Patents Examined by Timothy Nguyen
  • Patent number: 11132509
    Abstract: A speech interface device is configured to perform natural language understanding (NLU) processing in a manner that optimizes the use of resources on the speech interface device. In an example process, a domain classifier(s) is used to generate domain classifier scores associated with multiple candidate domains, and the candidate domains can then be evaluated, one candidate domain at a time, in accordance with the domain classifier scores (e.g., starting with a highest scoring candidate domain). For each candidate domain undergoing the evaluation, input data is by that domain's NLU model(s), and, as soon as a domain-specific NLU model(s) produces a NLU result with a confidence score that satisfies a threshold confidence score, the evaluation can be stopped for any remaining candidate domains.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 3, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 28, 2021
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Stanislaw Ignacy Pasko, Ross William McGowan, Aliaksei Kuzmin, Rui Liu
  • Patent number: 10991362
    Abstract: Provided is a target speech signal extraction method for robust speech recognition including: receiving information on a direction of arrival of the target speech source with respect to the microphones; generating a nullformer by using the information on the direction of arrival of the target speech source to remove the target speech signal from the input signals and to estimate noise; setting a real output of the target speech source using an adaptive vector as a first channel and setting a dummy output by the nullformer as a remaining channel; setting a cost function for minimizing dependency between the real output of the target speech source and the dummy output using the nullformer by performing independent component analysis (ICA) or independent vector analysis (IVA); setting an auxiliary function to the cost function; and estimating the target speech signal by using the cost function and the auxiliary function.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 15, 2020
    Date of Patent: April 27, 2021
    Assignee: INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY COOPERATION FOUNDATION SOGANG UNIVERSITY
    Inventors: Hyung Min Park, Seoyoung Lee, Seung-Yun Kim, Byung Joon Cho, Uihyeop Shin
  • Patent number: 10930277
    Abstract: A voice interaction architecture has a hands-free, electronic voice controlled assistant that permits users to verbally request information from cloud services. Since the assistant relies primarily, if not exclusively, on voice interactions, configuring the assistant for the first time may pose a challenge, particularly to a novice user who is unfamiliar with network settings (such as wife access keys). The architecture supports several approaches to configuring the voice controlled assistant that may be accomplished without much or any user input, thereby promoting a positive out-of-box experience for the user. More particularly, these approaches involve use of audible or optical signals to configure the voice controlled assistant.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 12, 2016
    Date of Patent: February 23, 2021
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Tony David, Parag Garg
  • Patent number: 10923101
    Abstract: A system, a computer program product, and method for controlling synthesized speech output on a voice-controlled device. The voice-controlled device recognized that speech input is being received. The voice-controlled device outputs synthesized speech based on the speech input. While outputting synthesized speech based on the audio is captured. The voice-controlled device recognized the audio input as speech and pausing the outputting of synthesized speech. Otherwise, in response to the captured audio not being recognized as speech and above a settable background noise threshold, pausing the outputting of synthesized speech. The paused output of speech based on the synthesized speech input is resumed after the pausing of the output of synthesized speech being within a settable pause timeframe.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 26, 2017
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2021
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Shang Qing Guo, Jonathan Lenchner
  • Patent number: 10909992
    Abstract: The lossless coding method includes selecting one of a first coding method and a second coding method, based on a range in which a quantization index of energy is represented, and coding the quantization index by using the selected coding method. The lossless decoding method includes determining a coding method of a differential quantization index of energy included in a bitstream and decoding the differential quantization index by using one of a first decoding method and a second decoding method based on a range in which a quantization index of energy is represented, in response to the determined coding method.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 29, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 2, 2021
    Assignee: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
    Inventor: Ki-hyun Choo
  • Patent number: 10909977
    Abstract: A disclosed method includes monitoring an audio signal energy level while having a plurality of signal processing components deactivated and activating at least one signal processing component in response to a detected change in the audio signal energy level. The method may include activating and running a voice activity detector on the audio signal in response to the detected change where the voice activity detector is the at least one signal processing component. The method may further include activating and running the noise suppressor only if a noise estimator determines that noise suppression is required. The method may activate and runs a noise type classifier to determine the noise type based on information received from the noise estimator and may select a noise suppressor algorithm, from a group of available noise suppressor algorithms, where the selected noise suppressor algorithm is the most power consumption efficient.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 11, 2018
    Date of Patent: February 2, 2021
    Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC
    Inventors: Plamen A. Ivanov, Kevin J. Bastyr, Joel A. Clark, Mark A. Jasiuk, Tenkasi V. Ramabadran, Jincheng Wu
  • Patent number: 10909315
    Abstract: A syntax analysis method and apparatus are disclosed. The method includes: obtaining a source language sentence that is a translation of a target language sentence (S110); determining instances of state transition for the target language sentence according to the source language sentence and a correspondence between words of the target language sentence and words of the source language sentence (S120); and generating a syntax tree of the target language sentence according to the instances of state transition for the target language sentence (S130). The syntax analysis method and apparatus can improve efficiency of syntax analysis.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 17, 2018
    Date of Patent: February 2, 2021
    Assignee: HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Zhaopeng Tu, Xiao Chen, Wenbin Jiang
  • Patent number: 10902855
    Abstract: An electronic device includes one or more processors, an audio interface, operable with the one or more processors, and a voice interface engine. The audio interface receives first acoustic signals identifying a control operation for the one or more processors. The one or more processors cause the audio interface to exchange second acoustic signals with at least one other electronic device, thereby negotiating which device will perform the control operation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 8, 2017
    Date of Patent: January 26, 2021
    Assignee: Motorola Mobility LLC
    Inventors: Jun-Ki Min, Sudhir Vissa, Nikhil Ambha Madhusudhana, Vivek Tyagi, Mir Farooq Ali
  • Patent number: 10878203
    Abstract: The present disclosure provides a translation system enabling a translation of a web page by an alteration of a website. The translation system comprises: a translation request receiving unit for receiving a translation request from a client device, the translation request including the URL of a web page in which text in a first language is displayed; a translating unit for translating the text in the first language included in the web page indicated by the URL into text in a second language by referring to a bilingual database storing words and phrases in the first language associated with words and phrases in the second language constituting translated words and phrases of the words and phrases in the first language; and a translation sending unit for sending the translated text in the second language to the client device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 4, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 29, 2020
    Assignee: Wovn Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Takaharu Hayashi, Jeffrey Thomas Sandford
  • Patent number: 10838686
    Abstract: An earbud system and method adaptively acquires and classifies one or more data sets to provide a custom audio listening experience.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 13, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2020
    Inventor: Josh Kovacevic
  • Patent number: 10825456
    Abstract: A method and apparatus are provided for assisting a text writing operation by using voice recognition. The method includes displaying an input text according to a key input or a touch input in a text writing mode on a text display window; recognizing a voice input while displaying the input text according to the key input or the touch input on the text display window; and assisting a preset text writing operation according to the recognized voice input while displaying the input text according to the key input or the touch input on the text display window. Assisting the preset text writing operation comprises, in response to a first part of the recognized voice input matching a pre-stored command, displaying a result obtained based on a second part of the recognized voice input, together with the input text according to the key input or the touch input, on the text display window.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 15, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 3, 2020
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd
    Inventor: Sung-Joon Won
  • Patent number: 10818285
    Abstract: Provided are an electronic device and speech recognition method therefor. The electronic device may include a communication interface to receive speech data from an external electronic device, a memory to store a common language model used by default for speech recognition, a first language model designated for each user, a second language model associated with context information of each user, and a third language model associated with words collected by the electronic device for a preset period of time from the reception time of the speech data; and a processor to perform a procedure of combining at least one of the first language model, the second language model, and the third language model with the common language model to construct an integrated language model, performing speech recognition on the basis of the speech data and the integrated language model, and outputting a speech recognition result corresponding to the speech data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 13, 2017
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2020
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Jungin Lee, Ran Han, Seokyeong Jung
  • Patent number: 10818298
    Abstract: A method of audio processing comprises receiving an audio signal. A plurality of framed versions of the received audio signal are formed, each of the framed versions having a respective frame start position. One of the plurality of framed versions of the received audio signal is selected. The selected one of the plurality of framed versions of the received audio signal is used in a subsequent process.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 13, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2020
    Assignee: Cirrus Logic, Inc.
    Inventors: John Paul Lesso, Gordon Richard McLeod
  • Patent number: 10811023
    Abstract: The present document relates to time-alignment of encoded data of an audio encoder with associated metadata, such as spectral band replication (SBR) metadata. An audio decoder configured to determine a reconstructed frame of an audio signal from an access unit of a received data stream is described. The access unit comprises waveform data and metadata, wherein the waveform data and the metadata are associated with the same reconstructed frame of the audio signal. The audio decoder comprises a waveform processing path configured to generate a plurality of waveform subband signals from the waveform data, and a metadata processing path configured to generate decoded metadata from the metadata.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 29, 2017
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: Dolby International AB
    Inventors: Kristofer Kjoerling, Heiko Purnhagen, Jens Popp
  • Patent number: 10811019
    Abstract: A spectrum encoding method includes selecting an important spectral component in band units for a normalized spectrum and encoding information of the selected important spectral component for a band, based on a number, a position, a magnitude and a sign thereof. A spectrum decoding method includes obtaining from a bitstream, information about an important spectral component for a band of an encoded spectrum and decoding the obtained information of the important spectral component, based on a number, a position, a magnitude and a sign of the important spectral component.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 22, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
    Inventor: Ho-sang Sung
  • Patent number: 10803867
    Abstract: A dialogue system, comprises an input unit configured to acquire utterance contents of a user in a dialogue; a mode determining unit configured to determine, based on the utterance contents acquired by the input unit, whether a mode of the dialogue is task-oriented or non-task-oriented; a plurality of intention understanding units each corresponding to a specific domain; and a domain determining unit configured to determine, when the mode of the dialogue is task-oriented, a domain of the dialogue based on a result of intention understanding of the utterance contents performed using each of the plurality of intention understanding units.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 4, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 13, 2020
    Assignee: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Sei Kato, Takuma Minemura
  • Patent number: 10796689
    Abstract: A method for voice processing includes acquiring sound information, extracting speech information from the sound information, recognizing semantic information of the speech information, obtaining context information, and determining response information based on the semantic information and the context information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 12, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 6, 2020
    Assignee: LENOVO (BEIJING) CO., LTD.
    Inventor: Ya Zhang
  • Patent number: 10796694
    Abstract: A control method for allowing a user to specify an electronic device and switch it to a speech recognition mode is provided. With the optimum control method and the electronic device utilizing the method, a voice command may be transmitted to the electronic device more quickly and effectively regardless of the circumstances, and the electronic device may be specified through gesture recognition to enable transmission of the voice command, so that the voice command may be effectively executed without needing a user to learn or memorize a name or the like of the electronic device in advance for speech recognition. Further, it is possible to more accurately recognize a gesture that is a preliminary step for transmitting a voice command to the electronic device, thereby improving the recognition rate and preventing malfunction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 18, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 6, 2020
    Assignee: VTOUCH CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Seokjoong Kim, Chunghoon Kim, So Yeon Kim
  • Patent number: 10789965
    Abstract: In one example, an apparatus includes: a wavelet transform engine to receive a first signal stream and perform a wavelet transform on a first time domain sample of the first signal stream, the first wavelet transform engine to output at least one first coefficient for a first frequency range; an energy calculation circuit to compute a first energy signature for the at least one first coefficient; and a correlation circuit to generate a correlation value using the first energy signature, a second energy signature and a plurality of previous energy signatures.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 3, 2018
    Date of Patent: September 29, 2020
    Assignee: SILICON LABORATORIES INC.
    Inventors: Bradley Arthur Wallace, Carl Harry Alelyunas
  • Patent number: 10770091
    Abstract: A method includes: receiving time instants of audio signals generated by a set of microphones at a location; determining a distortion measure between frequency components of at least some of the received audio signals; determining a similarity measure for the frequency components using the determined distortion measure; and processing the audio signals based on the determined similarity measure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 23, 2017
    Date of Patent: September 8, 2020
    Assignee: GOOGLE LLC
    Inventors: Willem Bastiaan Kleijn, Sze Chie Lim