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 . 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 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.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-4, 7-12 and 15-17 are pending and have been examined below.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments regarding 35 USC 103 have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to any of the references being used in the current rejection. While Examiner does not agree with Applicant’s assertions, Examiner has provided an updated rejection of the claims based on prior art that more explicitly discloses the claimed subject matter.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 USC 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, 2, 4, 7-10, 12 and 15-17 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over US20200114931 (“Rao”) in view of US20080059188 (“Konopka”) and US20180357040 (“Spiewla”).
Claim 1
Rao discloses a voice recognition (VR) system (0032), comprising:
one or more microphones (0022 microphones to receive user input in the form of voice commands);
one or more speakers (0025 speakers); and
a computing device, comprising a processor, a memory, and a plurality of buttons (0029 processor, 0031 memory, 0021 buttons), wherein:
each user input mechanism, of a plurality of user input mechanisms, is associated with a VR functionality, of a plurality of VR functionalities (0061 For example, the in-vehicle computing system may store and/or access a list of wake words, each associated with a personal assistant service (e.g., each wake word may only be associated with a single personal assistant service, but each personal assistant service may be associated with a plurality of wake words). The in-vehicle computing system may determine that the voice input includes a wake word if the voice input includes a voice data stream that matches a wake word in the above-described list., 0064 The determination of the context of the voice request and the determination of the selected PA service at 614 and 616 may be performed at the in-vehicle computing system) ,
each VR functionality, of the plurality of VR functionalities, has one or more grammar domains associated with it (0063 The configuration of the PA services may additionally or alternatively include different natural language databases (e.g., an internet search PA service may have access to more/larger general use dictionaries than a mapping PA service, which may have access to navigation-related dictionaries including city names, street names, cardinal directions, etc., and a personal calendar PA service may populate a dictionary with words from the user [e.g., calendar appointments, messaging correspondences, etc.]).), and
the memory is configured to store instructions that, when executed by the processor, are configured to cause the processor (0068 In some examples, one or more components (e.g., processing modules, which may include portions of instructions stored on one or more memory devices and executable by a processing device to perform one or more portions of the methods and processes described herein) may be distributed amongst or included in one or more of a vehicle device) to:
receive an input from one of the plurality of user input mechanisms, specifying a VR functionality (0067 each depicted wake word is associated with a different personal assistant service (e.g., wake word 1 is associated with PA service 1, wake word 2 is associated with PA service 2, wake word 3 is associated with PA service 3, wake word 4 is associated with PA service 4... For example, PA service 2 may be called using wake word 2 and may be used for personal or business-related commands. PA service 1 may be called using wake word 1 and may be used for shopping or buying-related commands. PA service 3 may be called using wake word 3 and may be used for navigation-related commands... In this way, each connected personal assistant service may be selectively accessed and utilized for associated voice commands/requests., 0078 to detect a voice input, determine if the voice input includes a wake word, responsive to determining that the voice input includes a wake word, identifying a first selected personal assistant service from the one or more external personal assistant services, the first selected personal assistant service being associated with the wake word);
receive an audio input from a user, via the one or more microphones (0064 The differences in configuration of the different PA services may result in each type of PA service (e.g., mapping, shopping, internet query, news, multimedia, travel, personal calendar, etc.) providing a different response to a same voice request. For example, a voice request that includes the key words of “dentist” may result in an output of navigation instructions to a nearest dentist by the mapping PA service, an output of a recent news story involving dentists from a news PA service, an output of a most popular song including the word “dentist” in the title or artist name by the multimedia PA service, or an output of an indication of an upcoming dentist appointment from a personal calendar PA service.); and
request audio input from the user, using the one or more speakers (0080 Another example provides for a method including, responding to a first user voice request of a user via enabling (and/or commencing a process) with a first remote service that provides a first prompt to the user based on the user's first voice request, and responding to a second, different, user voice request via enabling (and/or commencing a process), with a second, different remote service that provides a second, different, audio prompt to the user based on the user's second voice request., 0025 provide output via touch screen 108 and/or speakers 112,).
Rao fails to disclose instructions that, when executed by the processor, are configured to cause the processor to: disable one or more grammar domains not associated with the specified VR functionality; analyze the audio input absent the disabled one or more grammar domains to determine one or more VR commands from the audio input; and disable one or more additional grammar domains based on the audio input. However, Rao does disclose various natural language databased which are used based on context to analyze and interpret audio input (0063 The configuration of the PA services may additionally or alternatively include different natural language databases (e.g., an internet search PA service may have access to more/larger general use dictionaries than a mapping PA service, which may have access to navigation-related dictionaries including city names, street names, cardinal directions, etc., and a personal calendar PA service may populate a dictionary with words from the user [e.g., calendar appointments, messaging correspondences, etc.])., 0064 The differences in configuration of the different PA services may result in each type of PA service (e.g., mapping, shopping, internet query, news, multimedia, travel, personal calendar, etc.) providing a different response to a same voice request. For example, a voice request that includes the key words of “dentist” may result in an output of navigation instructions to a nearest dentist by the mapping PA service, an output of a recent news story involving dentists from a news PA service, an output of a most popular song including the word “dentist” in the title or artist name by the multimedia PA service, or an output of an indication of an upcoming dentist appointment from a personal calendar PA service.). Furthermore, Konopka teaches a voice recognition system (0003), including instructions that, when executed by the processor, are configured to cause the processor to:
disable one or more grammar domains not associated with the specified VR functionality (0048 The system incorporates the various grammars in such a way that allows for "context switching" or the immediate switching between grammar types and sets of grammar rules under the control of the natural language interface module. Being able to do so is important as the content of a person's speech is highly affected by context. For example, only certain phrases (e.g., the attention words described above) are expected to begin a dialog while others could only follow upon a question (e.g., the natural language interface disambiguating an unclear request). In particular, this becomes evident when a speaker is targeting different audiences, and in the case of consumer electronics--different products, such as a television, a DVD player, a stereo, and a VCR. As an attempt to keep the processing requirements low while increasing the speech recognition accuracy, the system provides a way to define contexts for which only certain grammar rules should apply. If the context is known, the natural language interface module 222 can instruct the speech recognition module 204 to listen only to phrases that are expected. For example, when the natural language interface module 222 has determined that the user is attempting to operate the DVD player, the speech recognition module 204 may be instructed to use the grammar type and grammar corresponding to the DVD player. Thus, the speech decoder 216 will retrieve the proper grammar from the N-gram grammar module 218. Context switching can also be performed on a finer level where a flag for each grammar rule or lexicon entry is used to indicate which individual rules or words are to be enabled and disabled. Further, for some system settings and some grammar modes it might be preferred to limit the search for the best hypothesis to a set of lexicon entries. Defining several lexicons and referencing only the lexicon of interest can do this.);
analyze the audio input absent the disabled one or more grammar domains to determine one or more VR commands from the audio input (0048 The system incorporates the various grammars in such a way that allows for "context switching" or the immediate switching between grammar types and sets of grammar rules under the control of the natural language interface module. Being able to do so is important as the content of a person's speech is highly affected by context. For example, only certain phrases (e.g., the attention words described above) are expected to begin a dialog while others could only follow upon a question (e.g., the natural language interface disambiguating an unclear request). In particular, this becomes evident when a speaker is targeting different audiences, and in the case of consumer electronics--different products, such as a television, a DVD player, a stereo, and a VCR. As an attempt to keep the processing requirements low while increasing the speech recognition accuracy, the system provides a way to define contexts for which only certain grammar rules should apply. If the context is known, the natural language interface module 222 can instruct the speech recognition module 204 to listen only to phrases that are expected. For example, when the natural language interface module 222 has determined that the user is attempting to operate the DVD player, the speech recognition module 204 may be instructed to use the grammar type and grammar corresponding to the DVD player. Thus, the speech decoder 216 will retrieve the proper grammar from the N-gram grammar module 218. Context switching can also be performed on a finer level where a flag for each grammar rule or lexicon entry is used to indicate which individual rules or words are to be enabled and disabled. Further, for some system settings and some grammar modes it might be preferred to limit the search for the best hypothesis to a set of lexicon entries. Defining several lexicons and referencing only the lexicon of interest can do this., 0059); and
disable one or more additional grammar domains based on the audio input (0048 The system incorporates the various grammars in such a way that allows for "context switching" or the immediate switching between grammar types and sets of grammar rules under the control of the natural language interface module. Being able to do so is important as the content of a person's speech is highly affected by context. For example, only certain phrases (e.g., the attention words described above) are expected to begin a dialog while others could only follow upon a question (e.g., the natural language interface disambiguating an unclear request). In particular, this becomes evident when a speaker is targeting different audiences, and in the case of consumer electronics--different products, such as a television, a DVD player, a stereo, and a VCR. As an attempt to keep the processing requirements low while increasing the speech recognition accuracy, the system provides a way to define contexts for which only certain grammar rules should apply. If the context is known, the natural language interface module 222 can instruct the speech recognition module 204 to listen only to phrases that are expected. For example, when the natural language interface module 222 has determined that the user is attempting to operate the DVD player, the speech recognition module 204 may be instructed to use the grammar type and grammar corresponding to the DVD player. Thus, the speech decoder 216 will retrieve the proper grammar from the N-gram grammar module 218. Context switching can also be performed on a finer level where a flag for each grammar rule or lexicon entry is used to indicate which individual rules or words are to be enabled and disabled. Further, for some system settings and some grammar modes it might be preferred to limit the search for the best hypothesis to a set of lexicon entries. Defining several lexicons and referencing only the lexicon of interest can do this., 0059, 0049).
Rao and Konopka both disclose voice recognition systems that execute a task based on a perceived command or request through audio input. Thus, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of Applicant's invention to modify the system in Rao to include the teaching of Konopka with a reasonable expectation of success in order to improve the speed and efficiency by which the spoken request or command is understood by the system since the search of relevant words, phrases and grammar is limited to a smaller set when another grammar domain is disabled.
Additionally, Rao fails to disclose wherein the user input mechanisms are buttons. However, Rao does disclose the user input mechanisms (0061). Furthermore, Spiewla teaches a vehicle voice recognition system utilizing a user input mechanism (0005, 0017), including:
wherein the user input mechanisms are buttons (0017 the vehicle interior 100 includes a first physical input control 120 and a second physical input control 122. As illustrated, physical input controls 120 and 122 are knobs. In other embodiments, the controls can be any appropriate physical input, such as a button or slider., 0027 a user may initiate an interaction by activating the speech recognition system 214 using either a wake word or by touching a button on one of the touch sensitive displays 210 or physical input controls 208).
Both Rao and Spiewla discloses user input mechanisms in a voice recognition system for a vehicle, and Spiewla makes clear that the functionality of the wake word could be replaced by a button. The combination thus suggests that the wake words in Rao could have been replaced by the buttons as taught by Spiewla. Thus, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of Applicant's invention to modify the system in Rao to include the teaching of Spiewla with a reasonable expectation of success in order to improve user experience by providing clear, tangible mechanisms (buttons) to initiate a particular VR functionality (as opposed to wake words which may provide frustration when the system does not understand the initial wake word to initiate a particular VR functionality).
Claim 2
Rao discloses:
a vehicle, wherein the computing device is coupled to the vehicle (0031 A non-volatile storage device 208 may be included in in-vehicle computing system 200 to store data such as instructions executable by processors 214 and 220 in non-volatile form. The storage device 208 may store application data to enable the in-vehicle computing system 200 to run an application for connecting to a cloud-based server and/or collecting information for transmission to the cloud-based server.).
Claim 4
Rao discloses:
wherein the plurality of VR functionalities comprises at least one of the following: a phone control VR functionality; a radio/media control VR functionality; and a navigation control VR functionality (0067 PA service 3 may be called using wake word 3 and may be used for navigation-related commands. PA service 5 may be called using wake word 5 and may be used for personal or business-related phone calls.).
Claim 7
Rao discloses:
wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, are further configured to cause the processor to implement the one or more VR commands (0064 For example, a voice request that includes the key words of “dentist” may result in an output of navigation instructions to a nearest dentist by the mapping PA service, an output of a recent news story involving dentists from a news PA service, an output of a most popular song including the word “dentist” in the title or artist name by the multimedia PA service, or an output of an indication of an upcoming dentist appointment from a personal calendar PA service. Accordingly, determining a context of a voice request may assist a user in receiving an intended output by forwarding the request to the associated PA service for the request., 0067).
Claim 8
Rao discloses:
wherein the implementing the one or more VR commands comprises performing one or more of the following: dialing a phone number; tuning to a radio station; playing a media source type, using the one or more speakers; and generating directions to an address (0067 FIG. 8 shows example voice commands/requests that may be routed to different PA services based on the content of the request/command. For example, PA service 2 may be called using wake word 2 and may be used for personal or business-related commands. PA service 1 may be called using wake word 1 and may be used for shopping or buying-related commands. PA service 3 may be called using wake word 3 and may be used for navigation-related commands. PA service 5 may be called using wake word 5 and may be used for personal or business-related phone calls.).
Claim(s) 9, 10, 12, 15, 16 and 17
Claim(s) 9, 10, 12, 15, 16 and 17 recite(s) subject matter similar to that/those of claim(s) 1, 2, 4, 1, 7 and 8, respectively, and is/are rejected under the same grounds.
Claims 3 and 11 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Rao in view of Konopka and Spiewla, in further view of US20150279363 (“Furumoto”).
Claim 3
Rao discloses:
wherein: the vehicle comprises a steering wheel (0041 steering wheel).
Rao fails to disclose wherein the plurality of buttons are positioned on the steering wheel. However, Rao does disclose steering wheel controls (0041). Furthermore, Furumoto discloses a vehicle voice recognition system (abstract), including:
wherein the plurality of buttons are positioned on the steering wheel (0026 The voice recognition start commander 2 is, for example, an operation unit, such as icons displayed on a touch panel, or buttons or a remote control placed on a steering wheel or in a navigation system, and, when pushed down by a speaking person, this voice recognition start commander 2 outputs a signal for commanding a start of a voice recognition process to a second voice recognizer 3b which will be mentioned later.).
Rao and Furumoto both disclose vehicle voice recognition systems. Thus, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of Applicant's invention and with a reasonable expectation of success to apply the known element(s) of Furumoto to the known system of Rao, the latter having been ready for improvement. The combination would have done no more than yield the predictable results of achieving improved user convenience wherein the plurality of buttons are positioned on the steering wheel.
Claim(s) 11
Claim(s) 11 recite(s) subject matter similar to that/those of claim(s) 3 and is/are rejected under the same grounds.
Contact Information
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO892 for further prior art related to the disabling of grammar domains in voice recognition systems.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Examiner KRISHNAN RAMESH whose telephone number is (571)272-6407. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:30am-5:00pm.
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, Abby Flynn, can be reached at (571)272-9855. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KRISHNAN RAMESH/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3663