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 .
This action is in response to the communication filed on April 18, 2024.
Claims 1-10 are pending in this action.
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 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more. The claim(s) recite(s) an abstract idea of processing a data stream. The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the claims directed to an abstract idea of processing a data stream. The claim is drawn to a process and a system (a series of steps or acts) that similar to an idea ‘Of itself such as an instantiated concept, plan or scheme, as well as a mental process (thinking) that “can be performed in the human mind, or by a human using a pen and paper’.
The claim does not require that the method be implemented by a particular machine. The method does not require a particular transformation of a particular article. There is not transformation of a physical objects or data into a different state or thing. This processing a data stream is similar to delivering user-selected media content to a portable devices found by the courts to be abstract idea (Affinity Labs of Tex., LLC v. Amazon.com Inc., 120 USPQ2d 1210 (Fed. Cir. 2016)) and also displaying certain results of the collection and analysis found by the courts to be abstract idea (Elec. Power Grp., LLC v. Alstom S.A., 119 USPQ2d 1739 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because claims broadly recites the result (processing a data stream, transmitting a data chunks to server, server processing the data chunks, and transmitting the processed data chunks back to client for play back), rather than sufficiently claiming a technical means of achieving the result. See Two-Way Media Ltd. v. Comcast Cable Commons, LLC, 874 F.3d 1329, 1337 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (“The claim requires the functional results ... but does not sufficiently describe how to achieve these results in a non-abstract way.”).
The claims recite a Judicial exception relating to “processing a data stream, along with a client and server (generic computing device) that simply used as tool to implement the abstract idea”. Here the claims do not change the underlying or other technology, rather the claimed techniques playing using computing device as pedagogical tool. The claimed additional elements—the computing device —“merely use a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea” or “do no more than generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment.” Memorandum, 84 Fed. Reg. at 55; see Customedia Techs., LLC v. Dish Network Corp., No. 2018- 2239, 2020 WL 1069742, at *3 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 6, 2020) (“We have held that it is not enough, however, to merely improve a fundamental practice or abstract process by invoking a computer merely as a tool.”).
Accordingly, claims 1-10 do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. See Memorandum, 84 Fed. Reg. at 54. As the claim recites a judicial exception and fails to integrate the exception into a practical application, the claim is “directed to the .. . judicial exception.” Id. at 54.
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements are simply a generic computer. The claim amounts to no more than processing a data stream. Taking the claimed elements either individually or as ordered combination, that transform claims into patent-eligible application, since claims merely recite use of already existing computer-based audio/speech processing, and there is no “inventive concept” in play using computing device well- understood, routine, and conventional activities commonly used in industry of speech processing, since claims, at most, attempt to limit abstract idea to particular technological environment, and such limitation has been held insufficient to save claims in this context, and since dependent claims are not rendered patent-eligible by recitation of additional steps, such as automatic speech recognition; performing LLM processing on the audio chanks; even though additional limitations may narrow scope of claims. The claim as a whole does not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Accordingly, claims 1-10, are ineligible.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-3 and 6-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Dragosh et al. (US 6,366,886).
As per claim 1, Dragosh discloses, a system for processing a data stream, the system comprising a client and a server, the client in communication with the server,
wherein the client is configured to divide the data stream into a plurality of data chunks and transmit the data chunks one by one to the server (Fig. 5, Packet Network by definition inherently divide the data stream into a plurality of data chunk (Packet), and element 503);
wherein the server is configured to start processing the data chunks transmitted from the client before the client finishes transmitting all of the plurality of data chunks (col. 6, line 34-col.7, line 10, reads on “At step 504, ASR server 100 performs speech recognition on the streaming digitized audio as the audio is received from ASR client 130. Speech recognition is performed using known recognition algorithms, such as those employed by the AT&T WATSON speech recognition engine, and is performed within the constraints of the selected grammar as defined by the activated rule. At step 505, ASR server 100 returns streaming text (i.e., partially recognized speech) as the input speech is recognized. Thus, as ASR server 100 reaches its initial results, it returns those results to ASR client 130 even as ASR server 100 continues to process additional streaming audio being sent by ASR client 130. This process of returning recognized text "on the fly" permits ASR client 130 (or the application interfacing with ASR client 130) to provide feedback to the speaker”);
wherein the server is further configured to transmit processed data chunks to the client in a streaming fashion (col. 6, line 45-col. 7, line 16); and
wherein the client is further configured to play back the processed data chunks one by one immediately upon receiving the processed data chunks from the server (col. 6, line 34-col.7, line 16 and col. 9, lines 36-67).
As per claim 2, Dragosh discloses, wherein the data stream comprises an audio clip; and the data chunks are audio chunks (col. 6, lines 34-53).
As per claim 3, Dragosh discloses, wherein the server is further configured to perform streaming automatic speech recognition on the audio chunks (Fig. 5, element 504).
As per claim 6-8, they are analyzed and thus rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejections of claims 1-3, because the corresponding claims have similar limitations.
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.
Claim(s) 4-5 and 9-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Dragosh et al. (US 6,366,886) as applied to claims 2 and 7 above, and further in view of Baeuml et al. (US 2023/0074406).
As per claim 4, Dragosh does not explicitly disclose, but Baeumal discloses, wherein the server is further configured to perform large language model (LLM) processing on the audio chunks (Abstract, Paragraph 0059).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Dragosh by including server is configured to perform large language model (LLM) processing on the audio chunks as taught by Baeuml for the advantage of implementations can receive a stream of audio data that captures a spoken utterance including an assistant query, determine, based on processing the stream of audio data, a set of assistant outputs that are each predicted to be responsive to the assistant query, process, using large language model (LLM) output(s), the assistant outputs and context of the dialog session to generate a set of modified assistant outputs, and cause given modified assistant output, from among the set of modified assistant outputs, to be provided for presentation to the user in response to the spoken utterance (Abstract).
As per claim 5, Dragosh discloses, wherein the server is further configured to include accumulation heuristic to improve performance when processing the audio chunks (Fig. 5, element 505).
As per claim 9-10, they are analyzed and thus rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejections of claims 4-5, because the corresponding claims have similar limitations.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Bijl et al. (US 6,173,259) discloses, speech to text conversion.
Thelen et al. (US 6,487,534) discloses, distributed client-server speech recognition system.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Abul K. Azad whose telephone number is (571) 272-7599. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Bhavesh Mehta, can be reached at (571) 272-7453.
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Commissioner for Patents
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December 2, 2025
/ABUL K AZAD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2656