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 with respect to 35 U.S.C. 101 Abstract Idea in regards to claims 1-6 have been considered, however are not found to be persuasive due to the following reasons. Claims 1 and 6 passes Step 1 of Alice/Mayo analysis because it is written as a “presentation evaluation device”. Step 2A, the claims are directed to an abstract idea because its focus is evaluating a presentation by collecting speech information, comparing the speech to stored explanations and keywords, deciding whether expected content was spoken, scoring the presentation, identifying highly rated presentations, and updating keywords. These are mental process such as observation, comparison, evaluation, judgment, and classification, and they also relate to organizing and evaluating human presentation activity. The processor, memory, speech recognition, NLP, noun extraction, internet search, and threshold comparisons do not improve computer technology; they are used as tools to perform the abstract evaluation. Step 2B, the claims do not add an inventive concept because the additional elements are generic computer components performing ordinary functions: receiving audio, converting data, recognizing speech, storing information, reading stored sentences and keywords, comparing text, calculating scores, applying thresholds, and updating stored data. Considered individually and as an ordered combination, these steps merely automate the abstract idea of evaluating whether a presenter covered expected material. Therefore, claims 1-6 are rejected because they recite an abstract presentation-evaluation process implemented on generic computer technology without significantly more.
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 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Claims 1 and 6 are rejected under 101 Abstract idea. The substance of the claims are evaluating a presentation by collecting speech, comparing the speech to stored presentation explanations/keywords, deciding whether content was covered, ranking presentations, and updating keywords. These steps are essentially information collection, content comparison, judgement, scoring, and classification.
The claims are directed to an abstract idea because it automates a human evaluation process: listening to a presentation, checking whether expected explanations were spoken, identifying important topic words, comparing presentations, and adding useful new keywords. The speech recognition, natural language processing, noun extraction, internet searching, threshold comparison, and usage rate calculation are all used to perform that evaluation. The claims do not improve speech recognition, NLP, internet searching, memory operation, processor operation, or any other computer technology; rather, the computer is used as a tool to perform the evaluation.
The additional computer elements also do not add “significantly more.” The processor, memory, storage units, speech analysis unit, keyword storage unit, and topic word extraction unit are described functionally and at a high level. They perform ordinary computer functions: receiving data, converting audio, recognizing speech, storing information, comparing text, calculating thresholds, and updating stored data. Even when viewed as an ordered combination, the claims do not recite a specific technical solution to a technical problem; it recites using generic computer/NLP tools to carry out presentation evaluation.
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the claims are (i) mere instructions to implement the idea on a computer, and/or (ii) recitation of generic computer structure that serves to perform generic computer functions that are well-understood, routine, and conventional activities previously known to the pertinent industry. Viewed as a whole, these additional claim element(s) do not provide meaningful limitation(s) to transform the abstract idea into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea such that the claim(s) amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Therefore, the claim(s) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter. There is further no improvement to the computing device.
Dependent claims 2-5 further recite an abstract idea performable by a human and do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea as they do not provide steps other than what is conventionally known.
Claim 2, merely displays an explanation that the system determined was not yet uttered; displaying the result of an abstract evaluation is insignificant post-solution activity, not a technical improvement.
Claim 3, merely displays page information, explanation information, and whether an explanation was provided; this is only collecting, organizing, analyzing, and presenting information.
Claim 4, merely stores keywords and further evaluates the presentation based on whether speech includes those keywords; this is mental process of comparing words and judging performance, implemented on generic computer components.
Claim 5, merely compares speech to stored keywords and sentences, calculates keyword-based and sentence-based scores, combines them into a final evaluation value, and evaluates the presentation; these are abstract scoring and judgment steps performed by a generic computer.
Allowable Subject Matter
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
JP 7049010 provides the base presentation-evaluation device. It explicitly teaches a computer-supported presentation evaluation system including voice analysis unit 3, presentation- material-related information storage unite 5, keyword storage unit 7, related word storage unit 9 and evaluation unit 11. JP’010 evaluates presenter speech based on keywords/related words associated with presentation pages.
Asadi et al. (“Real-Time Presentation Tracking Using Semantic Keyword Spotting”) would have been combined with JP’010 to improve the accuracy of the evaluation. Asadi explains that presenters do not necessarily recite notes exactly: “The system cannot depend on exact forms of words and sentences, and should be able to detect the semantic relatedness between the spoken terms and source text.” ([1.] [pg. 3081]) Asadi then teaches a sentence-level system in which “the presentation notes for each slide are segmented into sentences,” ASR results are matched to keywords/synonyms, and sentences above a threshold are tagged as covered. ([Abstract] [3.3] [pgs. 3081-0382])
Anders et al. (US 2019/0129591) would have been combined with JP’010 and Asadi to supply speech to text topic extraction and noun/POS-based topic matching. Anders teaches receiving uttered phrases as PCM/WAV/MP3/compressed audio, performing speech to text, POS tagging, noun identification, and matching extracted verbal topic categories to stored topic keywords in a topic index. ([0040-0046])
The difference between the prior art and the claimed invention is that JP’010, Asadi nor Anders explicitly teach collating the extracted nouns with keywords stored in the keyword storage unit and performing an internet search using the extracted nouns together with the keywords to verify co-occurrence of the extracted nouns and the keywords above a predetermined threshold; automatically computes, by comparing evaluation values of a plurality of presentations against a stored threshold to identify highly evaluated presentations, and then calculating a usage rate of each topic word across the identified highly evaluated presentations, and storing, when the calculated usage rate meets or exceeds a predetermined threshold.
Therefore, it would not have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the teachings of JP’010, Asadi and Anders to include collating the extracted nouns with keywords stored in the keyword storage unit and performing an internet search using the extracted nouns together with the keywords to verify co-occurrence of the extracted nouns and the keywords above a predetermined threshold; automatically computes, by comparing evaluation values of a plurality of presentations against a stored threshold to identify highly evaluated presentations, and then calculating a usage rate of each topic word across the identified highly evaluated presentations, and storing, when the calculated usage rate meets or exceeds a predetermined threshold.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Sekine (US 11,908,474)
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHREYANS A PATEL whose telephone number is (571)270-0689. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8am-5pm PST.
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, Pierre Desir can be reached at 571-272-7799. 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.
SHREYANS A. PATEL
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2653
/SHREYANS A PATEL/Examiner, Art Unit 2659
Prosecution Insights