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 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
The previous 101 rejection has been vacated in light of current claim amendments.
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, 6-8, and 13-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Can et al. (USPG 2023/0298615, hereinafter Can) in view of Yu (USPG 2016/0196836).
Regarding claim 1, Can discloses a contact center support system that supports a contact center, the contact center support system comprising:
one or more processors configured by one or more computer programs to execute a plurality of processes for a communication that include a voice call between an operator of the contact center and a customer (call center in figure 2 and/or paragraphs 42-45, analyzing communication between customer and agent), wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the plurality of processes in real time, and the plurality of processes include at least
a voice recognition process of recognizing at least a content an utterance of the customer from a plurality of voice frames acquired from the utterance of the customer during the call (figure 2, speech recognizer 206 for converting speech of the call into text),
an emotion recognition process of recognizing at least an emotion of the customer from the plurality of voice frames acquired from the utterance of the customer, (figure 2, prosodic cue detector 210 and semantic cue detector 212 are responsible for detecting emotion in the speech of the customer in the call; also see paragraphs 53-55), a filtering process of filtering the content of the utterance of the customer (figure 2, summarizer 216 is responsible for filtering out unimportant words),
a filtering process of filtering the content of the utterance of the customer (figure 2, summarizer 216 is responsible for filtering out unimportant words).
Can fails to explicitly disclose, however, Yu teaches a voice conversion process in which, based at least on recognizing the emotion of the customer in the plurality of voice frames, the voice conversion process is performed for converting the plurality of voice frames corresponding to the utterance of the customer by flattening at least one of a voice volume or a voice pitch to reduce an effect of the recognized emotion of the customer on a sound of the utterance of the customer that is provided to the operator (paragraphs 100-106, adjusting both pitch and energy level of the signal to reduce the intensity of the detected emotion).
Since Can and Yu are analogous in the art because they are from the same field of endeavor, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to use the known technique of applying pitch and/or energy modification to the speech signal to reduce the effect of the detected emotion. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable since the use of that known technique provides the rationale to arrive at a conclusion of obviousness. See KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 USPQ2d 1385 (U.S. 2007).
Regarding claims 8 and 15, Can discloses a contact center support system and method that supports a contact center, the contact center support system comprising: one or more processors are configured to execute a plurality of processes for a communication that includes a voice call between an operator of the contact center and a customer (call center in figure 2 and/or paragraphs 42-45, analyzing communication between customer and agent), wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the plurality of processes in real time (call center in figure 2 and/or paragraphs 42-45, analyzing communication between customer and agent), and the plurality of processes include at least a voice recognition process of recognizing at least a content of an utterance of the customer from a plurality of voice frames acquired from the utterance of the customer during the voice call (figure 2, speech recognizer 206 for converting speech of the call into text), an emotion recognition process of recognizing at least an emotion of the customer from the frames acquired from the utterance of the customer during the voice call (figure 2, prosodic cue detector 210 and semantic cue detector 212 are responsible for detecting emotion in the speech of the customer in the call; also see paragraphs 53-55).
Can fails to explicitly disclose, however, Yu teaches a voice conversion process in which, based at least on recognizing the emotion of the customer in the plurality of voice frames, the voice conversion process is performed for converting the plurality of voice frames corresponding to the utterance of the customer by flattening at least one of a voice volume or a voice pitch to reduce an effect of the recognized emotion of the customer on a sound of the utterance of the customer that is provided to the operator (paragraphs 100-106, adjusting both pitch and energy level of the signal to reduce the intensity of the detected emotion).
Since Can and Yu are analogous in the art because they are from the same field of endeavor, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to use the known technique of applying pitch and/or energy modification to the speech signal to reduce the effect of the detected emotion. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable since the use of that known technique provides the rationale to arrive at a conclusion of obviousness. See KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 USPQ2d 1385 (U.S. 2007).
Regarding claims 6-7 and 13-14, Can further discloses wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the plurality of processes as a synchronous process (see figure 2, these processes are separate individual processes; system includes many processes that some are independent and some are dependent processes); wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the plurality of processes as an asynchronous process (see figure 2, these processes are separate individual processes; system includes many processes that some are independent and some are dependent processes).
Claim 2-3 and 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Can in view of Yu, and further in view of Braganza (USPG 2025/0055939, hereinafter Braganza).
Regarding claims 2-3 and 9-10, Can fails to explicitly disclose, however, Braganza teaches wherein a response to the customer in the voice call is made by a voicebot that utters content of text input by the operator or by the operator's utterance (process in figure 3), and the one or more processors are further configured to reproduce a standby voice when the operator’s input of text or a voice is not detected for a predetermined period of time during the voice call (paragraphs 32-33, “ If the agent is busy with another matter, speech generator 20 may fill in gaps in the conversation with any suitable phrases, such as “I'm still looking,” “please give me a few more minutes,” “don't hang up, please, I'm still researching the answer”; asking the customer to give a few more minutes after initial time has passed); wherein the response to the customer in the voice call is made by the utterance of the voicebot, and a voice uttered by the voicebot is subjected to a voice synthesis process so as to have the same tone as the standby voice and is reproduced subsequently to the reproduction of the standby voice (process in figures 2-3; the same system/bot would produce the same voice characteristics in the same session).
Since Can and Braganza are analogous in the art because they are from the same field of endeavor, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to use the known technique of converting the operator’s response to a synthesized speech with the same voice characteristics in the same communication session. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable since the use of that known technique provides the rationale to arrive at a conclusion of obviousness. See KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 USPQ2d 1385 (U.S. 2007).
Claims 4 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Can in view of Yu, further in view of Braganza, and further in view of Fujioka et al. (USPG 2019/0066658, hereinafter Fujioka).
Regarding claims 4 and 11, the modified Can fails to explicitly disclose, however, Fujioka further teaches wherein the response to the customer during the voice call is made by the operator's utterance, and the voice uttered by the operator is subjected to a voice synthesis process and/or a voice quality conversion process so as to have the same tone as the standby voice and is reproduced subsequently to the reproduction of the standby voice (paragraphs 7-9, modifying the speech of the operator to sound like an automated response).
Since the modified Can and Fujioka are analogous in the art because they are from the same field of endeavor, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to use the known technique of modifying the operator’s speech to sound like an automatic center response. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable since the use of that known technique provides the rationale to arrive at a conclusion of obviousness. See KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 USPQ2d 1385 (U.S. 2007).
Claims 5 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Can in view of Yu, further in view of Braganza, and further in view of Mehta et al. (USPN 11870757, hereinafter Mehta).
Regarding claim 5, Can further discloses the contact center support system according to claim 3, wherein the voice recognition process includes a process of converting the voice uttered by the customer in the voice call into text (see figure 2, speech recognizer 206), the filtering process includes a masking process of, when a predetermined word is included in the text description, converting the word into another word to present the text to the operator in a form in which a content represented by the word is concealed (figure 2, summarizer 216 for masking or removing some words).
The modified Can still fails to explicitly disclose, however, Mehta teaches when the response to the customer is made by the utterance of the voicebot, the one or more processors are further configured to restore the word to the word before conversion by the masking process when the other word is included in the text input by the operator (col. 13, line 46 to col. 14, line14, restoring masked data in the response).
Since the modified Can and Mehta are analogous in the art because they are from the same field of endeavor, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to use the known technique of masking and restoring masked data. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable since the use of that known technique provides the rationale to arrive at a conclusion of obviousness. See KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 USPQ2d 1385 (U.S. 2007).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Krishnan (USPN 2021/0306457) discloses a method of detecting emotion in a verbal conversation between an operator and customer and converting it into text that is considered pertinent to the claimed invention.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HUYEN X VO whose telephone number is (571)272-7631. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 8-4.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Bhavesh Mehta can be reached at 571-272-7453. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/HUYEN X VO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2656
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