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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 1-3-2025 and 3-27-2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement(s) are acknowledged by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claim 20 is objected to because of the following informalities: the word DISPLAY SCREEN in line 18 should be lower case. Appropriate correction is required.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory 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 timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory 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 Ornum, 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 terminal disclaimer 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 nonstatutory 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 a terminal disclaimer. A terminal disclaimer signed by the assignee must fully comply with 37 CFR 3.73(b).
Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over: claims 1-20 of Application No. 18/911427.
Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the cited application mentioned above discloses:
‘…receiving an AU voice signal initially generated by the first microphone; receiving an HU voice signal initially generated by the second microphone; using a first captioning process to generate AU captions corresponding to the AU voice signal wherein the first captioning process includes using an automatic speech recognition (ASR) engine independent of any call assistant (CA) activity to generate the AU captions; transmitting the HU voice signal to a remote relay for captioning; at the relay, using a second captioning process to generate HU captions corresponding to the HU voice signal wherein the second captioning process is different than the first captioning process; receiving HU captions from the remote relay wherein the HU captions correspond to the HU voice signal; presenting the HU captions via the display screen; and presenting the AU captions via the display screen…’ along with the other limitations of claim 1 in the instant application;
‘…transmitting the AU voice signal to the relay, the relay running the ASR engine to generate the AU captions…’ along with the other limitations of claim 2 in the instant application;
‘…for use with a CA interface wherein the second captioning process includes receiving CA input via the CA interface to generate the HU captions…’ along with the other limitations in claim 3;
‘…the second captioning process includes using an ASR engine to generate a first HU caption set, presenting the first HU caption set to a CA via the CA interface, receiving corrections to the first HU caption set via the interface to generate a second HU caption set and presenting the second HU caption set via the display device as the HU captions…’ along with the other claim limitations of claim 4;
‘…including presenting the first HU caption set via the display screen immediately as the first HU caption set is generated, the step of presenting the HU captions including using the second HU caption set to identify errors in the first HU caption set and making corrections to the first HU caption set that is presented via the display screen…’ along with the other claim limitations of claim 5;
‘…the corrections are made in line in the first HU caption set on the display screen…’ along with the other claim limitations of claim 6;
‘…at least a subset of the corrections made in the first HU caption set are visually distinguished from captions that are not corrected on the display screen..’ along with the other claim limitations of claim 7;
‘…transmitting the AU voice signal to the relay, the relay running the ASR engine to generate the AU captions…’ along with the other claim limitations of claim 8;
‘…the HU captions and the AU captions are presented sequentially in an order that tracks occurrence of the voice signals in time…’ along with the other claim limitations of claim 9;
‘…the HU captions are presented in a first column on the display screen and the AU captions are presented in a second column on the display screen and wherein the columns scroll during the ongoing communication session….’ along with the other claim limitations of claim 10;
‘…the HU captions are presented in a first column on the display screen and the AU captions are presented in a second column on the display screen...’ along with the other claim limitations of claim 11;
‘…the AU device includes an AU processor and wherein the AU processor runs the ASR to generate the AU captions...’ along with the other claim limitations of claim 12;
‘… the relay includes a CA interface wherein the second captioning process includes receiving CA input via the CA interface to generate the HU captions…’ along with the other claim limitations of claim 13;
‘… the second captioning process includes using an ASR engine to generate a first HU caption set, presenting the first HU caption set to a CA via the CA interface, receiving corrections to the first HU caption set via the interface to generate a second HU caption set and presenting the second HU caption set via the display device as the HU captions…’ along with the other claim limitations of claim 14;
‘…the AU captions are visually distinguished from the HU captions when presented on the display screen…’ along with the other claim limitations of claim 15;
‘…the second captioning process includes a CA performing at least some activity to generate the HU captions…’ along with the other claim limitations of claim 16;
‘… the second captioning process includes a CA correcting errors in an intermediate caption set corresponding to the HU voice signal to generate the HU captions…’ along with the other claim limitations of claim 17;
‘… the AU device includes a speaker and wherein the HU voice signal is broadcast via the speaker simultaneously as captions are presented via the display screen…’ along with the other claim limitations of claim 18;
‘…facilitating communication between an assisted user (AU) using an AU device and a hearing user (HU) using an HU device wherein the AU device includes a display screen and a first microphone and the HU device includes a second microphone, the method of use with a call assistant (CA) interface located at a remote relay, the method comprising the steps of: receiving an AU voice signal initially generated by the first microphone; receiving an HU voice signal initially generated by the second microphone; using a first captioning process to generate AU captions corresponding to the AU voice signal wherein the first captioning process includes using an automatic speech recognition (ASR) engine independent of any call assistant (CA) activity to generate the AU captions; transmitting the HU voice signal to the remote relay for captioning; at the relay, using a second captioning process to generate HU captions corresponding to the HU voice signal wherein the second captioning process is different than the first captioning process, wherein the second captioning process includes receiving CA input via the CA interface to generate the HU captions; receiving HU captions from the remote relay wherein the HU captions correspond to the HU voice signal; presenting the HU captions via the display screen; and presenting the AU captions via the display screen…’ along with the other claim limitations of claim 19; and
‘…facilitating communication between an assisted user (AU) using an AU device and a hearing user (HU) using an HU device wherein the AU device includes a display screen and a first microphone and the HU device includes a second microphone, the method of use with a call assistant (CA) interface located at a remote relay, the method comprising the steps of: receiving an AU voice signal initially generated by the first microphone; receiving an HU voice signal initially generated by the second microphone; transmitting the AU voice signal and the HU voice signal to a remote relay for captioning; at the relay: (i) using an automatic speech recognition (ASR) engine to generate AU captions corresponding to the AU voice signal and to generate a first HU caption set corresponding to the HU voice signal independent of CA activity to generate the AU captions and the first HU caption set; (ii) presenting the first HU caption set to a CA via the CA interface and receiving corrections to the first HU caption set via the interface to generate HU captions; and presenting the HU captions via the display screen; and presenting the AU captions via the display screen…’ along with the other claim limitations of claim 20.
Pending claims 1-20 of Application No. 18/911,427 disclose the claimed invention in the pending claims:
Claim 1: A method comprising: during a first communication session between an assisted user (AU) using an AU device and a first hearing user (HU) using a first HU device, using a first transcription process to caption an HU voice signal thereby generating first caption text; presenting the first caption text to the AU via the AU device; receiving an indication via the AU device that the first caption text is unsatisfactory; in response to receiving the indication, adding the first transcription process to a non-preferred transcription process list; during a second communication session between the AU using the AU device and a hearing user using an HU device, automatically selecting a second transcription process to caption an HU voice signal thereby generating second caption text; and presenting the second caption text to the AU via the AU device; wherein the second transcription process is a transcription process that is not included on the non-preferred transcription process.
Claim 2: The method of claim 1 wherein the step of receiving an indication includes receiving a request to change the transcription process being used during the first communication session.
Claim 3: The method of claim 2 further including, upon receiving a request to change the transcription process, switching the transcription process from the first transcription process to another transcription process during the first communication session.
Claim 4: The method of claim 3 wherein the another transcription process is the second transcription process.
Claim 5: The method of claim 1 wherein the step of receiving an indication includes receiving an indication of perceived caption quality from the AU at the end of the first communication session.
Claim 6: The method of claim 5 wherein the step of receiving an indication of caption quality includes automatically presenting a query to the AU at the end of the first communication session and receiving an answer to the query.
Claim 7: The method of claim 6 wherein the query includes pre-canned quality options for the AU to select from.
Claim 8: The method of claim 1 wherein the first transcription process uses an automatic speech recognition (ASR) engine to convert the first HU voice signal to the first caption text.
Claim 9: The method of claim 8 wherein the second transcription process includes a call assistant (CA) listening to the first HU voice signal and revoicing the HU voice signal to an ASR engine to generate the first caption text.
Claim 10: The method of claim 1 wherein the first transcription process involves a first call assistant (CA) generating the first caption text and wherein, once the process involving the first CA is added to the non-preferred captioning process list, subsequent calls involving the AU are not assigned for captioning to the first CA.
Claim 11: The method of claim 10 wherein the second transcription process involves a second CA generating the second caption text.
Claim 12: The method of claim 1 further including the steps of: receiving an indication via the AU device that the second caption text is satisfactory; and in response to receiving the indication, adding the second transcription process to a preferred transcription process list.
Claim 13: The method of claim 1 wherein the step of receiving an indication occurs while the first communication session is progressing.
Claim 14: The method of claim 1 wherein the step of receiving an indication occurs after the first communication session has ended.
Claim 15: A method comprising: during a first communication session between an assisted user (AU) using an AU device and a first hearing user (HU) using a first HU device, using a first transcription process to caption an HU voice signal thereby generating first caption text; presenting the first caption text to the AU via the AU device; receiving a quality indication via the AU device indicating the perceived quality of the first caption text; during a second communication session between the AU using the AU device and a hearing user using an HU device that occurs subsequent to the first communication session, automatically selecting one selected transcription process from a plurality of different transcription processes to caption an HU voice signal thereby generating second caption text, wherein the selected transcription process is selected at least in part as a function of the quality indication; and presenting the second caption text to the AU via the AU device.
Claim 16: The method of claim 15 wherein, upon the quality indication indicating unsatisfactory first caption text, the selected transcription process is a second transcription process that is different that the first transcription process and, upon the quality indication indicating a satisfactory first caption text, the selected transcription process is the first transcription process.
Claim 17: The method of claim 15 wherein the step of receiving a quality indication includes receiving the quality indication subsequent to the first communication session.
Claim 18: The method of claim 15 wherein the step of receiving a quality indication includes receiving the quality indication while the first communication session is ongoing.
Claim 19: The method of claim 15 wherein the first captioning process includes a first call assistant (CA) generating the first caption text.
Claim 20: A method comprising: during a first communication session between an assisted user (AU) using an AU device and a first hearing user (HU) using a first HU device, using a first transcription process to caption an HU voice signal thereby generating first caption text; presenting the first caption text to the AU via the AU device; receiving a quality indication via the AU device indicating the perceived quality of the first caption text, wherein the quality indication indicates either satisfactory or unsatisfactory first caption text; during a second communication session between the AU using the AU device and a hearing user using an HU device that occurs subsequent to the first communication session, automatically selecting one selected transcription process from a plurality of different transcription processes to caption an HU voice signal thereby generating second caption text, wherein the selected transcription process is selected at least in part as a function of the quality indication; and presenting the second caption text to the AU via the AU device.
For these reasons, claims 1-20 are rejected. Claims 2-18 depend on claim 1.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892 Form.
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/LISA HASHEM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2692
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