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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 10/9/2024, 11/7/2024, 7/8/2025, 7/30/2025, 8/13/2025, 8/26/2025 and 10/27/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-20 are pending in this application.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
Claims 1, 5, 7-8, 12 and 14-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication 2021/0233541).
As per claim 8, Chen et al. discloses:
A system for detecting fraudulent speech in media data comprising:
a computer comprising at least one processor (Paragraph [0096]) configured to:
receive media data including a speech signal in an audio signal of the media data (Figure 7, item 712 and Paragraphs [0096-0097] – the audio signal including speech is received);
determine a plurality of sections of the media data according to a section boundary (Figure 7, item 703 and Paragraph [0097] – the audio signal is parsed into segments);
for each section of the media data, extract a segment fakeprint for the section using a plurality of section features extracted using a speech portion of the speech signal occurring in the section (Figure 7, item 704 and paragraphs [0099-0101] – the inbound spoofprint is the fakeprint for the section of the inbound signal);
generate a section liveness score for the segment based upon a distance between the section fakeprint and a classification threshold value (Figure 7, items 716 & 718 and Paragraphs [0102-0103] – the distance score is the classification threshold value and the verification score is the liveness score); and
identify the portion of the speech signal in the section as genuine or fraudulent based upon comparing the segment liveness score for the section against a fraud detection threshold (Paragraph [0103] – the distance score or other outputted values are compared to a threshold and the segment is determined to be a spoof or not based on the comparison).
Chen et al. fails to explicitly disclose that the segmenting boundaries during operation are preconfigured, but pre-processing techniques of application 17/079,082 (now U.S. Patent 12,087,319) are incorporated by reference (see paragraph [0028]) and in column 7, lines 7-22 of the patent it discloses a pre-processing technique that divides the signal into fixed length (i.e. preconfigured) frames (segments). It would be obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the invention to modify the method, system and computer readable medium of Chen et al. with the fixed length signal preprocessing technique of the incorporated patent because it is a case of simple substitution of one known element (Unspecified segment lengths in Chen et al.) for another (fixed length segments in the incorporated patent) to obtain predictable results. Since the technique is incorporated into Chen et al. by reference, the results are necessarily predictable.
Claim 1 is directed to the method of using the system of claim 8, so is rejected for similar reasons.
Claim 15 is directed to a non-transitory computer readable media containing instructions to cause a processor to act as the system of claim 8, so is rejected for similar reasons.
As per claims 5 and 12, Chen et al. discloses or suggests all of the limitations of claims 1 and 8 above. Chen et al. further discloses:
the segmenting boundary is based upon a uniform time interval. (column 7, lines 7-22 of incorporated patent)
As per claims 7 and 14, Chen et al. discloses or suggests all of the limitations of claims 1 and 8 above. Chen et al. further discloses:
in response to identifying the speech portion of the speech signal in the segment as fraudulent, generating, by the computer, an alert notification indicating a timestamp of the segment in the media data (Paragraph [0103] – a human readable indicator (e.g. plain language, visual display) indicates that the audio signal is a spoof attempt or the server may trigger one or more downstream applications).
Chen et al. fails to explicitly disclose that the alert includes a timestamp of the segment. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to include a timestamp, since it has been held to be within the general skill of a worker in the art to select a known material (information) on the basis of its suitability for the intended use as a matter of obvious design choice. In re Leshin, 125 USPQ 416.
Claims 3-4, 6, 10-11 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication 2021/0233541) in view Basye et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication 2020/0194032)
As per claims 3 and 10, Chen et al. discloses or suggests all of the limitations in claims 1 and 8 above. Chen et al. fails to disclose but Basye et al. in the same field of endeavor teaches:
determining, by the computer, the speech portion of the speech signal in the inbound audio signal occurring in the segment, wherein the computer ignores a non-speech portion of the input audio signal in the segment (Paragraph [0016] – ASR and beamforming allow non-speech audio inputs to be ignored).
It would be obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the system, method and computer readable media of Chen et al. with the speech isolation capabilities of Basye et al. because improves speech processing accuracy (see paragraph [0010] of Basye et al.)
As per claims 4 and 11, the combination Chen et al. and Basye et al. discloses or suggests all of the limitations in claims 3 and 10 above. Basye et al. in the combination further discloses:
executing, by the computer, at least one of voice activity detection (VAD), an automatic speech recognition (ASR), or speaker diarization, to determine the speech portion of the speech signal in the inbound audio signal in the segment (Paragraph [0016] – ASR and beamforming allow non-speech audio inputs to be ignored and speech portions processed).
As per claims 6 and 13, Chen et al. discloses or suggests all of the limitations in claims 1 and 18 above. Chen et al. fails to disclose but Basye et al. in the same field of endeavor teaches:
the segmenting boundary is based on detecting a triggering condition associated with the speech signal (Paragraph [0032] – the segment boundaries are the beginning or end of speech).
It would be obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the system, method and computer readable media of Chen et al. with the endpointing capabilities of Basye et al. because improves speech processing accuracy (see paragraphs [0010-0011] of Basye et al.)
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 9 and 16-20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see page 7, filed 2/12/2026, with respect to the rejection of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. 112 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The ejection of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. 112 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 7-8, filed 2/12/2026, with respect to the rejections of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered and are not persuasive. Specifically, the change from segment to section does not change the interpretation of the claims. Section can be segment or frame, and Chen processes the signal frame by frame. However, the limitations in dependent claims 2, 9 and 16 preclude that interpretation and would be allowable if incorporated into the independent claims.
Examiner Notes
The Examiner cites particular columns and line numbers in the references as applied to the claims above for the convenience of the Applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the Applicant fully considers the references in its entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or as disclosed by the Examiner.
Communications via Internet e-mail are at the discretion of the applicant and require written authorization. Should the Applicant wish to communicate via e-mail, including the following paragraph in their response will allow the Examiner to do so:
“Recognizing that Internet communications are not secure, I hereby authorize the USPTO to communicate with me concerning any subject matter of this application by electronic mail. I understand that a copy of these communications will be made of record in the application file.”
Should e-mail communication be desired, the Examiner can be reached at Edwin.Leland@USPTO.gov
Conclusion
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 EDWIN S LELAND III whose telephone number is (571)270-5678. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00 - 5:00 M-F.
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.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hai Phan can be reached at 571-272-6338. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/EDWIN S LELAND III/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2654
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