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 office action is in response to the filing of the application on 11/08/2024. Claims 1-15 are currently pending in the filing of 11/08/2024 with no amendments to the claims since filing.
Information Disclosure Statements
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 06/20/2025 have been considered. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement(s) have been considered by the examiner.
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 and 9-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20210074302 to Seo (hereinafter Seo), in view of US 20210224367 to Fleming et al. (hereinafter Fleming).
Regarding claim 1, Seo teaches,
An electronic device, comprising: (fig. 2, electronic apparatus 10)
a memory; and (fig. 2, storage 15, [0060] teaches storage 15 storing the voice recognition model.)
a controller configured to: (fig. 2, processor 17. [0063] teaches processor 17 applying the voice recognition model to uttered voice. See also Abstract, teaching utterer speaking voice input that is applied to voice recognition module.)
generate one or more speech groups using voice data collected from one or more users, (Abstract, teaches a plurality of utterer groups that are used to identify the utterer. Fig. 4 and [0015] teaches groups may include gender and age.)
receive a voice command, ([0002] teaches performing an operation based on the recognition results of the uttered voice. [0039] teaches recognizing commands that perform the operations based on speech to text (STT) being performed as part of the voice recognition process.)
obtain a speech group matching the voice command among the one or more speech groups, and (Abstract, teaches identifying an utterer group among a plurality of utter groups based on utterer characteristics. Fig. 4 & [0015] teach utterer characteristics include gender, age, names, residence, nationalities of the utterers. [0004-5] teaches taking into account differences in pronunciation between utterers. [0049-51] teaches using characteristics of utterer groups when performing voice recognition)
when there is an (Abstract, teaches performing identification of an utterer group. [0043] teaches identifying the specific utterer. [0069] teaches the processor 17 using AI / machine learning to identify the uttered voice. Fig. 4 teaches that voice characteristics are used by the voice recognition model to identify characteristics such as gender and age.)
Seo fails to explicitly teach account profiles,
However, Fleming teaches,
when there is an account profile that matches speech group information of the obtained speech group among a plurality of account profiles stored in the memory, match the account profile and the speech group information to store the matched account profile and speech group information in memory. (Abstract, teaches identifying a set of accounts based on a voice print, and then identifying the user’s account. [0014] teaches voice print is compared to voice prints of the twenty-five consumer accounts and matched with the coffee drinker's consumer account.)
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Seo, which teaches grouping users / utterers based on voice characteristics using voice recognition (Abstract) and identifying users ([0043]), with Fleming, which also teaches natural language utterances being used to determine a set of user accounts and then identifying the specific user (Abstract), and additionally teaches matching a user account from a plurality of user accounts (Abstract & [0014]). One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such an addition to provide Seo with the added ability to use an account of the user to identify the specific user, as taught by Fleming, for the purpose of increasing security by identifying a user / utterer to a specific account.
Regarding claim 2, Seo and Fleming teach,
The electronic device of claim 1,
wherein the controller is configured to generate the one or more speech groups according to an age and a gender using the collected voice data. (Seo, Fig. 4 & [0015] teach utterer characteristics include gender and age.)
Regarding claim 3, Seo and Fleming teach,
The electronic device of claim 2,
wherein the speech group information includes at least one of the age, the gender, a first voice feature vector corresponding to the age, or a second voice feature vector corresponding to the gender. (Seo, Fig. 4 & [0015] teach utterer characteristics include gender and age. Abstract, teaches identifying characteristics of an utter \ “feature vector.” The examiner asserts that feature vectors are also inherent to voice recognition models, which are taught by Seo and Fleming.)
Regarding claim 9, Seo and Fleming teach,
A method of operating an electronic device, comprising:
generating one or more speech groups using voice data collected from one or more users;
receiving a voice command;
obtaining a speech group matching the voice command among the one or more speech groups; and
when there is an account profile that matches speech group information of the obtained speech group among a plurality of account profiles, matching the account profile and the speech group information to store the matched account profile and speech group information.
Claim 9 is rejected using the same basis of arguments used to reject claim 1 above.
Regarding claim 10, Seo and Fleming teach,
The method of claim 9, wherein the generating step comprises:
generating the one or more speech groups according to an age and a gender using the collected voice data.
Claim 10 is rejected using the same basis of arguments used to reject claim 2 above.
Regarding claim 11, Seo and Fleming teach,
The method of claim 10, wherein the speech group information includes at least one of the age, the gender, a first voice feature vector corresponding to the age, or a second voice feature vector corresponding to the gender.
Claim 11 is rejected using the same basis of arguments used to reject claim 3 above.
Claims 4-5, 8, and 12-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Seo, in view of Fleming, in view of US 20220277752 to Zhang et al. (hereinafter Zhang).
Regarding claim 4, Seo and Fleming teach,
The electronic device of claim 1, further comprising a display,
Seo and Fleming fail to explicitly teach displaying a voiceprint registration notification for a new user,
However, Zhang teaches,
wherein the controller is configured to display a voiceprint registration notification for voiceprint registration on the display when a voice of an unregistered voiceprint speaker is recognized and the one or more speech groups are generated. ([0139] teaches displays a user interface 23, and outputs an utterance 4 “Please read the text statement displayed on the screen for voiceprint registration” See also, [0154-155])
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Seo, which teaches grouping users / utterers based on voice characteristics using voice recognition (Abstract) and identifying users ([0043]), with Fleming, which also teaches natural language utterances being used to determine a set of user accounts and then identifying the specific user (Abstract), and additionally teaches matching a user account from a plurality of user accounts (Abstract & [0014]). with Zhang, which also teaches using voice recognition of personal information including age and gender ([0016]), and additionally teaches prompting a new user to register a voiceprint ([0139]), displaying a notification that voiceprint registration has been completed ([0136]), and voiceprint registration is not possible because voiceprint registration has already been completed ([0154]). One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such an addition to provide Seo and Fleming with the added ability to notify a user that voiceprint registration is required, voiceprint registration is completed, and voiceprint registration has already been performed, as taught by Zhang, for the purpose of increasing user convenience by providing notification while maintaining security by registering voiceprints.
Regarding claim 5, Seo and Fleming teach,
The electronic device of claim 1, further comprising a display,
Seo and Fleming fail to explicitly teach displaying a voiceprint registration complete notification,
However, Zhang teaches,
wherein the controller is configured to display, on the display, a voiceprint registration completion notification indicating that voiceprint registration has been completed. (fig. 2a-2 & [0136] teach “The voiceprint registration has been completed” being displayed when voiceprint registration is completed.)
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Seo, which teaches grouping users / utterers based on voice characteristics using voice recognition (Abstract) and identifying users ([0043]), with Fleming, which also teaches natural language utterances being used to determine a set of user accounts and then identifying the specific user (Abstract), and additionally teaches matching a user account from a plurality of user accounts (Abstract & [0014]). with Zhang, which also teaches using voice recognition of personal information including age and gender ([0016]), and additionally teaches prompting a new user to register a voiceprint ([0139]), displaying a notification that voiceprint registration has been completed ([0136]), and voiceprint registration is not possible because voiceprint registration has already been completed ([0154]). One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such an addition to provide Seo and Fleming with the added ability to notify a user that voiceprint registration is required, voiceprint registration is completed, and voiceprint registration has already been performed, as taught by Zhang, for the purpose of increasing user convenience by providing notification while maintaining security by registering voiceprints.
Regarding claim 8, Seo and Fleming teach,
The electronic device of claim 1,
wherein the (Seo, [0015] teaches age and gender being associated with a name of the utterer.)
Seo and Fleming fail to explicitly teach an account profile that includes age and gender,
However, Zhang teaches,
wherein the account profile includes an age and a gender corresponding to an account. (fig. 4 teaches registered user profile including gender and age. [0016] teaches voice recognition including profile information of gender and age.)
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Seo, which teaches grouping users / utterers based on voice characteristics using voice recognition (Abstract) and identifying users ([0043]), with Fleming, which also teaches natural language utterances being used to determine a set of user accounts and then identifying the specific user (Abstract), and additionally teaches matching a user account from a plurality of user accounts (Abstract & [0014]). with Zhang, which also teaches using voice recognition of personal information including age and gender ([0016]), and additionally teaches prompting a new user to register a voiceprint ([0139]), displaying a notification that voiceprint registration has been completed ([0136]), and voiceprint registration is not possible because voiceprint registration has already been completed ([0154]), and including age and gender in the user profile (fig. 4). One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such an addition to provide Seo and Fleming with the added ability to notify a user that voiceprint registration is required, voiceprint registration is completed, and voiceprint registration has already been performed, as taught by Zhang, for the purpose of increasing user convenience by providing notification while maintaining security by registering voiceprints and including age and gender in the user profile.
Regarding claim 12, Seo, Fleming, and Zhang teach,
The method of claim 9, further comprising:
displaying a voiceprint registration notification for voiceprint registration, when a voice of an unregistered voiceprint speaker is recognized and the one or more speech groups are generated.
Claim 12 is rejected using the same basis of arguments used to reject claim 4 above.
Regarding claim 13, Seo, Fleming, and Zhang teach,
The method of claim 9, further comprising:
displaying a voiceprint registration completion notification indicating that voiceprint registration has been completed.
Claim 13 is rejected using the same basis of arguments used to reject claim 5 above.
Claims 6 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Seo, in view of Fleming, in view of US 20190348049 to Williams et al. (hereinafter Williams), in view of Zhang.
Regarding claim 6, Seo and Fleming teach,
The electronic device of claim 1, further comprising a display,
wherein the controller is configured to (Seo, Abstract, teaches a plurality of utterer groups that are used to identify the utterer. Fig. 4 and [0015] teaches groups may include gender and age. [0007] teaches preventing utterance recognition when utterer voice does not match utterance intention, such as when a foreign speaker pronounces a command incorrectly according to grouping.)
Seo and Fleming fail to explicitly teach voiceprint impossibility when account profile information does not match the speech group information,
However, Williams teaches,
wherein the controller is configured to the speech group information. (fig. 11 & [0138] teaches using gender or language as a basis of the biometric / voiceprint match, and when this fails enhancing the rejection process by rejecting even if the voiceprint match matches.)
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Seo, which teaches grouping users / utterers based on voice characteristics using voice recognition (Abstract) and identifying users ([0043]), with Fleming, which also teaches natural language utterances being used to determine a set of user accounts and then identifying the specific user (Abstract), and additionally teaches matching a user account from a plurality of user accounts (Abstract & [0014]), with Williams, which also teaches voice / biometric detection (Abstract), and additionally teaches using attributes such as gender and/or language spoken in combination with voiceprint matching to reject the matching ([0138]). One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such an addition to provide Seo and Fleming with the added ability to reject voiceprint matches based on attributes such as gender and language spoken, as taught by Williams, for the purpose of increasing security and computational efficiency by rejecting voiceprint matches based on attributes not matching the user.
Seo, Fleming and Williams fail to explicitly teach displaying a voiceprint registration impossibility notification,
However, Zhang teaches,
wherein the controller is configured to display a voiceprint registration impossibility notification on the display (Zhang, [0154] teaches outputting on the display, “Voiceprint registration has been completed for the registered user ID. Please do not repeat the voiceprint registration”. See [0154-155])
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Seo, which teaches grouping users / utterers based on voice characteristics using voice recognition (Abstract) and identifying users ([0043]), with Fleming, which also teaches natural language utterances being used to determine a set of user accounts and then identifying the specific user (Abstract), and additionally teaches matching a user account from a plurality of user accounts (Abstract & [0014]), with Williams, which also teaches voice / biometric detection (Abstract), and additionally teaches using attributes such as gender and/or language spoken in combination with voiceprint matching to reject the matching ([0138]), with Zhang, which also teaches using voice recognition of personal information including age and gender ([0016]), and additionally teaches prompting a new user to register a voiceprint ([0139]), displaying a notification that voiceprint registration has been completed ([0136]), and voiceprint registration is not possible because voiceprint registration has already been completed ([0154]), and including age and gender in the user profile (fig. 4). One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such an addition to provide Seo, Fleming and Williams with the added ability to notify a voiceprint registration cannot be performed as taught by Zhang, for the purpose of increasing user convenience by providing notification while maintaining security by registering voiceprints based on characteristics in the user profile.
Regarding claim 14, Seo, Fleming, Williams, and Zhang teach,
The method of claim 9, further comprising:
displaying a voiceprint registration impossibility notification when an account profile of an account logged in with the electronic device does not match the speech group information.
Claim 14 is rejected using the same basis of arguments used to reject claim 6 above.
Claims 7 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Seo, in view of Fleming, in view of US 20250061178 to Kurose et al. (hereinafter Kurose).
Regarding claim 7, Seo and Fleming teach,
The electronic device of claim 1, further comprising a display,
wherein the controller is configured to (Seo, Abstract, teaches a plurality of utterer groups that are used to identify the utterer. Fig. 4 and [0015] teaches groups may include gender and age. [0007] teaches preventing utterance recognition when utterer voice does not match utterance intention, such as when a foreign speaker pronounces a command incorrectly according to grouping.)
Seo and Fleming fail to explicitly teach displaying a notification to subscribe to a new account,
However, Kurose teaches,
wherein the controller is configured to display a new account subscription notification for signing up for a new account on the display when an account profile of an account logged in with the electronic device does not match the (Abstract, teaches biometric authentication and biometric registration when a person is not registered. [0094-98] teaches detecting that a user is non-registered and the non-registered person is offered the ability to register if they wish. [0113-121] teaches the registration procedure offered to the user which at [0113] teaches displaying “boarding procedure using a face image” and then at [0121] outputs the message “future procedures can be performed using face recognition.”)
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Seo, which teaches grouping users / utterers based on voice characteristics using voice recognition (Abstract) and identifying users ([0043]), with Fleming, which also teaches natural language utterances being used to determine a set of user accounts and then identifying the specific user (Abstract), and additionally teaches matching a user account from a plurality of user accounts (Abstract & [0014]), with Kurose, which also teaches biometric authentication (Abstract), and additionally teaches biometric registration when the user is not yet registered (Abstract, & [0094-98]). One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such an addition to provide Seo and Fleming with the added ability to preform registration in response to the user being a non-registered user, as taught by Kurose, for the purpose of increasing security while increasing user convenience by offering to register the user.
Regarding claim 15, Seo, Fleming, and Kurose teach,
The method of claim 9, further comprising:
displaying a new account subscription notification for signing up for a new account when an account profile of an account logged in with the electronic device does not match the speech group information.
Claim 15 is rejected using the same basis of arguments used to reject claim 7 above.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRIAN WILLIAM AVERY whose telephone number is (571) 272-3942. The examiner can normally be reached on 9AM-5PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Farid Homayounmehr can be reached on (571) 272-3739.
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/B.W.A./
/JASON K GEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2495