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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 4 recites “inserting an identifier of the one of the plurality of users.” However, claim 1 already sets forth “inserting an identifier.” It is unclear whether they are the same identifier. For examining purposes, they are interpreted to be the same identifier. In other words, the limitation in claim 4 is interpreted to be “wherein the inserted identifier is an identifier of the one of the plurality of users.” Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 4, and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Craner (US 2004/0013252 A1).
Per claim 1, Craner teaches “A conference server, (Fig.1, element 23; Fig.2; ¶ [0036], The voice communication system 10 of FIG. 1 … conference participants being able to simultaneously speak and hear other talkers, the talker indicator of this invention can be present and active on both or a plurality of locations which are conferenced together; ¶ [0038-0039], FIG. 2 shows the block diagram of one embodiment of talker identifier system 16 included in the voice communication system as shown in FIG. 1. Portions of the talker identifier system 16 may be located in … the voice projecting device 23 … The controller 39 may be configured as … a server) comprising: a network interface to a network; (¶ [0023], The network 12 is configured to be any type of network that can convey voices from a voice capture device 14 to the voice projecting device 23; ¶ [0037], transmit the voices as voice information over the network to the voice-projecting device 23) and at least one processor coupled to a computer memory comprising instructions that, when read by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform: (¶ [0039], The controller 39 includes a programmable central processing unit (CPU) 82 that is operable with a memory (e.g., RAM, ROM, hard disk and/or removable storage) and well-known support circuits such as power supplies, clocks, cache, input/output (I/O) 86 and the like. By executing software stored in the memory 84) accessing a conference between a first endpoint (Fig.1, element 14; ¶ [0036], he voice communication system 10 of FIG. 1 … conference participants being able to simultaneously speak and hear other talkers … the voice capture device 14 … a plurality of talkers may share a single voice capture device 14) and a second endpoint, (Fig, 1, element 24; ¶ [0059], The listener 24 receives and transmits his/her voice communication via, e.g., an integral telephone or audio device) the first endpoint being shared between a plurality of users (¶ [0036], a plurality of talkers may share a single voice capture device 14; ¶ [0005], It is difficult to identify the current remote talker if two or more talkers are using the same telephone; ¶ [0007], The talker can be one of a group of talkers, all of who are located proximate to one voice capture device) wherein speech from any one or more of the plurality of users is received by the first endpoint, converted to electronic signals, and provided to the second endpoint as an audio portion of the conference; (¶ [0037], The voice capture device 14 (or a plurality of voice capture devices) is configured to capture voices from one or more talkers, and transmit the voices as voice information over the network to the voice-projecting device 23) receiving a signal from the first endpoint identifying a user device, utilized by one of the plurality of users, and indicating speech has been detected from the one of the plurality of users; and in response to receiving the signal, inserting an identifier into the conference for presentation by the second endpoint” (Figs, 4, 5, 6A, 6B, 7; ¶ [0051], Certain embodiments of talker indicators 32, as shown relative to FIGS. 5, 6A, and 6B, provide some type of announcement or indication of the identity of the speaker that can be heard or detected by the listener. These announcements or indications may vary from an announcement of the name of each talker inserted prior to the actual sound bite corresponding to that talker; ¶ [0073-0074], The selected talker's announcement is then transmitted to the mixer 508 shown in FIG. 5. The mixer 508 projects the selected talker's announcement in temporal sequence with the temporarily compressed talker voice … FIG. 6B shows the compressed voice output signal transmission. The transmission includes a 2-second time period for the announcement of Tom's name requires that Tom's voice transmission sound bite be compressed to 18 seconds. The transmission further includes a 2-second time period for the announcement of Jen's name and a compressed 19-second voice transmission. The required period of time to complete the transmission of both Jen's and Tom's voices including both of their announcements thus remains at 41 seconds; ¶ [0065], sounds or audio talker identification announcements can be inserted prior to each spoken voice segment to identify the specific talkers … An announcement is added to the beginning of each sound bite to indicate the identity of the talker associated with that sound bite. The announcement and the temporally compressed sound bite are then played to the listener; ¶ [0067-0068], FIG. 5 shows one embodiment of talker indicator 32 … The announcement storage or generator 502 can store, or generate, the brief announcement of the identity of a talker who is the most likely to have spoken a particular voice segment. That is, the announcement storage or generator generates or retrieves actual announcement voice segment provided by the voice rate compression element 504, forwarded to the mixer 506. The voice rate compression element 504 allows a voice segment to be projected by the voice projection and identification device 260 at a faster rate to allow for the amount of time necessary for the insertion of the announcement, but still while maintaining the regenerated voice as a continual flow of speech. The voice rate compression element 504 acts to temporarily compress the speech rate of the voice signal while maintaining the pitch of the speech to retain the normal sound of the voice. ¶ [0007], Talker identification information is generated in the talker indicator that can be used to indicate the identity of each talker to the listener. The talker indicator can transmit the voice signal from each talker to the listener. In different aspects, the talker identification information can include such varied indicators as audio, video, or an announcement combined with a temporally compressed voice signal).
Per claim 4, Craner further teaches “wherein inserting an identifier of the one of the plurality of users into the conference for presentation by the second endpoint comprises generating speech comprising the identifier of the one of the plurality of users” (Figs, 5, 6B, 7; ¶ [0073-0074], The selected talker's announcement is then transmitted to the mixer 508 shown in FIG. 5. The mixer 508 projects the selected talker's announcement in temporal sequence with the temporarily compressed talker voice … FIG. 6B shows the compressed voice output signal transmission. The transmission includes a 2-second time period for the announcement of Tom's name requires that Tom's voice transmission sound bite be compressed to 18 seconds. The transmission further includes a 2-second time period for the announcement of Jen's name and a compressed 19-second voice transmission. The required period of time to complete the transmission of both Jen's and Tom's voices including both of their announcements thus remains at 41 seconds; ¶ [0065], sounds or audio talker identification announcements can be inserted prior to each spoken voice segment to identify the specific talkers … An announcement is added to the beginning of each sound bite to indicate the identity of the talker associated with that sound bite. The announcement and the temporally compressed sound bite are then played to the listener; ¶ [0067-0068], FIG. 5 shows one embodiment of talker indicator 32 … The announcement storage or generator 502 can store, or generate, the brief announcement of the identity of a talker who is the most likely to have spoken a particular voice segment. That is, the announcement storage or generator generates or retrieves actual announcement voice segment provided by the voice rate compression element 504, forwarded to the mixer 506. The voice rate compression element 504 allows a voice segment to be projected by the voice projection and identification device 260 at a faster rate to allow for the amount of time necessary for the insertion of the announcement, but still while maintaining the regenerated voice as a continual flow of speech. The voice rate compression element 504 acts to temporarily compress the speech rate of the voice signal while maintaining the pitch of the speech to retain the normal sound of the voice. ¶ [0007], Talker identification information is generated in the talker indicator that can be used to indicate the identity of each talker to the listener. The talker indicator can transmit the voice signal from each talker to the listener. In different aspects, the talker identification information can include such varied indicators as audio, video, or an announcement combined with a temporally compressed voice signal).
Per claim 5, Craner further teaches “wherein the instructions further cause the at least one processor to buffer the audio portion of the conference to accommodate presentation of the identifier by the second endpoint and, upon completion of the presentation of the identifier, resume presentation of the audio portion of the conference” (Figs, 5, 6B, 7; ¶ [0073-0074], The selected talker's announcement is then transmitted to the mixer 508 shown in FIG. 5. The mixer 508 projects the selected talker's announcement in temporal sequence with the temporarily compressed talker voice … FIG. 6B shows the compressed voice output signal transmission. The transmission includes a 2-second time period for the announcement of Tom's name requires that Tom's voice transmission sound bite be compressed to 18 seconds. The transmission further includes a 2-second time period for the announcement of Jen's name and a compressed 19-second voice transmission. The required period of time to complete the transmission of both Jen's and Tom's voices including both of their announcements thus remains at 41 seconds; ¶ [0065], sounds or audio talker identification announcements can be inserted prior to each spoken voice segment to identify the specific talkers … An announcement is added to the beginning of each sound bite to indicate the identity of the talker associated with that sound bite. The announcement and the temporally compressed sound bite are then played to the listener; ¶ [0067-0068], FIG. 5 shows one embodiment of talker indicator 32 … The announcement storage or generator 502 can store, or generate, the brief announcement of the identity of a talker who is the most likely to have spoken a particular voice segment. That is, the announcement storage or generator generates or retrieves actual announcement voice segment provided by the voice rate compression element 504, forwarded to the mixer 506. The voice rate compression element 504 allows a voice segment to be projected by the voice projection and identification device 260 at a faster rate to allow for the amount of time necessary for the insertion of the announcement, but still while maintaining the regenerated voice as a continual flow of speech. The voice rate compression element 504 acts to temporarily compress the speech rate of the voice signal while maintaining the pitch of the speech to retain the normal sound of the voice.) [Comment: In Fig.6B, Tom’s/Jen’s voice is buffered to insert Tom’s/Jen’s name announcement at the beginning and then the Tom’s/Jen’s voice is resumed upon completion of the Tom’s/Jen’s name accountment. In Fig.5, conference audio/voice is temporarily buffered in element 504 and combined with an announcement of a speaker’s identity from 502 to generate audio output 508. See additional teachings in ¶¶ [0070-0073].]
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 2 and 3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Craner (US 2004/0013252 A1), in view of Tadesse (US 2022/0385758 A1).
Per claim 2, Craner further teach “a storage device” (¶ [0039], a memory (e.g., RAM, ROM, hard disk and/or removable storage); ¶ [0067], an announcement storage).
However, Craner does not teach “wherein the instructions further cause the at least one processor to perform: appending a transcript of the conference with the identifier; and storing the appended transcript in the storage device.”
In analogous teaching of conferencing, Tadesse teaches “wherein the instructions further cause the at least one processor to perform: (¶ [0013], The computer program product may include a computer readable storage medium (or media) having computer readable program instructions thereon for causing a processor to carry out aspects of the present invention) appending a transcript of the conference with the identifier; and storing the appended transcript in the storage device.” (¶ [0029], In a written transcript of a conference call (e.g., teleconference meeting, videoconference), the conversation, as heard, may be transcribed and may be annotated by the name of the speaker. In at least one embodiment, the unheard portion of the conversation (e.g., that spoken by the person who was either interrupted or that which was spoken but could not be added into the conversation) may be added to the written transcript and may be annotated by an identifier associated with the speaker. The conference call participants may benefit from reading a time-stamped and contextualized transcript from this full conversation; ¶ [0027], The conference program may time-stamp audio streams and chat activities and map those activities with the corresponding participant(s); ¶ [0046], the conference program 110 a, 110 b may record the individual audio content on a local device (e.g., data storage device 106) and/or a remote server (e.g., database 114). In one embodiment, the conference program 110 a, 110 b may time-stamp the individual audio content and associate the individual audio content with the name of the respective participant; ¶ [0048], the conference program 110 a, 110 b may also generate a full transcript of the conference call based on the full audio stream) [Comment: See additional teachings in ¶¶ [0038], [0044], [0052] regarding that conference programs 110a/110b generate/store and send transcripts.]
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine of a timestamped transcript with a speaker identifier of Tadesse into rendering a conference with a speaker identifier of Craner. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so because Tadesse recognizes that it would have been advantageous for conference participants to read a timestamped and contextualized transcript (¶ [0029] of Tadesse, In a written transcript of a conference call (e.g., teleconference meeting, videoconference), the conversation, as heard, may be transcribed and may be annotated by the name of the speaker. In at least one embodiment, the unheard portion of the conversation (e.g., that spoken by the person who was either interrupted or that which was spoken but could not be added into the conversation) may be added to the written transcript and may be annotated by an identifier associated with the speaker. The conference call participants may benefit from reading a time-stamped and contextualized transcript from this full conversation; ¶ [0024] of Tadesse, It may also be advantageous to transcribe the contents of a conference call by utilizing both heard and unheard audio streams from all the participants …) (KSR(G), TSM, MPEP 2143). Additionally, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so because this is combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results, specifically, combining known methods of conference to yield predictable results, especially given that Tadesse and Craner are in the same field of endeavor of identifying a speaker identifier in a conference (KSR(A), MPEP 2143).
Per claim 3, Tadesse further teaches “appending the transcript of the conference with the identifier and a timestamp of the occurrence of the signal” (¶ [0013], The computer program product may include a computer readable storage medium (or media) having computer readable program instructions thereon for causing a processor to carry out aspects of the present invention) appending a transcript of the conference with the identifier; and storing the appended transcript in the storage device.” (¶ [0029], In a written transcript of a conference call (e.g., teleconference meeting, videoconference), the conversation, as heard, may be transcribed and may be annotated by the name of the speaker. In at least one embodiment, the unheard portion of the conversation (e.g., that spoken by the person who was either interrupted or that which was spoken but could not be added into the conversation) may be added to the written transcript and may be annotated by an identifier associated with the speaker. The conference call participants may benefit from reading a time-stamped and contextualized transcript from this full conversation; ¶ [0027], The conference program may time-stamp audio streams and chat activities and map those activities with the corresponding participant(s); ¶ [0046], the conference program 110 a, 110 b may record the individual audio content on a local device (e.g., data storage device 106) and/or a remote server (e.g., database 114). In one embodiment, the conference program 110 a, 110 b may time-stamp the individual audio content and associate the individual audio content with the name of the respective participant; ¶ [0048], the conference program 110 a, 110 b may also generate a full transcript of the conference call based on the full audio stream) [Comment: the combination/motivation is the same as that of claim 2]
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Craner (US 2004/0013252 A1), in view of Yamada (US 2014/0067957 A1).
Per claim 6, Craner does not teach “wherein the network interface further comprises a Bluetooth wireless interface and the signal further comprises a Bluetooth signal.”
In analogous teaching of a conference server, Yamada teaches “wherein the network interface further comprises a Bluetooth wireless interface and the signal further comprises a Bluetooth signal.” (Figs.1, 7, ¶ [0237], connection between each conference terminal 3′ and conference server 2′ may be via wireless communication using, for example, Bluetooth; ¶ [0066-0067], The PC 2 is an information processing apparatus that functions as a host (server) … The PC 2 is connected to the tablet computers 3-1 through 3-3 via cables 1 a-1 through 1 a-3 … the cable 1 a may be replaced by wireless communication confirming to, for example, Bluetooth; ¶ [0158], As illustrated in FIG. 7, the PC 2 and the respective tablet computers 3 of this modification communicate via wireless communication 1 a′-1 through 1 a′-3 conforming to Bluetooth; ¶ [0078], The I/ Fs 20 d and 30 d are interfaces that control communication of the PC 2 …).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Bluetooth in a conference server of Yamada into a communication interface in a conference server of Craner. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so because this is combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results, specifically, combining a known type of communication protocol in a conference server (Bluetooth) as taught by Yamada and another known method of a conference server as taught by Craner to yield predictable results (KSR(A), MPEP 2143).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Ganong (US 2013/0024196 A1) discloses inserting a speaker identity into a conference presentation by audibly rendering an audio signal.
Schrage (US 6,850,609 B1) discloses appending a conference transcript with a user ID and a timestamp.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HANNAH S. WANG whose telephone number is (571)272-9018. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 9am-5pm EST.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/HANNAH S WANG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2631
Prosecution Insights