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 Amendment
This office action is responsive to applicant’s remarks received on August 13, 2026. Claims 1, 3-15 & 17-20 and newly added claims 21 & 22 are pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the amended claims filed on August 13, 2026, have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
During the interview, Applicant's representative presented their position on the claimed invention. Ways to overcome the prior art were discussed. Without agreement being reached, Examiner stated that he will formally consider the proposed position of the applicant by updating the search and taking a more in-depth look at the prior art. Upon further consideration, additional prior art has been discovered which fully teaches the amended claims. With that said, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Gandhi et al. (US 20190295547 A1 hereinafter, Gandhi ‘547) in view of Bauerle et al. (US 20160041851 A1 hereinafter, Bauerle ‘851) and further in view of Colombo et al. (US 20140243028 A1 hereinafter, Colombo ‘028). Since the new grounds of rejection are necessitated by Applicant’s amendments to the claims, the present action is made final.
Accordingly, it is submitted that the present application is not in condition for allowance.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Claims 1, 3-15 & 17-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gandhi ‘547 in view of Bauerle ‘851 and further in view of Colombo ‘028.
Regarding claim 8; Gandhi ‘547 discloses a device (Fig. 7, Computing Device 700)
comprising: one or more processors (Fig. 7, Processor 720)
configured to:
establish a virtual identification (ID) number for a user associated with a user equipment (i.e. Computer security uses authentication and encryption as two mechanisms to secure digital work. Authentication is a method to help verify the identity of the interface that is making or processing requests on the computer. Encryption is a method that allows access to a digital work only when you have a specific key associated with that particular content. A person of ordinary skill in the art would understand that there are different well-established ways of authentication and encryption that can be implemented in the Speak-to-IoT platform to support seamless connect between different IoT devices. Fig. 6 depicts a flowchart 600 illustrating an example of a method for a seamless connect of an internet of things (IoT) device with intelligent voice assistant for voice enablement. At block 605, begins with configuring a manager module to manage an IoT device through a network 140. Paragraphs 0033 & 0056);
receive a message directed to the virtual ID number (Fig. 6, Block 610 i.e. At block 610, after a user sends and the manager module receives a speech command for the IoT device at the manager module. At block 625, the speech command is authenticated and encrypted. Paragraph 0056);
translate the message into one or more commands (Fig. 6, Block 630 i.e. At block 630, the Speak-to-IoT translates and communicates the speech command from the manager module to the IoT device. Paragraph 0056)
identify one or more Internet of Things (IoT) devices associated with the one or more commands (i.e. At block 630, the Speak-to-IoT translates and communicates the speech command from the manager module to the IoT device. At block 635, the IoT device receives and executes the speech command and the IoT device. Paragraph 0056)
provide the one or more commands to the one or more IoT devices (i.e. At block 635, the IoT device receives the speech command. Paragraph 0056)
receive feedback from the one or more IoT devices in response to the one or more commands (i.e. In one embodiment, role-based access also includes allowing or denying certain commands on a single IoT device based on the privileges of invoking user. These access privileges can be provided and verified over voice using a number of mechanisms, including voice-prints, special purpose access codes, one time passwords (OTPs), PIN or other security codes, etc. Paragraph 0051)
and provide the feedback to the user equipment (i.e. Role-based access based on voice authentication includes policy mechanisms to allow or deny speech access to a set of IoT devices based on invoking user's privileges i.e. unauthorized user, normal user, supervisor etc. At block 635, the IoT device executes the speech command. Paragraphs 0050-0056)
Examiner reasonably believes that Gandhi ‘547 discloses receive feedback from the one or more IoT devices in response to the one or more commands and provide the feedback to the user equipment as expressed above. However, Examiner cites Bauerle ‘851 to cure any deficiencies of Gandhi ‘547.
Bauerle ‘851 discloses receive feedback from the one or more IoT devices in response to the one or more commands and provide the feedback to the user equipment (i.e. As shown in Fig. 3, in step 301, the smart device determines if it can execute the command. This is determined by the device inherently understanding which commands it is capable of responding. The list of commands that a smart device can respond to is a variable and dependent on the applications installed on the smart device. The command issued will be mapped to the list of supported commands and a respond as to whether the device can or cannot execute the command. After understanding each command and the task it requires, the smart device can determine whether or not it can execute the command. At that point, if the smart device is unable to execute the command it proceeds to step 306 and its score is 0. The present invention is not limited to numerical scoring. Paragraph 0033)
Gandhi ‘547 and Bauerle ‘851 are combinable because they are from same field of endeavor of speech systems (Bauerle ‘851 at “Background of the Invention”).
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify the speech system as taught by Gandhi ‘547 by adding a speech as taught by Bauerle ‘851. The motivation for doing so would have been advantageous because there is a need to make IoT devices include a level of context awareness that results in optimal intelligence among the mesh of connected devices. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Gandhi ‘547 with Bauerle ‘851 to obtain the invention as specified.
Examiner reasonably believes that Gandhi ‘547 discloses wherein the message is a natural language text message provided via a rich communication services protocol at Paragraph 0053. Here, the device 410 includes a customer process 420 that communicates using Hyper-Text Transport Protocol (“HTTP”), Hyper-Text Transport Protocol Secure (“HTTPS”) or Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (“MQTT”) protocol to its local host using Speak-to-IoT Process 430. One of ordinary skill in the art would understand that Rich Communication Services (RCS) and HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) are both modern digital communication protocols that rely on internet data packets rather than legacy voice/circuit-switched networks to transmit rich, structured payloads securely between endpoints. With that said, Examiner reasonably believes that Gandhi ‘547 discloses wherein the message is a natural language text message provided via a rich communication services protocol. However, Examiner cites Colombo ‘028 to cure any deficiencies of Gandhi ‘547.
Colombo ‘028 discloses wherein the message is a natural language text message provided via a rich communication services protocol (i.e. A software client supports basic rich communication suite (RCS) chat capabilities, wherein a user's chat/text message is sent to both an RCS chat server as well as a smart text services (STS) server. See Abstract and Paragraph 0035)
Gandhi ‘547 and Colombo ‘028 are combinable because they are from same field of endeavor of speech systems (Colombo ‘028 at “Technical Field”).
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify the speech system as taught by Gandhi ‘547 by adding wherein the message is a natural language text message provided via a rich communication services protocol as taught by Colombo ‘028. The motivation for doing so would have been advantageous because it is desirable for wireless carriers to provide enhanced functionality so that users can enjoy the simplicity of text messages, while still having the ability to interact in a content-rich manner. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Gandhi ‘547 with Colombo ‘028 to obtain the invention as specified.
Regarding claim 9; Gandhi ‘547 discloses wherein the feedback includes information regarding operational states of the one or more IoT devices (i.e. Role-based access based on voice authentication includes policy mechanisms to allow or deny speech access to a set of IoT devices based on invoking user's privileges i.e. unauthorized user, normal user, supervisor etc. Paragraph 0050)
Regarding claim 10; Gandhi ‘547 discloses wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: receive another message from the user equipment and via the virtual ID number; process the other message, with a large language model (LLM), to identify media to be retrieved and to generate a query for the media; retrieve the media based on the query; and provide the media to the user equipment (i.e. Gandhi ‘547 discloses a continuous system wherein it does not stop with one message or command. For example, Paragraph 0015 teaches that the systems and methods, further comprising: authenticating using a speech command to provide a touchless experience; and allowing role-based access to invoke additional speech commands. One of ordinary skill in the art would understand that the additional commands is synonymous with another message.)
Regarding claim 11; Gandhi ‘547 discloses wherein the feedback includes rich text output associated with the one or more IoT devices (i.e. The device 410 includes a customer process 420 that communicates using Hyper-Text Transport Protocol (“HTTP”), Hyper-Text Transport Protocol Secure (“HTTPS”) or Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (“MQTT”) protocol to its local host using Speak-to-IoT Process 430. Paragraph 0053).
Regarding claim 12; Gandhi ‘547 discloses wherein the one or more commands include commands to check statuses of the one or more IoT devices (i.e. In one embodiment, role-based access also includes allowing or denying certain commands on a single IoT device based on the privileges of invoking user. Paragraph 0051).
Regarding claim 13; Gandhi ‘547 discloses wherein the one or more commands include commands to control operational states of the one or more IoT devices (i.e. Role-based access based on voice authentication includes policy mechanisms to allow or deny speech access to a set of IoT devices based on invoking user's privileges i.e. unauthorized user, normal user, supervisor etc. Paragraph 0050).
Regarding claim 14; Gandhi ‘547 discloses wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: generate a user interface based on the feedback received from the one or more IoT devices (i.e. The voice assistants are managing devices 150 that can receive voice commands for an IoT device 110 from the user 160. Each of the voice assistant 150-n may be associated with a corresponding mobile application 180-n. or a web interface or even a user interface. The Speak-to-IoT cloud can provide a unified or universal mobile application that provides a single universal interface for all of the IoT devices and all of the associated intelligent voice assistants for a given user. Paragraph 0040)
and provide the user interface, for display, to the UE (i.e. Fig. 8 is a block level diagram illustrating different types of IoT applications that can be uniformly connected to a variety of intelligent voice assistants and an exemplary, universal mobile application that provides a unified user interface. Paragraph 0026).
Regarding claim 15; Claim 15 contains substantially the same subject matter as claim 8. Therefore, claim 15 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 8.
Regarding claim 17; Claim 17 contains substantially the same subject matter as claim 4. Therefore, claim 17 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 4.
Regarding claim 18; Claim 18 contains substantially the same subject matter as claim 5. Therefore, claim 18 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 5.
Regarding claim 19; Claim 19 contains substantially the same subject matter as claim 6. Therefore, claim 19 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 6.
Regarding claim 20; Claim 20 contains substantially the same subject matter as claim 10. Therefore, claim 20 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 10.
Regarding claim 1; Claim 1 contains substantially the same subject matter as claim 8. Therefore, claim 1 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 8.
Regarding claim 3; Gandhi ‘547 discloses wherein the virtual ID number uniquely identifies a user associated with the user equipment and the one or more IoT devices (i.e. The identity 330 defines different access levels for different devices execution commands as well as configuration commands. For example, an admin user will have the authority to set different levels of access for different users. There could be a guest profile for visitors to a household. There could be a child versus an adult profile that puts in appropriate safety and security measures including parental controls. Role-based access based on voice authentication includes policy mechanisms to allow or deny speech access to a set of IoT devices based on invoking user's privileges i.e. unauthorized user, normal user, supervisor etc. Paragraph 0050).
Regarding claim 4; Gandhi ‘547 discloses wherein translating the message into the one or more commands comprises: processing the message, with a large language model, to generate the one or more commands (i.e. At block 630, the Speak-to-IoT translates and communicates the speech command from the manager module to the IoT device. At block 635, the IoT device receives and executes the speech command and the IoT device. Paragraph 0056).
Regarding claim 5; Gandhi ‘547 discloses further comprising: establishing the virtual ID number for a user associated with the user equipment and the one or more IoT devices (i.e. Computer security uses authentication and encryption as two mechanisms to secure digital work. Authentication is a method to help verify the identity of the interface that is making or processing requests on the computer. Encryption is a method that allows access to a digital work only when you have a specific key associated with that particular content. A person of ordinary skill in the art would understand that there are different well-established ways of authentication and encryption that can be implemented in the Speak-to-IoT platform to support seamless connect between different IoT devices. Fig. 6 depicts a flowchart 600 illustrating an example of a method for a seamless connect of an internet of things (IoT) device with intelligent voice assistant for voice enablement. At block 605, begins with configuring a manager module to manage an IoT device through a network 140. Paragraphs 0033 & 0056)
Regarding claim 6; Gandhi ‘547 discloses wherein providing the one or more commands to the one or more IoT devices comprises: providing the one or more commands to a network device associated with the one or more IoT devices (Fig. 6, Block 630 i.e. At block 630, the Speak-to-IoT translates and communicates the speech command from the manager module to the IoT device. Paragraph 0056)
and causing the network device to relay the one or more commands to the one or more IoT devices using one or more protocols compatible with the one or more IoT devices (i.e. At block 635, the IoT device executes the speech command. Paragraph 0056).
Regarding claim 7; Gandhi ‘547 discloses further comprising: providing security authentication for the message prior to providing the one or more commands to the one or more IoT devices (i.e. Role-based access also includes allowing or denying certain commands on a single IoT device based on the privileges of invoking user. These access privileges can be provided and verified over voice using a number of mechanisms, including voice-prints, special purpose access codes, one time passwords (OTPs), PIN or other security codes, etc. Paragraph 0051)
Regarding claim 21; Claim 21 contains substantially the same subject matter as claim 22. Therefore, claim 21 is rejected on the same grounds as claim 22.
Regarding claim 22; Colombo ‘028 discloses wherein the one or more instructions further cause the device to: provide a unified interface through RCS text messaging, for display, to the user equipment to enable management of the one or more IoT devices (i.e. When a match is found (e.g., at the selection of the sender), the user interface integrates Smart Text results in a dedicated container (panel) to display the match and relevant actions to a receiver (e.g., and sender) of the message. See Abstract & Paragraph 0006).
Conclusion
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 MARCUS T. RILEY, ESQ. whose telephone number is (571)270-1581. The examiner can normally be reached 9-5 M-F.
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, Hai Phan can be reached at 571-272-6338. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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MARCUS T. RILEY, ESQ.
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2654
/MARCUS T RILEY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2654
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