DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
In response to applicant’s RCE filed 9/28/2026, claims 1-20 are pending in this application.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Knerr et al. (US 2023/0023691) in view of Julia et al. (US 8,272,874) and also Hanz et al. (US 2025/0252863).
Regarding claims 1, 7, and 15, Knerr discloses a system that selects a speech exercise type and provides an indication to a user on a client device to start the exercise and receives speech content from the client device. See paragraphs 0017-0018 and 0020.
Knerr discloses wherein the system determines aspects for feedback based on the speech type (i.e. the difficulty level) and provides feedback to the user. See paragraphs 0027-0028.
Knerr does not explicitly disclose qualitative feedback. However, this manner of feedback is established regarding language training systems, such as the system of Julia, as described in col. 5: 21-24
Knerr also does not disclose wherein the feedback is generated by an LLM content generator. However, this manner of feedback is also established with regard to training systems, as is disclosed by the system of Hanz in paragraph 0032. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of applicant’s filing, to consider both qualitative feedback and feedback generated by LLM content generators, to improve the product by providing a range of performance information to the user.
Regarding claims 2, 8, and 16, Knerr discloses wherein the system generates a feedback prompt with the first content and provides it to a content generator and receives the feedback. See paragraphs 0023 - 0024.
Regarding claims 3, 9, and 17, Knerr discloses a transcript and an audio signal of the user’s speech. See paragraph 0024.
Regarding claims 4, 10, Knerr discloses a quality recommendation for various qualitative aspect. See paragraphs 0024 and 0027-0028.
Regarding claims 5, 11, Knerr discloses highlighting the sections of the transcript regarding the qualitative feedback. See paragraph 0030.
Regarding claims 6, 14, Knerr discloses wherein the feedback can be transmitted to several client devices. See paragraphs 0015 and 0031.
Regarding claims 12-13, and 18-20, Knerr discloses wherein the speech types are of various categories, content, and topics, as would be the feedback based thereon. See paragraph 0017. Also, the difficulty levels described in paragraph 0028 are a clearly distinguished type of speech exercise.
Arguments/Remarks
Applicant’s arguments and remarks dated 6/18/2026 have been fully considered. Applicant argues with respect to claim 1 that Knerr does not disclose selection of a speech exercise type. Examiner disagrees. Paragraphs 0027-0028 discloses distinguishment of speech exercise by type, e.g. difficulty level, and further wherein the feedback processing is based upon this difficulty level. This argument is not persuasive.
Applicant’s arguments pertaining the references of Knerr and Julia being an improper combination are not persuasive. Both are language training systems, and one of ordinary skill would have been capable of considering broad concepts, such as feedback types, between various systems. This argument is not persuasive.
Further arguments are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TIMOTHY A MUSSELMAN whose telephone number is (571)272-1814. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday, 8:00AM - 4:00PM.
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/TIMOTHY A MUSSELMAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3715
