CTNF 18/982,814 CTNF 80127 DETAILED ACTION Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 07-07-aia AIA 07-07 The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action: A person shall be entitled to a patent unless – 07-08-aia AIA (a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. 07-15 AIA Claim s 1, 8, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102( a)(1 ) as being anticipated by Rikhye et al. (USPG 2022/0335953, hereinafter Rikhye) . Regarding claims 1, 8, and 15, Rikhye discloses a method, device, and non-transitory CRM for speech enhancement, comprising: a processor and a memory, wherein the memory is configured to store a computer program, and the processor is configured to invoke and run the computer program stored in the memory ( figure 9 ) to: acquiring audio data ( figure 5, audio data 102; also see paragraph 90 ) and, in response to speech data being detected in the audio data, extracting an embedding vector of the speech data ( figure 5, prenet model 502 and/or paragraph 90, the prenet model 502 processes the audio data to generate key vector 504 ); searching the embedding vector for a target embedding vector extracted from target speech data, and generating a registration embedding vector based on the target embedding vector ( figure 5, steps 506-508 and/or paragraph 91, “processing the speaker embedding for each registered user 506 and the key vector 504 using an attended weight generation process 508 ” ); performing a correlation calculation between the registration embedding vector and an audio feature vector of the audio data, to determine a masking value required for enhancing the target speech data ( figure 5, steps 510-514 and/or paragraphs 91-94, ‘the attended embedding 514 can be processed with audio data using a voice filter model to generate a predicted mask. The predicted mask can be convolved with the audio data to generate separated audio data, where utterance(s) spoken by the registered users of the shared device are isolated from background noise” ); and enhancing, according to the masking value, the target speech data in the audio data ( paragraph 94, “The predicted mask can be convolved with the audio data to generate separated audio data, where utterance(s) spoken by the registered users of the shared device are isolated from background noise” ) . Allowable Subject Matter 12-151-08 AIA 07-43 12-51-08 Claim s 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 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. Conclusion 07-96 AIA The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Eskimez et al. (USPN 12230259), Giri et al. (USPN 12272371), Sharifi et al. (USPG 2022/0139388, hereinafter Sharifi), and Wang et al. (USPG 2022/0301573) all teach a method of enhancing speech based on speaker embedding information that is considered pertinent to the claimed invention . Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HUYEN X VO whose telephone number is (571)272-7631. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 8-4. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Bhavesh Mehta can be reached at 571-272-7453. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /HUYEN X VO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2656 Application/Control Number: 18/982,814 Page 2 Art Unit: 2656 Application/Control Number: 18/982,814 Page 3 Art Unit: 2656 Application/Control Number: 18/982,814 Page 4 Art Unit: 2656 Application/Control Number: 18/982,814 Page 5 Art Unit: 2656
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