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 8-28-2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement(s) are acknowledged by the examiner.
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 1-39 of U.S. Pat. No. 11,741,963 and claims 1-17 of U.S. Pat. No. 10,748,523.
Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the cited patent(s) mentioned above disclose:
‘…for facilitating communication between an assisted user (AU) using an AU device and a hearing user (HU) using an HU device, the method for use with a call assistant (CA) interface located at a remote relay wherein the interface includes a display screen, the method comprising the steps of: storing first performance statistics associated with a first captioning process in a database; during an ongoing call between the AU device and the HU device: receiving an HU voice signal at the relay; using a second captioning process to generate HU captions corresponding to the HU voice signal; identifying second performance statistics associated with the HU captions generated using the second captioning process; comparing the second performance statistics with the first performance statistics; presenting metrics via the display screen indicating a difference between the first and second performance statistics along with a selectable input; and detecting selection of the input and, in response to the detected selection, switching the captioning process from the second captioning process to the first captioning process so that the first captioning process is used to generate the HU captions…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 1;
‘…the AU device includes an AU device display, the method further including presenting the HU captions via the AU device display…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 2;
‘…the step of presenting the HU captions via the AU device display includes indicating that the HU captions generated via the first captioning process have been generated via the first captioning process and indicating that the HU captions generated via the second captioning process have been generated via the second captioning process…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 3;
‘…further including the steps of, upon presenting HU captions via the AU device display that were generated using the first captioning process, presenting an input tool via the AU device that is selectable by the AU to switch from the first captioning process to the second captioning process…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 4;
‘…further including the steps of, upon presenting HU captions via the AU device display that were generated using the second captioning process, presenting an input tool via the AU device that is selectable by the AU to switch from the second captioning process to the first captioning process…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 5;
‘…wherein at least one of the first captioning process and the second captioning process includes using an automatic speech recognition (ASR) engine to generate the HU captions…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 6;
‘…wherein the first captioning process includes a CA examining intermediate captions corresponding to the HU voice signal and making corrections to the intermediate captions to generate the HU captions…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 7;
‘…the second captioning process includes a CA that listens to the HU voice signal and generates the HU captions without an ASR engine processing the HU voice signal…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 8;
‘…the AU device includes an AU device display, the method further including presenting the HU captions via the AU device display…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 9;
‘…the first performance statistics include at least one of speed and accuracy statistics associated with the first caption process…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 10;
‘…the first performance statistics includes each of speed and accuracy statistics…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 11;
‘…the first performance statistics include statistics related to at least a first call characteristic and statistics related to a second call characteristic that is different than the first call characteristic, the step of comparing the second performance statistics with the first performance statistics including determining that the HU voice signal is characterized by one of the first and second call characteristics, identifying the first performance statistics associated with the one of the first and second call characteristics, and comparing the second performance statistics with the first performance statistics associated with the one of the first and second call characteristics…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 12;
‘…the first and second call characteristics are associate with different levels of noise detected within an audio signal including the HU voice signal…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 13;
‘…the first call characteristic is associated with a first voice type and the second call characteristic is associated with a second voice type which is different than the first voice type…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 14;
‘…the first call characteristic is associated with a first HU talking rate and the second call characteristic is associated with a second HU talking rate…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 15;
‘…the presented metrics include an estimated captioning rate increase…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 16;
‘…presented metrics include an estimated accuracy increase…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 17;
‘…the first captioning process includes a process whereby an automatic speech recognition engine (ASR) generates intermediate HU captions…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 18;
‘…for facilitating communication between an assisted user (AU) using an AU device and a hearing user (HU) using an HU device, the method for use with a call assistant (CA) interface located at a remote relay wherein the interface includes a display screen, the method comprising the steps of: storing first performance statistics associated with a first captioning process in a database; during an ongoing call between the AU device and the HU device: receiving an audio signal including an HU voice signal at the relay; using a second captioning process to generate HU captions corresponding to the HU voice signal; identifying second performance statistics associated with the HU captions generated using the second captioning process; comparing the second performance statistics with the first performance statistics; upon the first performance statistics exceeding the second performance statistics by at least a threshold amount, presenting metrics via the display screen indicating a difference between the first and second performance statistics along with a selectable input; detecting selection of the input and, in response to the detected selection, switching the captioning process from the second captioning process to the first captioning process so that the first captioning process is used to generate the HU captions; presenting the HU captions generated via the second captioning process via an AU device display; and presenting the HU captions generated via the first captioning process via an AU device display…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 19; and
‘…for facilitating communication between an assisted user (AU) using an AU device and a hearing user (HU) using an HU device, the method for use with a call assistant (CA) interface located at a remote relay wherein the interface includes a display screen, the method comprising the steps of: storing first performance statistics associated with a first captioning process in a database wherein the first performance statistics indicate at least a first performance parameter for each of several different call characteristics; during an ongoing call between the AU device and the HU device, at the relay: receiving an audio signal including an HU voice signal; using a second captioning process to generate HU captions corresponding to the HU voice signal; identifying second performance statistics associated with the HU captions generated using the second captioning process; identifying at least one call characteristic corresponding to the HU voice signal; for the identified at least one call characteristic identifying the at least a first performance parameter associated with the at least one call characteristic, comparing the second performance statistics with the identified first performance parameter; upon the first performance parameter exceeding the second performance statistics by at least a threshold amount, presenting metrics via the display screen indicating a difference between the first performance parameter and the second performance statistics along with a selectable input; detecting selection of the input and, in response to the detected selection, switching the captioning process from the second captioning process to the first captioning process so that the first captioning process is used to generate the HU captions…’ along with the other limitations of pending claim 20.
Issued claims 1-39 of U.S. Pat. No. 11,741,963 discloses the claimed invention in the issued claims:
‘…initiating a first captioned telephone service call; during the first captioned telephone service call, creating a first set of captions using a call assistant; simultaneous with creating the first set of captions using a call assistant, creating a second set of captions using an automated speech recognition (ASR) engine; comparing the first set of captions and the second set of captions to identify errors in the second set of captions; in response to the identified errors in the second set of captions being less than a threshold level, continuing the call using only the automated speech recognition engine to generate the second set of captions; and in response to the identified errors in the second set of captions being greater than a threshold level, continuing the call using a call assistant to generate the first set of captions…’ along with the other limitations of claim 1 in the cited patent;
‘…in response to the identified errors in the second set of captions being less than the threshold level, storing an indication of accuracy of the ASR engine in a database…’ along with the other limitations of claim 2 in the cited patent;
‘… initiating a second captioned telephone service call; routing the second captioned telephone service call to a call assistant if the identified errors in the second set of captions exceeds the threshold level; and routing the second captioned telephone service call to the automated speech recognition engine if the identified errors in the second set of captions are below the threshold level…’ along with the other limitations of claim 3 in the cited patent;
‘…the first captioned telephone service call is between an assisted user and a hearing user, the method further including upon initiation of the second captioned telephone service call, identifying the hearing user and identifying an accuracy of the ASR engine for the identified hearing user…’ along with the other limitations of claim 4 in the cited patent;
‘…the second captioned telephone service call is initially routed to a call assistant during a period while the hearing user is being identified…’ along with the other limitations of claim 5 in the cited patent;
‘… the second captioned telephone service call is also initially routed to an automated speech recognition engine so that captions of the hearing user's voice signal are simultaneously generated by each of the call assistant and the automated speech recognition engine…’ along with the other limitations of claim 6 in the cited patent;
‘… a voice to text model is used by the automated speech recognition engine…’ along with the other limitations of claim 7 in the cited patent;
‘… differences between the captions generated by the call assistant and the automated speech recognition engine are used to train the (ASR) engine to the hearing user's voice signal thereby increasing the probability of success of the ASR engine until the probability of success exceeds a threshold level…’ along with the other limitations of claim 8 in the cited patent;
‘… the indication of the accuracy of the ASR engine indicates a likelihood that the automated speech recognition engine will generate text captions that exceed the acceptable threshold level under similar telephone service call circumstances…’ along with the other limitations of claim 9 in the cited patent;
‘…using a scoring algorithm-based on errors between the first and second sets of captions to generate a score for the second set of captions, the step of continuing the call using only the automated speech recognition engine to generate text includes, in response to the score being within a predetermined threshold range, continuing the call using only the automated speech recognition engine to generate text, and, wherein, the step of continuing the call using a call assistant to generate captions includes, in response to the score being outside of the predetermined threshold range, continuing the call using a call assistant to generate captions…’ along with the other limitations of claim 10 in the cited patent;
‘… the score is within the predetermined threshold range when an error rate is less than a threshold level and is outside the predetermined threshold range when the error rate is greater than the threshold level…’ along with the other limitations of claim 11 in the cited patent;
‘…the scoring algorithm uses accuracy of the second set of captions over a duration of time…’ along with the other limitations of claim 12 in the cited patent;
‘…the scoring algorithm uses detected line noise…’ along with the other limitations of claim 13 in the cited patent;
‘…the scoring algorithm uses at least one audio metric…’ along with the other limitations of claim 14 in the cited patent;
‘…the score indicates a percent match between the automated speech recognition engine captions and the call assistant captions…’ along with the other limitations of claim 15 in the cited patent;
‘…the scoring algorithm uses a percent accuracy of the second set of captions over a most recent duration of time…’ along with the other limitations of claim 16 in the cited patent;
‘…the scoring algorithm uses a percent accuracy over a most recent number of words in a received voice signal…’ along with the other limitations of claim 17 in the cited patent;
‘…the scoring algorithm utilizes confidence statistics to score the second set off captions…’ along with the other limitations of claim 18 in the cited patent;
‘…the scoring algorithm utilizes detected line noise…’ along with the other limitations of claim 19 in the cited patent;
‘…the scoring algorithm factors in at least one audio metric related to the first call…’ along with the other limitations of claim 20 in the cited patent;
‘…the first captioned telephone service call is an internet protocol captioned telephone service call…’ along with the other limitations of claim 21 in the cited patent;
‘…in which the step of comparing the first set of captions and the second set of captions is performed substantially in real time during the first captioned telephone service call…’ along with the other limitations of claim 22 in the cited patent;
‘…the first call is between an assisted user and a hearing user and wherein only the hearing user's voice signals are captioned…’ along with the other limitations of claim 23 in the cited patent;
‘…in response to the level of identified errors in the second set off captions relative to the threshold level, storing an indication of accuracy of the ASR engine while captioning the first caption telephone service call; initiating a second captioned telephone service call; retrieving the indication of the accuracy of the ASR engine while captioning the first caption telephone service call; using, on the second captioned telephone service call, a call assistant or the automated speech recognition engine to generate captions based on the indication of the accuracy of the ASR engine while captioning the first caption telephone service call…’ along with the other limitations of claim 24 in the cited patent;
‘…the indication of the accuracy of the ASR engine includes a percent word match between the first and second sets of captions…’ along with the other limitations of claim 25 in the cited patent;
‘…the step of continuing the call using only the automated speech recognition engine to generate the second set of captions includes using the automated speech recognition engine to generate initial captions and providing the initial captions to a call assistant for error correction…’ along with the other limitations of claim 26 in the cited patent;
‘…the step of creating a first set of captions using a call assistant includes the call assistant examining captions generated by the automated speech recognition engine and making error corrections to the automated speech recognition captions…’ along with the other limitations of claim 27 in the cited patent;
‘…the step of creating a first set of captions using a call assistant includes the call assistant listening to at least a portion of voice signals from the first call and manually transcribing that voice signal to text…’ along with the other limitations of claim 28 in the cited patent;
‘…the step of manually transcribing includes the call assistant revoicing the voice signal to software trained to the call assistant's voice where the software generates captions…’ along with the other limitations of claim 29 in the cited patent;
‘…the steps of continuing the call using the automated speech recognition engine and continuing the call using a call assistant are automatic…’ along with the other limitations of claim 30 in the cited patent;
‘…the steps of continuing the call using the automated speech recognition engine and continuing the call using a call assistant are based on an input from a call assistant…’ along with the other limitations of claim 31 in the cited patent;
‘…for providing captioned telephone service, the method comprising: (i) initiating a captioned telephone service call between a hearing assisted user and a hearing user; (ii) during the captioned telephone service call, receiving a hearing user's voice signal from the hearing user and creating a first set of captions for the hearing user's voice signal using a human call assistant; (iii) simultaneously with creating the first set of captions, creating a second set of captions using an automated speech recognition engine; (iv) comparing the first set of captions and the second set of captions to identify errors in the second set of captions; (v) in response at least in part to the identified errors in the second set of captions being greater than a threshold level, presenting the first set of captions to the assisted user via a display screen and repeating (ii) through (iv); (vi) in response at least in part to the identified errors in the second set of captions being less than a threshold level, continuing the call using only the automated speech recognition engine to generate the captions and presenting the second set of captions to the assisted user via the display screen…’ along with the other limitations of claim 32 in the cited patent;
‘…including upon continuing the call using only the automated speech recognition engine, identifying at least one confidence factor related to the second set of captions…’ along with the other limitations of claim 33 in the cited patent;
‘…for providing captioned telephone service, the method comprising: (i) initiating a captioned telephone service call between a hearing assisted user and a hearing user; (ii) during the captioned telephone service call, receiving a hearing user's voice signal from the hearing user and creating a first set of captions for the hearing user's voice signal using a human call assistant; (iii) simultaneously with creating the first set of captions, creating a second set of captions using an automated speech recognition engine; (iv) comparing the first set of captions and the second set of captions to assess captioning accuracy of the automated speech recognition engine; (v) in response at least in part to the assessed captioning accuracy being below an acceptable accuracy threshold level, presenting the first set of captions to the assisted user via a display screen for subsequent hearing user's voice signal and repeating (ii) through (iv); (vi) in response at least in part to the assessed captioning accuracy being greater than the acceptable accuracy threshold level, continuing the call using only the automated speech recognition engine to generate a continuing second set of captions and presenting the continuing second set of captions to the assisted user via the display screen…’ along with the other limitations of claim 34 in the cited patent;
‘…including upon continuing the call using only the automated speech recognition engine, identifying at least one confidence factor related to the second set of captions…’ along with the other limitations of claim 35 in the cited patent;
‘…the confidence factor is received from the automated speech recognition engine…’ along with the other limitations of claim 36 in the cited patent;
‘…the confidence factor includes a self-reported accuracy statistic from the automated speech recognition engine…’ along with the other limitations of claim 37 in the cited patent;
‘…the step of comparing includes comparing after a predetermined period of time has elapsed since initiation of the captioned telephone service…’ along with the other limitations of claim 38 in the cited patent; and
‘…the predetermined period of time is sufficiently small in duration that the comparing step is performed substantially continuously during the call…’ along with the other limitations of claim 39 in the cited patent.
Issued claims 1-17 of U.S. Pat. No. 10,748,523 discloses the claimed invention in the issued claims:
‘…for assessing captioning quality of a captioning service that transcribes a hearing user's (HU) voice signal during an ongoing live call with an assisted user (AU) into caption output in real time wherein the HU uses an HU device and the AU uses an AU device to communicate during the call, the system comprising: first and second independent call assistant (CA) workstations, the first CA workstation including a first input device and the second CA workstation including a second input device and a display screen; at least a first system processor programmed to perform the steps of, while a call between an HU and an AU is progressing: (a) performing a first captioning process to generate the caption output, the first captioning process comprising steps of: (i) receiving and providing an HU voice signal from at least one of the HU and AU device to the first CA workstation; (ii) receiving input via the first input device to transcribe the HU voice signal into first caption text; (iii) providing the first caption text as the caption output to the AU device, wherein the AU device includes a device display screen, the AU device presents the caption output on the display screen; (b) providing the first caption text on the display screen of the second CA workstation for viewing; (c) receiving error corrections to the first caption text via the second input device to generate a truth text; (d) identifying a percent of words in the first caption text over a period of time that match words in the truth text, the percent of words that match being a caption text accuracy; and (e) automatically switching from the first captioning process to a second captioning process to generate the caption output to the AU device during the call when the caption text accuracy of the first captioning process falls below a first accuracy threshold, the first accuracy threshold corresponding to the accuracy that can be achieved by the second captioning process, wherein the second captioning process includes providing the HU voice signal to an automated speech recognition (ASR) engine to generate ASR text and providing the ASR text as the caption output…’ along with the other limitations of claim 1 in the cited patent;
‘…the HU voice signal is received from the AU's device…’ along with the other limitations of claim 2 in the cited patent;
‘…the at least a first system processor further performs steps of identifying a latency value associated with the first caption text indicating an average delay over a period between a time when the HU voice signal is received at the first CA workstation and a time when the first caption text is generated…’ along with the other limitations of claim 3 in the cited patent;
‘…the at least a first system processor is further programmed to perform steps of using an automated speech recognition (ASR) processor to generate ASR text that corresponds to the HU voice signal and comparing the ASR text to the truth text to determine a percent of words in the ASR text over a period that match words in the truth text, the percent of words that match being an ASR accuracy…’ along with the other limitations of claim 4 in the cited patent;
‘…the at least a first system processor is further programmed to perform a step of using the accuracy of the ASR text to set the first accuracy threshold…’ along with the other limitations of claim 5 in the cited patent;
‘…the at least a first system processor is further programmed to perform a step of counting the words recognized by the ASR processor and comparing that count to a count of words in the first caption text at an instant in time to identify a latency value associated with the first caption text…’ along with the other limitations of claim 6 in the cited patent;
‘…the ASR processor is remote from the first and second CA workstations and wherein the at least a first system processor transmits the HU voice signal to the ASR processor…’ along with the other limitations of claim 7 in the cited patent;
‘…the at least a first system processor is further programmed to perform the step of using accuracy of the ASR text to assess line quality between the AU and the HU…’ along with the other limitations of claim 8 in the cited patent;
‘…the processor is further programmed to perform steps of providing the HU voice signal to the second CA workstation and broadcasting the HU voice signal via a speaker at the second CA workstation…’ along with the other limitations of claim 9 in the cited patent;
‘…the step of receiving input via the first input device includes presenting text captions via a display device at the first CA workstation and receiving inputs via the first input device to make error corrections to the text captions presented on the display device at the first CA workstation…’ along with the other limitations of claim 10 in the cited patent;
‘…including the step of comparing the ASR accuracy to the caption text accuracy to assess the relative accuracy of the caption output…’ along with the other limitations of claim 11 in the cited patent;
‘…the at least a first system processor is further programmed to transmit the error corrections to the AU device, the AU device, upon receiving the error corrections, using the error corrections to correct the caption output on the device display screen…’ along with the other limitations of claim 12 in the cited patent;
‘…the AU device include a device speaker and wherein the HU voice signal is broadcast via the device speaker…’ along with the other limitations of claim 13 in the cited patent;
‘…for dynamically changing a captioning process used to generate caption output of a hearing user's (HU) voice signal during an ongoing live call with an assisted user (AU) in real time wherein the HU uses an HU device and the AU uses an AU device to communicate during the call, the system comprising: first and second independent call assistant (CA) workstations, the first CA workstation including a first input device and a speaker, the second CA workstation including a second input device and a display screen; at least a first system processor programmed to perform steps of, while a call between an HU and an AU is progressing: (a) performing a first captioning process to generate the caption output, the first captioning process comprising steps of: (i) receiving and broadcasting the HU voice signal from at least one of the HU and AU device to the speaker of the first CA workstation; (ii) receiving input via the first input device of the first CA workstation to transcribe the HU voice signal into first caption text; (iii) providing the first caption text as the caption output to the AU device, wherein the AU device includes a device display screen, the AU device presents the caption output on the display screen; (b) presenting the first caption text on the display screen of the second CA workstation; (c) receiving error corrections to the first caption text via the second input device of the second CA workstation to generate a truth text; (d) receiving the generated truth text from the second CA workstation and comparing the first caption text to the truth text to determine a percent of words in the caption text over a period of time that match words in the truth text, the percent of words that match being a caption text accuracy; (e) comparing the caption text accuracy of the first captioning process to a first threshold accuracy level, the first accuracy level corresponding to the accuracy that can be achieved by a second captioning process; and (f) based at least in part on results of the comparison of the caption text accuracy of the first captioning process to the first threshold accuracy level, determining when to automatically change from the first captioning process to the second captioning process to generate the caption output to the AU device during the call wherein the second captioning process is independent of input at the first CA workstation, wherein the second captioning process includes providing the HU voice signal to an automated speech recognition (ASR) engine to generate ASR text and providing the ASR text as the caption output…’ along with the other limitations of claim 14 in the cited patent;
‘…the at least a first system processor is further programmed to transmit the error corrections to the AU device, the AU device, upon receiving the error corrections, using the error corrections to correct the caption output on the device display screen…’ along with the other limitations of claim 15 in the cited patent;
‘…the processor is further programmed to perform a step of identifying a latency value associated with the first caption text wherein the latency value indicates an average delay over a period between the time when the HU voice signal is broadcast via the speaker and the time when the first caption text is generated, the processor further using the latency value along with the results of the comparison of the caption text accuracy with the first threshold accuracy level to determine when to change to the second captioning process…’ along with the other limitations of claim 16 in the cited patent; and
‘…the at least a first system processor is further programmed to perform a step of transmitting the error corrections to the AU device to be used by the AU device to make corrections to the caption output…’ along with the other limitations of claim 17 in the cited patent.
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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