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 .
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
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Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 12,106,749 in view of Kulkarni et al. (US Pub. 2018/0254035 A1).
A comparison of the claims of the current application and U.S. Patent No. 12,106,749 is shown below.
Current Application
U.S. Patent No. 12,106,749
A computer-implemented method when executed on data processing hardware causes the data processing hardware to perform operations comprising:
obtaining an n-best list of decoded speech recognition hypotheses for a training utterance;
for each decoded speech recognition hypothesis in the n-best list of decoded speech recognition hypotheses, determining a number of word errors in the corresponding decoded speech recognition hypothesis compared to a ground-truth transcription for the training utterance;
weighting the number of word errors in each decoded speech recognition hypothesis in the n-best list of decoded speech recognition hypotheses by an amount of probability distribution concentrated on each decoded speech recognition hypothesis in the n-best list of decoded speech recognition hypotheses;
and training, using a loss function based on the weighted number of word errors in each decoded speech recognition hypothesis in the n-best list of decoded speech recognition hypotheses, a neural network model to learn how to rescore n-best lists of decoded speech recognition hypotheses output by a speech recognition model.
A computer-implemented method when executed on data processing hardware causes the data processing hardware to perform operations comprising:
obtaining an n-best list of decoded speech recognition hypotheses for a training utterance;
training, using a loss function having a minimum word error rate (MWER) criterion, a recurrent neural network model by determining a word error rate expectation for the training utterance that is restricted to the n-best list of decoded speech recognition hypotheses for the training utterance;
and generating, using the trained recurrent neural network model, a transcription for audio data indicating acoustic characteristics of an utterance.
Regarding Claims 1 and 11, Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 12,106,749 is similar to Claims 1 and 11 of the current application but does not include the limitation for “weighting the number of word errors in each decoded speech recognition hypothesis in the n-best list of decoded speech recognition hypotheses by an amount of probability distribution concentrated on each decoded speech recognition hypothesis in the n-best list of decoded speech recognition hypotheses”, wherein the neural network model learns how to re-score the n-best lists.
Kulkarni, however, teaches a classifier model that learns to re-rank the n-best list of speech recognition hypotheses by weighting the number of word errors in each of the speech recognition hypothesis (see Fig.5C (524,526), paragraph [0034], paragraph [0077] and [0079], classifier model learns to re-score the n-best list based on weight values and word error rate calculation).
It would have been obvious for one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the application, to include to Claim 1 U.S. Patent No. 12,106,749 the limitation for “weighting the number of word errors in each decoded speech recognition hypothesis in the n-best list of decoded speech recognition hypotheses by an amount of probability distribution concentrated on each decoded speech recognition hypothesis in the n-best list of decoded speech recognition hypotheses”, wherein the neural network model learns how to re-score the n-best lists. The motivation would be to train a neural network model or classifier to re-evaluate the candidate hypotheses and determine the most accurate hypotheses for the speech input.
Regarding Claims 2 and 12, Claim 2 of U.S. Patent No. 12,106,749 is identical to Claims 2 and 12 of the current application.
Regarding Claims 3 and 13, Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 12,106,749 includes the limitations of Claims 3 and 13 of the current application.
Regarding Claims 4 and 14, Claim 4 of U.S. Patent No. 12,106,749 is similar to Claims 4 and 14 of the current application.
Regarding Claims 5 and 15, Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 12,106,749 includes the limitations of Claims 5 and 15 of the current application.
Regarding Claims 6 and 16, Claim 5 of U.S. Patent No. 12,106,749 is identical to Claims 6 and 16 of the current application.
Regarding Claims 7 and 17, Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 12,106,749 includes the limitations of Claims 7 and 17 of the current application
Regarding Claims 8 and 18, Claim 7 of U.S. Patent No. 12,106,749 is identical to Claims 8 and 18 of the current application.
Regarding Claims 9 and 19, Claim 8 of U.S. Patent No. 12,106,749 is identical to Claims 9 and 19 of the current application.
Regarding Claims 10 and 20, Claim 9 of U.S. Patent No. 12,106,749 is identical to Claims 10 and 20 of the current application.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to VU B HANG whose telephone number is (571)272-0582.
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/VU B HANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2654
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