 21 is incorporated, and Iwase further discloses:
wherein the first end user utterance is provided as input to the particular dialog-driven application in an audio format by a first end user as part of a sequence of interactions between the first end user and the particular dialog-driven application, the computer-implemented method further comprising (see at least figure 1 and paragraph 101):
However, Iwase and Fay do not explicitly disclose, but Kalns discloses
obtaining, at the dialog-driven application management service from the first end user, during the sequence of interactions, additional input in a text format; and presenting, by the dialog-driven application management service, additional output responsive to the additional input (see at least paragraph 37 and 39, VPA receive via the multi-modal user interface different forms of input including dialog inputs and text-based language input, the VPA is mainly concerned with processing NL dialog inputs the other forms of inputs may be used to aid in understanding of the NL dialog inputs, determine intent or determine a suitable response to the NL dialog inputs, or other reasons)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Iwase and Fay by adapting the teachings of Kalns to include providing multiple methods of interacting with the application including voice and text. The combination allows for increased user flexibility in interacting with the voice recognition system.
Regarding claims 29 and 36, the scope of the instant claims does not differ substantially from that of claim 22 and they are rejected for the same reasons.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Hansen discloses a barge-in system for a speech recognition system.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KIMBERLY L JORDAN whose telephone number is (571)270-5481. The examiner can normally be reached Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday 9am-3pm.
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/KIMBERLY L JORDAN/Examiner, Art Unit 2194
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