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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. JP2023-197754, filed on November 21, 2023.
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 1-5 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more
With respect to claim 1, the limitations of “identify the occupant” and “adjust degree of conciseness of a response to the voice input depending on the identified occupant” as drafted, encompass processes that may be practically performed in the human mind but for the recitation of a generic controller. For example, a person may recognize the speaker of a request and, based on the identity of the speaker, mentally determine whether to provide a relatively concise response or a more detailed response. Accordingly, these limitations recite evaluations and judgements that fall within the “mental processes” grouping of abstract ideas.
The limitation of “control a function according to voice input from an occupant of the vehicle” merely provides the context in which the identified mental process is performed and does not itself recite a particular technological mechanism for controlling the function.
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The additional elements merely recite a controller, voice input from an occupant of a vehicle, and control of an unspecified function. The controller is recited at a high level of generality and is used as a tool to identify the occupant and implement the selected degree of conciseness. The claim does not recite a particular speaker-identification technique, response-generation architecture, conciseness calculation, or modification to the operation of the controller or another vehicle component. Rather, it recites the desired result of adjusting the conciseness of a response based on the identified occupant without reciting how that result is technologically achieved. Accordingly, the additional elements do not impose a meaningful limit on the identified mental processes and amount to no more than instructions to apply the exception in a vehicle computing environment.
With respect to claim 2, the claim recites omitting confirmation from the response. This reads on a person deciding, based on the identity or perceived familiarity of another person, not to verbally confirm an action. The limitations therefore further specify the content of the communication but does not recite a particular technological mechanism for generating or shortening the response.
With respect to claim 3, the claim recites determining a level of proficiency from usage-status data and increasing conciseness as proficiency increases. These limitations recite evaluating information concerning a person’s prior usage, forming a judgement concerning that person’s proficiency, and selecting the amount of information to communicate based on that judgment. Such evaluations and judgements fall within the mental-process grouping. The claim still does not state how proficiency is calculated or how conciseness is measured.
With respect to claim 4, the claim further recites adjusting conciseness based on the occupant’s relationship to an owner of the vehicle. This limitation further specifies personal relationship information upon which the communication judgement is based. Evaluating a person’s relationship to another person and changing how one communicates based on that relationship is a mental process and may also resemble managing personal relationships or managing interactions between people, one of the enumerated certain methods of organizing human activity.
With respect to claim 5, the claim recites substantially the same operations as claim 1 in method for and recites the same mental process for the reasons discussed above. Recitation of performing the operations “by a computer” do not impose a meaningful technological limitation or identify a particular manner by which the computer performs the abstract evaluation and judgement.
Accordingly, claims 1-5 recite a judicial exception, do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
The claims do not recite additional elements sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional use of a controller to receive voice input, identify a user, control a function, and generate or modify a response amounts to use of conventional computing and automated-assistant components to implement the identified mental process. The controller is not claimed as having any unconventional architecture or operation. The additional elements, considered individually and in their ordered combination, merely use conventional automated-assistant components and operations to implement the identified evaluation and communication judgement, without reciting am unconventional arrangement or technological mechanism.
This conclusion is further supported by (Sharifi et al. US 2022/0130379 A1), which describes conventional automated-assistant systems in which users provide commands or requests through spoken natural-language input and the automated assistant responds by providing audible or visual user-interface output and controlling a device or performing another action (For example, humans (which when they interact with automated assistants may be referred to as “users”) may provide commands/requests to an automated assistant using spoken natural language input (i.e., spoken utterances), which may in some cases be converted into text and then processed, and/or by providing textual (e.g., typed) natural language input. An automated assistant generally responds to a command or request by providing responsive user interface output (e.g., audible and/or visual user interface output), controlling smart device(s), and/or performing other action(s). [0001]). Thus, receiving voice input, identifying or distinguishing a user, producing a responsive output, controlling a function, and adapting the extent of the interaction based on user proficiency were ordinary automated-assistant operations rather than an unconventional technological advancement.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
Claim(s) 1-5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Sharifi et al. US 2022/0130379 A1
Regarding claim 1, Sharifi discloses:
An information processing apparatus comprising a controller (FIG. 1 includes an assistant device 110 (i.e., a client device executing an automated assistant client and/or via which an automated assistant is otherwise accessible), which executes an instance of an automated assistant client 120 [0010]) configured to:
control a function (The NLU engine 124 determines semantic meaning(s) of audio and/or text converted from audio by the ASR engine, and determines assistant action(s) that correspond to those semantic meaning(s) [0019]) according to voice input (The ASR engine 122 can process audio data that captures a spoken utterance to generate a recognition of the spoken utterance [0017]) from an occupant of a vehicle (The assistant device 110 can be, for example: a desktop computing device, a laptop computing device, a tablet computing device, a mobile phone computing device, a computing device of a vehicle (e.g., an in-vehicle communications system, an in-vehicle entertainment system, an in-vehicle navigation system) [0012]);
identify the occupant (One or more authentication technique(s) can be utilized to verify which registered user is interacting with the assistant device 110 [0013]); and -
adjust degree of conciseness of a response to the voice input depending on the identified occupant (The proficiency measure engine 132 generates proficiency measures that are specific to a class and specific to the assistant device 110 and/or to a particular user of the assistant device 110 [0022]);
Regarding claim 2, Sharifi discloses:
The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to increase the degree of conciseness (where a class proficiency measure for a particular user and/or a particular device demonstrates proficiency with a particular class, confirmations can be shortened to provide a shortened user-assistant interaction [0038]) by outputting, as the response, a voice (The TTS engine 126 can be utilized, for example, to convert a textual response into audio data that includes a synthesized version of the text, and the synthesized version audibly rendered via hardware speaker(s) of the assistant device 110 [0018]) that omits confirmation about the function (for any user request that is specific to the class(es) satisfying threshold(s), the system will not require confirmation [0035]);
Regarding claim 3, Sharifi discloses:
The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to:
determine, upon identifying the occupant, the occupant's level of proficiency in using the information processing apparatus with reference to usage status data indicating the occupant's usage status of the information processing apparatus (At block 252, the system identifies one or more instances of data from one or more past assistant interactions that are each of a particular class and that are each initiated by a particular user and/or a particular assistant device [0027]); and
increase the degree of conciseness as the determined level of proficiency increases (In such an example, the efficiency metric can indicate whether interactions for the class and initiated by the particular user and/or the particular device are becoming more efficient, less efficient, and/or not changing over time [0052]);
Regarding claim 4, Sharifi discloses:
The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to adjust the degree of conciseness (When the class proficiency measure is generated for the particular user and the particular device, the adaptation(s) are for the particular device when the particular user interacts with the particular device [0032]) depending also on the occupant's relationship (Further, one or more users may be registered with the assistant device 110 and have a corresponding user account [0013]) to an owner (One or more authentication technique(s) can be utilized to verify which registered user is interacting with the assistant device 110 [0013]) of the vehicle;
Claim 5 contains similar limitations to claim 1 and therefore is rejected for the same reasons.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Kyle Espinas whose telephone number is (571)270-0596. The examiner can normally be reached Monday Friday, 8 a.m. 5 p.m. ET..
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Andrew Flanders can be reached at (571) 272-7516. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Kylenino Tagalog Espinas/
Examiner, Art Unit 2655
/DOUGLAS GODBOLD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2655
Prosecution Insights