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.
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, 3-5, 7-9, and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Schnell in view of Weinberg, and further in view of Codet et al. (USPG 2004/0243803, hereinafter Codet).
Regarding claims 1 and 5, Schnell discloses a method, electronic device of encoding an input speech signal, the method comprising: a processor (figure 8, CPU or processor); and a memory configured to store instructions, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor (figure 8, memory), cause the electronic device to:
outputting a first bit stream in which the input speech signal is encoded, based on the input speech signal (figure 5, “Audio Encoder 130” encode audio data into an acoustic representation bitstream); and
outputting a second bit stream in which speaker information of the input speech signal is encoded, based on the input speech signal (figure 5, “Speaker Encoder 530” encode audio data into speaker data; also see col. 11, lines 19-46).
Schnell fails to explicitly disclose, however, Weinberg teaches wherein the outputting of the second bit stream comprises: determining a first speaker group to which a speaker of the input speech signal belongs from among a plurality of speaker groups, based on the input speech signal (paragraph 28, male group or female group; also see figure 3, steps 312-340); and generating the second bit stream by encoding information about the first speaker group, based on the input speech signal (paragraph 23, feature extraction).
Since Schnell and Weinberg 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 determining and generating a group that a speaker belongs to. 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).
The modified Schnell still fails to explicitly disclose, however, Codet further teaches wherein the speaker information is used to select a personalized decoder corresponding to the first speaker group (paragraph 5, “EMMs generally comprise three fields, a first address field to select a decoder for a user or a user group, a second field containing access authorisation for the user or users, containing the operations key encrypted by a group key previously distributed to a subscriber group, and a third field containing integrity checking parameters for the transmitted information”).
Since the modified Schnell and Codet 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 selecting a decoder for a particular user or user group. 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 3-4 and 7-8, Schnell fails to explicitly discloses, however, Weinberg teaches wherein the determining of the first speaker group comprises: obtaining a feature vector about a speaker of the input speech signal, based on the input speech signal (process in figure 6, comparing speech feature of the received speech against that of models); and determining the first speaker group based on the feature vector (paragraph 28, male group or female group; also see figure 3, steps 312-340); wherein the determining of the first speaker group comprises: calculating probabilities that the speaker of the input speech signal belongs to each of a plurality of speaker groups, based on the feature vector; and determining a speaker group with a highest probability among the plurality of speaker groups as the first speaker group (paragraph 28, based on highest “score” or “probability”; also see process in figure 3).
Since Schnell and Weinberg 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 identifying group of speakers based on speech input. 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 9 and 11, since the decoding process is merely a reversed operation of the encoding process, the combination of Schnell, Weinberg, and Codet teaches the encoding process and decoding process.
Since Schnell, Weinberg, Codet 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 recovering original data from an encoded 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Sharifi et al. (USPG 2023/0409277, hereinafter Sharifi) teach a method of encrypting a message based on speaker feature that is considered pertinent to the claimed invention.
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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
/HUYEN X VO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2656
Prosecution Insights