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 .
This action is in response to the communication filed on August 13, 2026.
Claims 1-20 are pending in this action. Claims 1-11 and 13-20 have been amended.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 7-9, and 16-17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhou (US 6,999,932) in view of Yin (CN 103200328).
As per claim 1, Zhou discloses, a language determination method, comprising: obtaining a first text and a reply text for the first text (col. 4, lines 9-17, "speech recognition module 23 accepts the voice data to be converted and the language identifier, recognizes what words have been said, and translates the information into text" as claimed "first text"; col. 5, lines, 1-14, "returns the search results in different languages 34" as claimed "reply text");
determining a first sentence in the reply text (col. 5, lines 1-14);
determining a first language of the first text and a second language of a preceding part of the first sentence (col. 3, lines 49-55, "24 to determine what language the user is speaking"; col. 5, lines 1-14); and
determining a target language used when the first sentence is converted into speech based on the first sentence, the reply text, the first language, and the second language (col. 5, lines 1-57, "If the search results are in multiple languages, machine translation module 28 may be used to translate the search results into the language used by the user" and TTS).
Zhou does not explicitly disclose, but Yin discloses, wherein the obtaining a reply text for the first text comprises: obtaining a speech in response to a touch operation on a speech acquisition control (Fig. 1 description and Claim 1, “the first switching module and the second switching module are two touch screen virtual key on the display interface of the mobile phone, wherein the voice recognition module comprises an input for recording voice speech acquisition device and analogue-to-digital conversion device”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Zhou by including touch operation on speech acquisition control as taught by Yin for the advantage of there is no need for keyboard input to record, which is convenient and fast, which avoids the answering phone is inconvenient to simultaneously record information (Abstract).
As per claim 7 and 15, Zhou discloses, wherein the obtaining a reply text for the first text further comprises:
performing speech recognition on the speech to obtain the first text corresponding to the speech (Fig. 1, element 23); and
inputting the first text into a language model to obtain the reply text for the first text (col. 4, line 26-col. 5, line 57).
As per claim 8, Zhou discloses, wherein after the determining a target language used when the first sentence is converted into speech, the method further comprises: performing text to speech processing on the target sentence based on the target language used when the first sentence is converted into speech, to obtain first speech (col. 5, lines 1-57, TTS).
As per claim 9, Zhou discloses, an electronic device, comprising:
a processor (col. 7, lines 31-36); and
a memory, configured to store computer-executable instructions, wherein the computer-executable instructions stored in the memory, when executed by the processor (col. 7, lines 37-65), cause the processor to:
obtain a first text and a reply text for the first text (col. 4, lines 9-17, "speech recognition module 23 accepts the voice data to be converted and the language identifier, recognizes what words have been said, and translates the information into text" as claimed "first text"; col. 5, lines, 1-14, "returns the search results in different languages 34" as claimed "reply text");
determine a first sentence in the reply text (col. 5, lines 1-14);
determine a first language of the first text and a second language of a preceding part of the first sentence (col. 3, lines 49-55, "24 to determine what language the user is speaking"; col. 5, lines 1-14); and
determine a target language used when the first sentence is converted into speech based on the first sentence, the reply text, the first language, and the second language (col. 5, lines 1-57, "If the search results are in multiple languages, machine translation module 28 may be used to translate the search results into the language used by the user" and TTS).
Zhou does not explicitly disclose, but Yin discloses, obtain a speech in response to a touch operation on a speech acquisition control (Fig. 1 description and Claim 1, “wherein the obtaining a reply text for the first text comprises: obtaining a speech in response to a touch operation on a speech acquisition control”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Zhou by including touch operation on speech acquisition control as taught by Yin for the advantage of there is no need for keyboard input to record, which is convenient and fast, which avoids the answering phone is inconvenient to simultaneously record information (Abstract).
As per claims 16-17, they are analyzed and thus rejected for the same reasons set forth in the rejections of claims 1, 8, and 9, because the corresponding claims have similar limitations.
Claim(s) 2-3, 10-11, and 18-19is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhou (US 6,999,932) in view of Yin (CN 103200328) as applied to claims 1, 9, and 17 above, and further in view of Pulz et al. (US 2015/0073770).
As per claims 2, 10, and 18, Zhou discloses as indicated in claim 1, wherein the determining a target language used when the target sentence is converted into speech based on the target sentence, the reply text, the first language, and the second language comprises: but does not explicitly disclose, however Pulz discloses, recognizing a text in the target sentence to determine a sentence type of the target sentence, the sentence type comprising at least one of the following: a non-standard word type, a formula type, a numeric type, and a standard word type (Paragraphs 0024- 0026); and
determining, based on the sentence type, the reply text, the first language, and the second language, the target language used when the target sentence is converted into speech (Paragraphs 0027-0029).
As per claims 3, 11, and 19, Zhou discloses, as indicated in claim 2, wherein the determining, based on the sentence type, the reply text, the first language, and the second language, the target language used when the target sentence is converted into speech comprises: but does not explicitly disclose, however Pulz discloses, obtaining a number of characters in the reply text; and determining, based on the number of characters, the sentence type, the first language, and the second language, the target language used when the target sentence is converted into speech (Paragraphs 0027- 0029).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Zhou in view of Yin by including determining, based on the sentence type, the reply text, the first language, and the second language, the target language used when the target sentence is converted into speech as taught by Pulz for the advantage of having generated speech corresponding to the text in multiple languages, accents, or dialects, the system combines the portions, then communicates the speech to the text recipient (Abstract).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-6, 12-14, and 20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see remarks section, filed on August 13, 2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 7 and 15 under U.S.C. §103 (Feng does not constitute prior art) have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Yin (CN 103200328).
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Abul K. Azad whose telephone number is (571) 272-7599. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Bhavesh Mehta, can be reached at (571) 272-7453.
Any response to this action should be mailed to:
Commissioner for Patents
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, VA 22313-1450
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October 1, 2026
/ABUL K AZAD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2656
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