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 .
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.
Information Disclosure Statement
Acknowledgment is made of Applicant’s Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) form PTO 1449.These IDS has been considered.
Examiner’s Note
The Examiner has pointed out particular references contained in the prior art of record within the body of this action for the convenience of the Applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages, paragraph and figures may apply. Applicant, in preparing the response, should consider fully the entire reference as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Such claim limitation(s) is/are: “acoustic language model” in claim 1.
Because this/these claim limitation(s) is/are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, it/they is/are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
If applicant does not intend to have this/these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
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 of this title, 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.
Claim(s) 1-7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DING et al. (US 20220329052 A1) (herein after DING) in view of PARK (US20210210081) (herein after PARK).
As to claim(s) 1-7, DING discloses a large-scale acoustic recognition system comprising:
an acoustic signal collector including a distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) system [distributed fiber optic sensing system is shown in FIG. 1. With reference to FIG. 1 one may observe an optical sensing fiber that in turn is connected to an interrogator…¶0027] configured to collect acoustic signals from multiple locations as raw signals [¶0047];
signal preprocessors configured to process the raw signals [The distributed fiber sensing interrogator collects real-time data for pre-processing. The pre-processed data is transferred to a machine learning model for wire/cable type prediction and identification…¶0039] and convert them into acoustic features [Upon detection of an anomaly occurs, the DFOS system automatically extract the raw data (vibration signal) with along the length of the affected route…¶0047].
[Note: while each unit configured to perform as claimed may be recited either structurally or functionally, claims directed to an apparatus must be distinguished from the prior art in terms of structure rather than function, because apparatus claims cover what a device is, not what a device does].
DING discloses all the features of the claimed invention except the limitation such as: “an acoustic language model configured to recognize the acoustic features.
The system further comprising a vector database configured to post process embedding vectors generated by the acoustic language model.
The system of claim 2 further comprising a graphical user interface configured to enable text input into the acoustic language model.
The system of claim 3 further comprising a prompt generator configured to convert user-provided text information into formatted prompts for input into the acoustic language model.
The system of claim 4 wherein the prompt generator comprises a language model configured to interpret user-provided requests and tune prompts with soft prompts in specific environments.
The system of claim 5 wherein the signal preprocessors are configured to filter, denoise, and correct frequency responses.
The system of claim 6 wherein the acoustic language model includes an acoustic encoder and a text encoder that are pretrained in a cross-model manner”.
However, PARK from the same field of endeavor discloses an acoustic language model configured to recognize the acoustic features [a acoustic model for adaption to phonemes of regional dialect speech and a language model 140 modeling a linguistic order relation of words or syllables, corresponding to a recognition vocabulary…¶0062][¶0060];
a vector database configured to post process embedding vectors generated by the acoustic language model [¶0047];
a graphical user interface configured to enable text input into the acoustic language model [¶0067];
a prompt generator configured to convert user-provided text information into formatted prompts for input into the acoustic language model [¶0068];
the prompt generator comprises a language model configured to interpret user-provided requests and tune prompts with soft prompts in specific environments [¶0047];
the signal preprocessors are configured to filter, denoise, and correct frequency responses [¶0050-0051];
the acoustic language model includes an acoustic encoder and a text encoder that are pretrained in a cross-model manner [¶0063].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made to modify the device/method/system of DING such that the acoustic language model configured to recognize the acoustic features; the vector database configured to post process embedding vectors generated by the acoustic language model; the graphical user interface configured to enable text input into the acoustic language model; the prompt generator configured to convert user-provided text information into formatted prompts for input into the acoustic language model; the prompt generator comprises the language model configured to interpret user-provided requests and tune prompts with soft prompts in specific environments; the signal preprocessors are configured to filter, denoise, and correct frequency responses; the acoustic language model includes an acoustic encoder and the text encoder that are pretrained in the cross-model manner; as taught by PARK, for the advantages such as: adopting optimal speech recognition result by ranking results of voice recognition according to parallel operations using accents of speaker's speech and lexical information having local characteristics.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8-13 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
As to claim 8, the prior arts alone or in combination fails to disclose the claimed limitations such as “wherein the acoustic language model includes model parameters in the acoustic encoder that are updated to adapt to different domains using arbitrary web-based sound data sets with recorded noise and/or impulse information” along with all other limitations of the claim.
Claims 9-13 are allowable due to their dependencies.
Other prior art:
OZHARAR et al. (US 20230145781 A1): By way of some additional background, we begin by noting that distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) is an important and widely used technology to detect environmental conditions (such as temperature, vibration, acoustic excitation vibration, stretch level etc.) anywhere along an optical fiber cable that in turn is connected to an interrogator. As is known, contemporary interrogators…¶0016.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MD M RAHMAN whose telephone number is (571)272-9175. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Thur.
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MD M. RAHMAN
Primary Patent Examiner
Art Unit 2886
/MD M RAHMAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2877
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