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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 05/15/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In respect to 35 USC 101 rejection, Applicant's arguments fail to comply with 37 CFR 1.111(b) because they amount to a general allegation that the claims define a patentable invention without specifically pointing out how the language of the claims integrates the abstract idea into a practical application and recites significantly more beyond the abstract idea. The argument is simply a conclusory statement.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1, 11, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 11 and 19 have been amended with the following: “training, using the simulated multi-speaker recording and one or more diarization labels, a speaker diarization model to identify speaker-labeled utterances.”
No support for this amendment can be found in the specification as filed. This rejection also applies to all the dependent claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is
directed to a Judicial exception (i.e., abstract idea) without significantly more. The
claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly
more than the judicial exception.
The independent claims (claims 1, 11, 19) recite generic computer implementation elements:
Claim 1 recites steps that can be performed entirely within the human mind or by a human using pen and paper, which falls under the Mental Process grouping of abstract ideas.
Specifically, the claim recites a generic mental process (or process using pen and paper) where a human being can listen to a first portion of an audio recording (a simulated multi-speaker recording) and, using pen and paper, count and make a determination of how many times a speech attribute occurs to figure out a first rate; using pen and paper, mentally compute a first discrepancy by calculating the mathematical difference between the observed first rate and a target rate; mentally make a determination based on the calculated difference to select a second rate for how often the speech attribute should occur in a second portion of the recording; using pen and paper, draw or outline a statistical distribution of amounts based on the second rate; mentally select or sample an amount from that written distribution; using their own human voice (or manually adjusting an audio player), sound out or produce the second portion of the multi-speaker recording in accordance with the selected amount; and listen to the resulting recording alongside written speaker labels to manually learn, evaluate, or train themselves (or a student) to recognize speaker-labeled utterances.
Because each of these individual steps, observing rates, calculating differences, selecting amounts from a distribution, producing speech, and evaluating speech against labels can be performed in the human mind or with simple pen and paper the claims recite a judicial exception.
The claim does not integrate the abstract mental process into a practical application. The limitations recite functional data manipulation and general concepts of recording speech and evaluating labels without tying the process to a specific technical improvement in computer hardware, signal processing devices, or specific machine learning architectures. Merely adding generic terms such as “simulated recording,” “distribution,” or “model” does not restrict the mental operations to a practical technological implementation.
The claim fails to provide an “inventive concept” or “significantly more” under Alice Step 2. The physical steps of recording or training are described at a high level of generality and represent well-known, routine, and conventional human activity (e.g., listening to audio, performing simple mathematical subtraction, picking a number from a list, speaking, and labeling speakers). The combination of these generic mental steps does not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
The Dependent claims further specify variations (e.g., sampling from distributions, selecting speakers based on turn probability, the speech-based attributes being overlap or silence, computing based on running length) but these are additional abstract data manipulation or mathematical/statistical operations and do not supply a specific technological means or other unconventional feature that transforms the claims into patent-eligible subject matter.
The specification does not recite an improvement to the underlying computer architecture, a novel machine, or a specific non-generic technique for generating synthetic speech data that improves synthetic generation in a technical manner. The claims instead use generic computing terms to effectuate the abstract idea.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to an abstract idea and lacking an inventive concept that transforms the abstract idea into patent-eligible subject matter.
NOTE: To overcome the 101 rejection, either of this amendment will work in overcoming the amendment has been suggested: (the first one is the incorporating of claims 7-10. The second one, of claims 7 and 10):
1.(Currently Amended) A method comprising: determining a first target rate for a first speech-based attribute by: converting a set of parameters associated with generating a simulated multi-speaker recording into a first distribution associated with the first speech-based attribute, sampling a mean of a second distribution of rates for the first speech-based attribute from the first distribution, and computing the first target rate based at least on the mean; determining a first rate at which the first speech-based attribute occurs within a first portion of the simulated multi-speaker recording, wherein the first speech-based attribute comprises at least one of an overlap in speech or a silence; computing a first discrepancy that represents a first difference between the first rate and the first target rate for the first speech-based attribute; determining, based at least on the first discrepancy, a second rate at which the first speech-based attribute is to occur within a second portion of the simulated multi-speaker recording; generating a third distribution of amounts of the first speech-based attribute based at least on the second rate for the first speech-based attribute; sampling an amount of the first speech-based attribute from the third distribution; generating the second portion of the simulated multi-speaker recording by adding the sampled amount of the first speech-based attribute to the second portion of the simulated multi-speaker recording; and training, using the simulated multi-speaker recording and one or more diarization labels, a speaker diarization model to identify speaker-labeled utterances.
1.(Currently Amended) A method comprising: determining a first rate at which a first speech-based attribute occurs within a first portion of a simulated multi-speaker recording, wherein the first speech-based attribute comprises at least one of an overlap in speech or a silence; computing a first discrepancy that represents a first difference between the first rate and a first target rate for the first speech-based attribute; determining, based at least on the first discrepancy, a second rate at which the first speech-based attribute is to occur within a second portion of the simulated multi-speaker recording; generating a distribution of amounts of the first speech-based attribute based at least on the second rate for the first speech-based attribute; sampling an amount of the first speech-based attribute from the distribution; generating the second portion of the simulated multi-speaker recording by adding the sampled amount of the first speech-based attribute to the second portion of the simulated multi-speaker recording; and training, using the simulated multi-speaker recording and one or more diarization labels, a speaker diarization model to identify speaker-labeled utterances.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PIERRE LOUIS DESIR whose telephone number is (571)272-7799. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9AM-5:30PM.
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.
The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/PIERRE LOUIS DESIR/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2659
