DETAILED ACTION
Introduction
1. This office action is in response to Applicant's submission filed on 12/05/2024. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . Claims 1-20 are currently pending and examined below.
Drawings
2. The drawings filed on 12/05/2024 have been accepted and considered by the Examiner.
Information Disclosure Statement
3. The Information Statements (IDS) filed on 03/07/2025 and 07/29/2026 have been accepted and considered in this office action and are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97.
Priority
4. The Applicants priority to U.S. Provisional Application # 63/090,898, filed 13 October 2020, has been accepted and considered in this office action.
Double Patenting
5. The non-statutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper time-wise extension of the "right to exclude" granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Omum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); and In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed e-terminal disclaimer (e-TD) in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321 (c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on a non-statutory double patenting ground provided the conflicting application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with this application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. Effective January 1, 1994, a registered attorney or agent of record may sign an e-terminal disclaimer. An e-terminal disclaimer signed by the assignee must fully comply with 37 CFR 3.73(b).
Claims 1-20 of the instant Application are rejected on the ground of non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-19 of U.S. Patent # 11521616. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims of the present application are broader in scope than those of the U.S. Patent # 11521616 and hence the claims of the U.S. Patent # 11521616 can anticipate those of the present invention. That is, the claims of the U.S. Patent # 11521616 contain every limitation of the claims of the present application or the claims of the present application are obvious variants thereof. It should be noted that this is in fact a non-provisional non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection because the conflicting claims have in fact been patented.
As an example; claim 1 of the instant application and claim 1 of U.S. Patent # 11521616 both disclose a method comprising based on an ATC audio signal, determining a plurality of entity hypotheses which are phonetically-conflicted, based on a set of contextual information, determining a respective language score for each phonetically conflicted entity hypothesis of the plurality using a language model; deconflicting the plurality of phonetically conflicted entity hypotheses by selecting a first entity hypothesis of the plurality based on the respective language score and performing an action based on the first entity hypothesis. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would have been obvious at the time of the invention to drop narrower limitations in order to have a patent with wider applicability and freedom to operate. In other words, the narrower claim 1 of the U.S. Patent # 11521616 anticipates the broader claim 1 of the instant application. Also, removal of the additional steps is obvious: In re Karlson, 136 USPQ 184 (1963): "Omission of an element and its function is an obvious expedient if the remaining elements perform the same functions as before".
Claims 1-20 of the instant Application are also rejected on the ground of non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent # 11423887. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims of the present application are broader in scope than those of the U.S. Patent # 11423887 and hence the claims of the U.S. Patent # 11423887 can anticipate those of the present invention. That is, the claims of the U.S. Patent # 11423887 contain every limitation of the claims of the present application or the claims of the present application are obvious variants thereof. It should be noted that this is in fact a non-provisional non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection because the conflicting claims have in fact been patented.
As an example; claim 1 of the instant application and claim 1 of U.S. Patent # 11423887 both teach a method comprising based on an ATC audio signal, determining a plurality of entity hypotheses which are phonetically-conflicted, based on a set of contextual information, determining a respective language score for each phonetically conflicted entity hypothesis of the plurality using a language model; deconflicting the plurality of phonetically conflicted entity hypotheses by selecting a first entity hypothesis of the plurality based on the respective language score and performing an action based on the first entity hypothesis. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would have been obvious at the time of the invention to drop narrower limitations in order to have a patent with wider applicability and freedom to operate. In other words, the narrower claim 1 of the U.S. Patent # 11423887 anticipates the broader claim 1 of the instant application. Also, removal of the additional steps is obvious: In re Karlson, 136 USPQ 184 (1963): "Omission of an element and its function is an obvious expedient if the remaining elements perform the same functions as before".
Claims 1-20 of the instant Application are also rejected on the ground of non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent # 11967324. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims of the present application are broader in scope than those of the U.S. Patent # 11967324 and hence the claims of the U.S. Patent # 11967324 can anticipate those of the present invention. That is, the claims of the U.S. Patent # 11967324 contain every limitation of the claims of the present application or the claims of the present application are obvious variants thereof. It should be noted that this is in fact a non-provisional non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection because the conflicting claims have in fact been patented.
As an example; claim 1 of the instant application and claim 1 of U.S. Patent # 11967324 both disclose a method comprising based on an ATC audio signal, determining a plurality of entity hypotheses which are phonetically-conflicted, based on a set of contextual information, determining a respective language score for each phonetically conflicted entity hypothesis of the plurality using a language model; deconflicting the plurality of phonetically conflicted entity hypotheses by selecting a first entity hypothesis of the plurality based on the respective language score and performing an action based on the first entity hypothesis. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would have been obvious at the time of the invention to drop narrower limitations in order to have a patent with wider applicability and freedom to operate. In other words, the narrower claim 1 of the U.S. Patent # 11967324 anticipates the broader claim 1 of the instant application. Also, removal of the additional steps is obvious: In re Karlson, 136 USPQ 184 (1963): "Omission of an element and its function is an obvious expedient if the remaining elements perform the same functions as before".
Claims 1-20 of the instant Application are also rejected on the ground of non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-14 of U.S. Patent # 11600268. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims of the present application are broader in scope than those of the U.S. Patent # 11600268 and hence the claims of the U.S. Patent # 11600268 can anticipate those of the present invention. That is, the claims of the U.S. Patent # 11600268 contain every limitation of the claims of the present application or the claims of the present application are obvious variants thereof. It should be noted that this is in fact a non-provisional non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection because the conflicting claims have in fact been patented.
As an example; claim 1 of the instant application and claim 1 of U.S. Patent # 11600268 both disclose a method comprising based on an ATC audio signal, determining a plurality of entity hypotheses which are phonetically-conflicted, based on a set of contextual information, determining a respective language score for each phonetically conflicted entity hypothesis of the plurality using a language model; deconflicting the plurality of phonetically conflicted entity hypotheses by selecting a first entity hypothesis of the plurality based on the respective language score and performing an action based on the first entity hypothesis. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would have been obvious at the time of the invention to drop narrower limitations in order to have a patent with wider applicability and freedom to operate. In other words, the narrower claim 1 of the U.S. Patent # 11600268 anticipates the broader claim 1 of the instant application. Also, removal of the additional steps is obvious: In re Karlson, 136 USPQ 184 (1963): "Omission of an element and its function is an obvious expedient if the remaining elements perform the same functions as before".
Claims 1-20 of the instant Application are also rejected on the ground of non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent # 12198697. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims of the present application are broader in scope than those of the U.S. Patent # 12198697 and hence the claims of the U.S. Patent # 12198697 can anticipate those of the present invention. That is, the claims of the U.S. Patent # 12198697 contain every limitation of the claims of the present application or the claims of the present application are obvious variants thereof. It should be noted that this is in fact a non-provisional non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection because the conflicting claims have in fact been patented.
As an example; claim 1 of the instant application and claim 1 of U.S. Patent # 12198697 both disclose a method comprising based on an ATC audio signal, determining a plurality of entity hypotheses which are phonetically-conflicted, based on a set of contextual information, determining a respective language score for each phonetically conflicted entity hypothesis of the plurality using a language model; deconflicting the plurality of phonetically conflicted entity hypotheses by selecting a first entity hypothesis of the plurality based on the respective language score and performing an action based on the first entity hypothesis. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would have been obvious at the time of the invention to drop narrower limitations in order to have a patent with wider applicability and freedom to operate. In other words, the narrower claim 1 of the U.S. Patent # 12198697 anticipates the broader claim 1 of the instant application. Also, removal of the additional steps is obvious: In re Karlson, 136 USPQ 184 (1963): "Omission of an element and its function is an obvious expedient if the remaining elements perform the same functions as before".
Claims 1-20 of the instant Application are also rejected on the ground of non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent # 11594214. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims of the present application are broader in scope than those of the U.S. Patent # 11594214 and hence the claims of the U.S. Patent # 11594214 can anticipate those of the present invention. That is, the claims of the U.S. Patent # 11594214 contain every limitation of the claims of the present application or the claims of the present application are obvious variants thereof. It should be noted that this is in fact a non-provisional non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection because the conflicting claims have in fact been patented.
As an example; claim 1 of the instant application and claim 1 of U.S. Patent # 11594214 both disclose a method comprising based on an ATC audio signal, determining a plurality of entity hypotheses which are phonetically-conflicted, based on a set of contextual information, determining a respective language score for each phonetically conflicted entity hypothesis of the plurality using a language model; deconflicting the plurality of phonetically conflicted entity hypotheses by selecting a first entity hypothesis of the plurality based on the respective language score and performing an action based on the first entity hypothesis. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would have been obvious at the time of the invention to drop narrower limitations in order to have a patent with wider applicability and freedom to operate. In other words, the narrower claim 1 of the U.S. Patent # 11594214 anticipates the broader claim 1 of the instant application. Also, removal of the additional steps is obvious: In re Karlson, 136 USPQ 184 (1963): "Omission of an element and its function is an obvious expedient if the remaining elements perform the same functions as before".
Claims 1-20 of the instant Application are also rejected on the ground of non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-14 of U.S. Patent # 12175969. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims of the present application are broader in scope than those of the U.S. Patent # 12175969 and hence the claims of the U.S. Patent # 12175969 can anticipate those of the present invention. That is, the claims of the U.S. Patent # 12175969 contain every limitation of the claims of the present application or the claims of the present application are obvious variants thereof. It should be noted that this is in fact a non-provisional non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection because the conflicting claims have in fact been patented.
As an example; claim 1 of the instant application and claim 1 of U.S. Patent # 12175969 both disclose a method comprising based on an ATC audio signal, determining a plurality of entity hypotheses which are phonetically-conflicted, based on a set of contextual information, determining a respective language score for each phonetically conflicted entity hypothesis of the plurality using a language model; deconflicting the plurality of phonetically conflicted entity hypotheses by selecting a first entity hypothesis of the plurality based on the respective language score and performing an action based on the first entity hypothesis. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would have been obvious at the time of the invention to drop narrower limitations in order to have a patent with wider applicability and freedom to operate. In other words, the narrower claim 1 of the U.S. Patent # 12175969 anticipates the broader claim 1 of the instant application. Also, removal of the additional steps is obvious: In re Karlson, 136 USPQ 184 (1963): "Omission of an element and its function is an obvious expedient if the remaining elements perform the same functions as before".
Claims 1-20 of the instant Application are also rejected on the ground of non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-16 of U.S. Patent # 12136418. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims of the present application are broader in scope than those of the U.S. Patent # 12136418 and hence the claims of the U.S. Patent # 12136418 can anticipate those of the present invention. That is, the claims of the U.S. Patent # 12136418 contain every limitation of the claims of the present application or the claims of the present application are obvious variants thereof. It should be noted that this is in fact a non-provisional non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection because the conflicting claims have in fact been patented.
As an example; claim 1 of the instant application and claim 1 of U.S. Patent # 12136418 both disclose a method comprising based on an ATC audio signal, determining a plurality of entity hypotheses which are phonetically-conflicted, based on a set of contextual information, determining a respective language score for each phonetically conflicted entity hypothesis of the plurality using a language model; deconflicting the plurality of phonetically conflicted entity hypotheses by selecting a first entity hypothesis of the plurality based on the respective language score and performing an action based on the first entity hypothesis. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would have been obvious at the time of the invention to drop narrower limitations in order to have a patent with wider applicability and freedom to operate. In other words, the narrower claim 1 of the U.S. Patent # 12136418 anticipates the broader claim 1 of the instant application. Also, removal of the additional steps is obvious: In re Karlson, 136 USPQ 184 (1963): "Omission of an element and its function is an obvious expedient if the remaining elements perform the same functions as before".
Claims 1-20 of the instant Application are also rejected on the ground of non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent Application Publication # 18952583. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims of the present application are broader in scope than those of the U.S. Patent Application Publication # 18952583 and hence the claims of the U.S. Patent Application Publication # 18952583 can anticipate those of the present invention. That is, the claims of the U.S. Patent Application Publication # 18952583 contain every limitation of the claims of the present application or the claims of the present application are obvious variants thereof. It should be noted that this is in fact a provisional non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection because the conflicting claims have in fact not been patented.
As an example; claim 1 of the instant application and claim 1 of U.S. Patent Application Publication # 18952583 both disclose a method comprising based on an ATC audio signal, determining a plurality of entity hypotheses which are phonetically-conflicted, based on a set of contextual information, determining a respective language score for each phonetically conflicted entity hypothesis of the plurality using a language model; deconflicting the plurality of phonetically conflicted entity hypotheses by selecting a first entity hypothesis of the plurality based on the respective language score and performing an action based on the first entity hypothesis. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would have been obvious at the time of the invention to drop narrower limitations in order to have a patent with wider applicability and freedom to operate. In other words, the narrower claim 1 of the U.S. Patent Application Publication # 18952583 anticipates the broader claim 13 of the instant application. Also, removal of the additional steps is obvious: In re Karlson, 136 USPQ 184 (1963): "Omission of an element and its function is an obvious expedient if the remaining elements perform the same functions as before".
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
6. Claims 1, 4, 6-7 and 10-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kar (U.S. Patent Application Publication # 2015/0100311 A1) in view of Yang (U.S. Patent Application Publication # 2020/0104362 A1). Both Kar and Yang are of the record, having been disclosed in the prosecution of parent Applications to which the present Application claims continuity.
With regards to claim 1, Kar teaches a method comprising based on an Air Traffic Control (ATC) audio signal, determining a plurality of entity hypotheses which are phonetically-conflicted (Paragraphs 20-21 and figures 1-2, teach creating an acoustic model by making audio recordings of speech and its textual transitions using software to create statistical representations of the sounds that make up each word. A phonetic dictionary that permits words to be located by the "way they sound"; i.e. a dictionary that matches common or phonetic misspellings with the correct spelling of each word. Such a dictionary uses pronunciation respelling to aid in the search for or recognition of a word. For every region, only certain acoustic models and their associated phonetic dictionaries will deliver high speech recognition accuracies. Thus, a speech database as used herein shall include an acoustic model, a phonetic dictionary, and a language model, which comprises the statistical representation of all the words that can be spoken by an FIR/ATC controller that comply with FIR/ATC phraseology);
Kar may not explicitly detail the limitation wherein based on a set of contextual information, determining a respective language score for each phonetically conflicted entity hypothesis of the plurality using a language model. This aspect is taught by Yang (Para 236, teaches that based on the candidate text representation and the associated contextual information, the one or more machine learning mechanisms are configured to determine intent confidence scores over a set of candidate actionable intents);
Yang also teaches deconflicting the plurality of phonetically conflicted entity hypotheses by selecting a first entity hypothesis of the plurality based on the respective language score (Para 236, further teaches that natural language processing module can select one or more candidate actionable intents from the set of candidate actionable intents based on the determined intent confidence scores. An ontology could also be used to select the one or more candidate actionable intents from the set of candidate actionable intents);
Yang also teaches performing an action based on the first entity hypothesis (Paragraphs 284-290, teach outputting a modified natural language input through a display and/or through audio output by device. A value determined for a property of a domain can define a parameter for a task corresponding to the natural language input. A task is then performed by device based on the defined parameter. Performing the task includes searching for a media item or searching for a location. Figure 8C, illustrates device output responsive to receiving natural language input according to some examples);
Kar and Yang can be considered as analogous art as they belong to a similar field of endeavor in speech processing. It would thus have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to advantageously combine the teachings of Yang (Use of a spelling hypothesis associated with a waypoint entity along with a language score) with those of Kar (Use of speech processing techniques for communication between aircraft and ATC) so as to improve the accuracy and efficiency with which errors in natural language input are corrected (Yang, para 14).
With regards to claim 4, Kar teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the language model is pretrained for entity pronunciations corresponding to the set of contextual information (Paragraphs 20-21 and figures 1-2, teach creating an acoustic model by making audio recordings of speech and its textual transitions using software to create statistical representations of the sounds that make up each word. A phonetic dictionary that permits words to be located by the "way they sound"; i.e. a dictionary that matches common or phonetic misspellings with the correct spelling of each word. Such a dictionary uses pronunciation respelling to aid in the search for or recognition of a word. For every region, only certain acoustic models and their associated phonetic dictionaries will deliver high speech recognition accuracies. Thus, a speech database as used herein shall include an acoustic model, a phonetic dictionary, and a language model, which comprises the statistical representation of all the words that can be spoken by an FIR/ATC controller that comply with FIR/ATC phraseology).
With regards to claim 6, Yang teaches the method of claim 4, wherein the action is further based on the set of contextual information (Para 236, teaches that based on the candidate text representation and the associated contextual information, the one or more machine learning mechanisms are configured to determine intent confidence scores over a set of candidate actionable intents);
Kar and Yang can be considered as analogous art as they belong to a similar field of endeavor in speech processing. It would thus have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to advantageously combine the teachings of Yang (Use of a spelling hypothesis associated with a waypoint entity along with a language score) with those of Kar (Use of speech processing techniques for communication between aircraft and ATC) so as to improve the accuracy and efficiency with which errors in natural language input are corrected (Yang, para 14).
With regards to claim 7, while Kar teaches use of ATC radio operation regarding waypoint communication (See paragraphs 23-26), it does not explicitly detail that such an operation is a spelling-based clarification operation. This limitation is taught by Yang (Paragraphs 284-290, teach outputting a modified natural language input through a display and/or through audio output by device. For example, the device provides audio output, asking “Did you mean play Shape of You by Ed Sheeran?” A user of device may then confirm the modification by responding “Yes” or reject the modification by responding “No” and/or by manually editing the modified natural language input);
Kar and Yang can be considered as analogous art as they belong to a similar field of endeavor in speech processing. It would thus have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to advantageously combine the teachings of Yang (Use of a spelling hypothesis associated with a waypoint entity along with a language score) with those of Kar (Use of speech processing techniques for communication between aircraft and ATC) as outputting modified natural language input may advantageously indicate that device has identified and corrected a named entity error in natural language input, which may advantageously make digital assistants appear more intelligent and user-friendly (Yang, para 287).
With regards to claim 10, Kar teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the set of contextual information comprises a geographic identifier and a waypoint pronunciation associated with the geographic identifier (Paragraphs 25-26 and figures 1-2, teach a trainer system listens to live or recorded ATC voice samples for each of the FIR regions and creates a corpus. This is converted to an acoustic model for each of the FIR regions. An acoustic map is then created. These steps are repeated until a desired confidence level is attained. Further, these sections teach a speech engine including an adaptive voice recognition system that automatically alters an acoustic model, phonetic dictionary, and language model based on the region in which the aircraft is located).
With regards to claim 11, Kar teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the set of contextual information is associated with a regional pronunciation (Paragraphs 20-21 and figures 1-2, teach creating an acoustic model by making audio recordings of speech and its textual transitions using software to create statistical representations of the sounds that make up each word. A phonetic dictionary that permits words to be located by the "way they sound"; i.e. a dictionary that matches common or phonetic misspellings with the correct spelling of each word. Such a dictionary uses pronunciation respelling to aid in the search for or recognition of a word. For every region, only certain acoustic models and their associated phonetic dictionaries will deliver high speech recognition accuracies. The speech database used herein includes an acoustic model, a phonetic dictionary, and a language model, which comprises the statistical representation of all the words that can be spoken by an FIR/ATC controller that comply with FIR/ATC phraseology).
With regards to claim 12, Kar teaches the method of claim 11, wherein the regional pronunciation comprises a colloquial speech pattern, a standardized dialectic speech pattern, English vocal sounds, colloquial jargon, or regional phrasing (Paragraphs 20-21 and figures 1-2, teach creating an acoustic model by making audio recordings of speech and its textual transitions using software to create statistical representations of the sounds that make up each word. A phonetic dictionary that permits words to be located by the "way they sound"; i.e. a dictionary that matches common or phonetic misspellings with the correct spelling of each word. Such a dictionary uses pronunciation respelling to aid in the search for or recognition of a word. For every region, only certain acoustic models and their associated phonetic dictionaries will deliver high speech recognition accuracies. The speech database used herein includes an acoustic model, a phonetic dictionary, and a language model, which comprises the statistical representation of all the words that can be spoken by an FIR/ATC controller that comply with FIR/ATC phraseology).
7. Claims 2-3 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kar in view of Yang and further in view of Kuhn (U.S. Patent # 6230131 B1). Kuhn is also of the record, having been disclosed in the prosecution of parent Applications to which the present Application claims continuity.
With regards to claim 2, Kar and Yang may not explicitly detail the limitation wherein the plurality of phonetically conflicting entity hypotheses are selected from a predetermined lexicon based on an analysis the ATC audio signal. However, Kuhn teaches this aspect (Col 1, lines 45-55, teach a memory containing the mixed tree data structure that can be incorporated into a variety of different speech processing products, e.g. the mixed tree can be connected to a speech recognition system to allow the end user to add additional words to the recognition dictionary without the need to understand the nuances of building a phonetic transcription. The decision tree can also be used in a speech synthesis system to generate pronunciations for words not found in the current dictionary);
Kar, Yang and Kuhn can be considered as analogous art as they belong to a similar field of endeavor in speech processing. It would thus have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to advantageously combine the teachings of Kuhn (Use of a waypoint entity lexicon) with those of Kar and Yang as shown above so as to improve the results of letter-to-pronunciation transformation (Kuhn, abstract).
With regards to claim 3, Kar teaches the method of claim 2, wherein the analysis of the ATC audio signal comprises automatic speech recognition (ASR) with the language model (Paragraphs 7 and 21, teach automatic speech recognition on board an aircraft using a speech database that includes an acoustic model, a phonetic dictionary, and a language model, which comprises the statistical representation of all the words that can be spoken by an FIR/ATC controller that comply with FIR/ATC phraseology).
With regards to claim 5, Kar and Yang may not explicitly detail the limitation wherein plurality of phonetically conflicting entity hypotheses comprise waypoints with distinct spellings. However, Kuhn teaches this (Col 1, lines 5-35, teach selecting the best pronunciation of a spelled name from a list of hypotheses generated by an upstage process);
Kar, Yang and Kuhn can be considered as analogous art as they belong to a similar field of endeavor in speech processing. It would thus have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to advantageously combine the teachings of Kuhn (Use of a waypoint entity lexicon) with those of Kar and Yang as shown above so as to improve the results of letter-to-pronunciation transformation (Kuhn, abstract).
8. Claims 9 and 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kar in view of Yang and further in view of Bilek (U.S. Patent Application Publication # 2016/0093302 A1). Bilek is again of the record, having been disclosed in the prosecution of parent Applications to which the present Application claims continuity.
With regards to claim 9, Kar and Yang may not explicitly detail the limitation wherein performing the action comprises commanding the aircraft based on the first entity hypothesis. This is taught by Bilek (Para 25, teaches that the voice recognition processor can, having completed the conversion to the taxiway textual command, output the taxiway textual command to the taxiway clearance display. Para 26, teaches that the voice recognition processor can, in addition to outputting the taxiway textual command to a taxiway clearance display, communicate the taxiway textual command to the FMS, which can use the taxiway textual command to guide the aircraft e.g., manage a taxiing procedure or portion thereof, according to the command. Para 27, teaches that an uncertainty indicator can offer alternatives if the voice recognition processor matches only part of a phrase or to an ATC voice command, the voice recognition processor can output a variety of possible taxiway textual commands, such that a pilot may select a correct or most probably, from the pilot's perspective, correct command. The system can use AMM data to assess the probability, based upon the airport layout, that the taxiway textual command is correct);
Kar, Yang and Bilek can be considered as analogous art as they belong to a similar field of endeavor in speech processing. It would thus have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to advantageously combine the teachings of Bilek (Use of a utterance hypothesis to command the aircraft) with those of Kar and Yang as shown above so as to improve the safety of aircraft operation on the ground and in the air (Bilek, Paragraphs 13-16).
With regards to claim 16, Kar teaches a method comprising predicting a waypoint spelling for an audio signal, comprising determining a plurality of waypoint spelling hypotheses for the audio signal (Paragraphs 20-21 and figures 1-2, teach creating an acoustic model by making audio recordings of speech and its textual transitions using software to create statistical representations of the sounds that make up each word. A phonetic dictionary that permits words to be located by the "way they sound"; i.e. a dictionary that matches common or phonetic misspellings with the correct spelling of each word. Such a dictionary uses pronunciation respelling to aid in the search for or recognition of a word. For every region, only certain acoustic models and their associated phonetic dictionaries will deliver high speech recognition accuracies. Thus, a speech database as used herein shall include an acoustic model, a phonetic dictionary, and a language model, which comprises the statistical representation of all the words that can be spoken by an FIR/ATC controller that comply with FIR/ATC phraseology);
Kar may not explicitly detail the limitation of determining a respective language score, using the language model, for each of the plurality of waypoint spelling hypotheses. This aspect is taught by Yang (Para 236, teaches that based on the candidate text representation and the associated contextual information, the one or more machine learning mechanisms are configured to determine intent confidence scores over a set of candidate actionable intents. The natural language processing module can select one or more candidate actionable intents from the set of candidate actionable intents based on the determined intent confidence scores. An ontology could also be used to select the one or more candidate actionable intents from the set of candidate actionable intents);
Kar and Yang can be considered as analogous art as they belong to a similar field of endeavor in speech processing. It would thus have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to advantageously combine the teachings of Yang (Use of a spelling hypothesis associated with a waypoint entity along with a language score) with those of Kar (Use of speech processing techniques for communication between aircraft and ATC) so as to improve the accuracy and efficiency with which errors in natural language input are corrected (Yang, para 14);
Kar and Yang may not explicitly detail the limitation of navigating based on the waypoint spelling prediction, wherein the waypoint spelling prediction is further based on contextual information. This aspect is taught by Bilek (Para 25, teaches that the voice recognition processor can, having completed the conversion to the taxiway textual command, output the taxiway textual command to the taxiway clearance display. Para 26, teaches that the voice recognition processor can, in addition to outputting the taxiway textual command to a taxiway clearance display, communicate the taxiway textual command to the FMS, which can use the taxiway textual command to guide the aircraft e.g., manage a taxiing procedure or portion thereof, according to the command. Para 27, teaches that an uncertainty indicator can offer alternatives if the voice recognition processor matches only part of a phrase or to an ATC voice command, the voice recognition processor can output a variety of possible taxiway textual commands, such that a pilot may select a correct or most probably, from the pilot's perspective, correct command. The system can use AMM data to assess the probability, based upon the airport layout, that the taxiway textual command is correct);
Kar, Yang and Bilek can be considered as analogous art as they belong to a similar field of endeavor in speech processing. It would thus have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to advantageously combine the teachings of Bilek (Use of a utterance hypothesis to command the aircraft) with those of Kar and Yang as shown above so as to improve the safety of aircraft operation on the ground and in the air (Bilek, Paragraphs 13-16).
With regards to claim 17, Kar teaches the method of claim 16, wherein determining the plurality of waypoint spelling hypotheses for the audio signal comprises generating at least one waypoint spelling hypothesis by Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) (Paragraphs 7 and 21, teach automatic speech recognition on board an aircraft using a speech database that includes an acoustic model, a phonetic dictionary, and a language model, which comprises the statistical representation of all the words that can be spoken by an FIR/ATC controller that comply with FIR/ATC phraseology).
With regards to claim 18, Kar teaches the method of claim 16, wherein the at least one waypoint spelling hypothesis is generated using an ASR model with integrated Sentence Boundary Detection (SBD), which is pretrained for semantic parsing of Air Traffic Control (ATC) utterances from ATC radio (Paragraphs 25-26 and figures 1-2, teach a trainer system listens to live or recorded ATC voice samples for each of the FIR regions and creates a corpus. This is converted to an acoustic model for each of the FIR regions. An acoustic map is then created. These steps are repeated until a desired confidence level is attained. Further, these sections teach a speech engine including an adaptive voice recognition system that automatically alters an acoustic model, phonetic dictionary, and language model based on the region in which the aircraft is located. Speech recognition as outlined in para 7 and 21 of Kar inherently includes sentence boundary detection).
With regards to claim 19, Kar teaches the method of claim 16, wherein the contextual information comprises a geographic identifier corresponding with a waypoint pronunciation (Paragraphs 25-26 and figures 1-2, teach a trainer system listens to live or recorded ATC voice samples for each of the FIR regions and creates a corpus. This is converted to an acoustic model for each of the FIR regions. An acoustic map is then created. These steps are repeated until a desired confidence level is attained. Further, these sections teach a speech engine including an adaptive voice recognition system that automatically alters an acoustic model, phonetic dictionary, and language model based on the region in which the aircraft is located).
With regards to claim 20, Kar teaches the method of claim 16, wherein the contextual information comprises a colloquial speech pattern, wherein the language model is pretrained based on the colloquial speech pattern (Paragraphs 20-21 and figures 1-2, teach creating an acoustic model by making audio recordings of speech and its textual transitions using software to create statistical representations of the sounds that make up each word. A phonetic dictionary that permits words to be located by the "way they sound"; i.e. a dictionary that matches common or phonetic misspellings with the correct spelling of each word. Such a dictionary uses pronunciation respelling to aid in the search for or recognition of a word. For every region, only certain acoustic models and their associated phonetic dictionaries will deliver high speech recognition accuracies. This speech database includes an acoustic model, a phonetic dictionary, and a language model, which comprises the statistical representation of all the words that can be spoken by an FIR/ATC controller that comply with FIR/ATC phraseology).
Allowable Subject Matter
9. Claims 8 and 13-15 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 and if they further overcome the double patenting rejection. The prior art of record, alone or in combination, does not currently suggest or teach the invention as outlined in these claims. The Examiner shall outline more detailed reasons for allowance as and when the Application goes to allowability.
Conclusion
10. The following prior art, made of record but not relied upon, is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Golikov (U.S. Patent Application Publication # 2021/0074285 A1), Weisz (U.S. Patent Application Publication # 2021/0012765 A1). These references are also included in the PTO-892 form attached with this office action.
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Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NEERAJ SHARMA whose contact information is given below. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday to Friday 8 am to 5 pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Pierre Louis-Desir can be reached on 571-272-7799 (Direct Phone). The fax number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
/NEERAJ SHARMA/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2659
571-270-5487 (Direct Phone)
571-270-6487 (Direct Fax)
neeraj.sharma@uspto.gov (Direct Email)
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