Patents Examined by Leonard Saint-Cyr
  • Patent number: 10580402
    Abstract: A system for enhanced processing of voice-based signals in a voice-controllable sound-generating system (SGS) is provided. An SGS audio source may communicate electronic SGS audio signals to both (a) one or more speakers, which output corresponding SGS sound waves and (b) an audio countering system. A microphone may detect sound waves and output corresponding audio signals including: (a) distorted SGS audio signals corresponding with SGS sound waves and (b) additional audio signals originated from other sources, e.g., including voice-based commands. The audio countering system may (a) receive the electronic SGS audio signals from the SGS audio source; receive signals from the microphone representing the microphone-detected sound waves, and (c) use the electronic SGS audio signals received to cancel or counter the distorted SGS audio signals included in the microphone-received audio signals, to thereby enhance any voice-based commands included in the received audio signals.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 25, 2018
    Date of Patent: March 3, 2020
    Assignee: MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Arthur Eck, Devon Stephens
  • Patent number: 10573306
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method and a device for processing data based on a speech recognizing and scoring system. The method includes: acquiring at least one data frame to be processed from each of a plurality of threads to obtain a plurality of data frames; performing a frame splicing process on the plurality of data frames to obtain a spliced data frame, and determining the spliced data frame as a target data frame; and determining a target thread from the plurality of threads, and processing the target data frame based on the target thread.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 11, 2017
    Date of Patent: February 25, 2020
    Assignee: BAIDU ONLINE NETWORK TECHNOLOGY (BEIJING) CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Yonghu Gao, Yiping Peng
  • Patent number: 10572597
    Abstract: According to one embodiment, a method, computer system, and computer program product for acronym resolution is provided. The present invention may include receiving documents; identifying explicit expansions within the documents; receiving an input from a user; retrieving passages relevant to the received input from the documents; for each acronym within the one or more relevant passages, determining whether the acronym corresponds with explicit expansions within the relevant passages; for each of the acronyms that do not correspond with explicit expansions, determining whether the acronym corresponds with implicit expansions within the relevant passages; and for each of the acronyms that do not correspond with implicit expansions, determining whether the acronym corresponds with acronyms within a universal acronym list, and transmitting the one or more resolved acronyms to a question answering system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 30, 2017
    Date of Patent: February 25, 2020
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Christopher F. Ackermann, Charles E. Beller, Stephen A. Boxwell, Edward G. Katz, Kristen M. Summers
  • Patent number: 10573311
    Abstract: Certain aspects of the present disclosure provide techniques for selecting a response to a self-support query. One example method generally includes receiving an audio stream query including spoken content from a user recorded by a mobile device and determining a set of paralinguistic features from the spoken content. The method further includes estimating an emotional state of the user based on the set of paralinguistic features and identifying subject matter of the spoken content in the audio stream query. The method further includes determining two or more query responses corresponding to the subject matter to present to the user and transmitting at least one query response to the mobile device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 2, 2018
    Date of Patent: February 25, 2020
    Assignee: INTUIT INC.
    Inventors: Benjamin Indyk, Igor A. Podgorny, Raymond Chan
  • Patent number: 10574873
    Abstract: A voice-activated camera system for a computing device. The voice-activated camera system includes a processor, a camera module, a speech recognition module and a microphone for accepting user voice input. The voice-activated camera system includes authorized for only a specific user's voice, so that a camera function may be performed when the authorized user speaks the keyword, but the camera function is not performed when an unauthorized user speaks the keyword.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 28, 2017
    Date of Patent: February 25, 2020
    Inventor: Jesse L. Wobrock
  • Patent number: 10566006
    Abstract: Many portable playback devices cannot decode and playback encoded audio content having wide bandwidth and wide dynamic range with consistent loudness and intelligibility unless the encoded audio content has been prepared specially for these devices. This problem can be overcome by including with the encoded content some metadata that specifies a suitable dynamic range compression profile by either absolute values or differential values relative to another known compression profile. A playback device may also adaptively apply gain and limiting to the playback audio. Implementations in encoders, in transcoders and in decoders are disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 5, 2019
    Date of Patent: February 18, 2020
    Assignees: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation, Dolby International AB
    Inventors: Jeffrey Riedmiller, Harald Mundt, Michael Schug, Martin Wolters
  • Patent number: 10565991
    Abstract: A vehicular voice recognition system for inferring an intention of a user includes: a storage storing an instruction use history, service use pattern information, and a service preferring item; a controller receiving an input instruction of the user and performing at least one of: a first inference operation of determining a service domain among a plurality of service domains corresponding to the input instruction and providing a service in the determined service domain, a second inference operation of providing a service based on the stored instruction use history, a third inference operation of providing a service based on the stored service use pattern information, and a fourth inference operation of providing a service based on the stored service preferring item; and an output unit provided in a vehicle outputting contents of the provided service using at least one of audio and images.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 4, 2017
    Date of Patent: February 18, 2020
    Assignees: Hyundai Motor Company, Kia Motors Corporation
    Inventor: Seong Soo Yae
  • Patent number: 10546591
    Abstract: A signal processing method and device includes obtaining spectral coefficients of a current frame of an audio signal, in which N sub-bands of the current frame comprises at least one of the spectral coefficients. A total energy of M successive sub-bands of the N sub-bands, a total energy of K successive sub-bands of the N sub-bands, and an energy of a first sub-band are obtained to determine whether to modify original envelope values of the M sub-bands. When the original envelope values of the M sub-bands are modified, encoding bits are allocated to each of the N sub-bands according to the modified envelope values of the M sub-bands.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 10, 2019
    Date of Patent: January 28, 2020
    Assignee: HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Bin Wang, Lei Miao, Zexin Liu
  • Patent number: 10545724
    Abstract: A controller for granting a user input device control of a controllable device including a receiver arranged for receiving a first sound signal recorded within a first time frame by a first sound sensor and receiving a second sound signal recorded within a second time frame by a second sound sensor located at the user input device. The controller further includes a processor arranged for determining a level of similarity between the first sound signal and the second sound signal. The processor is further arranged for granting the user input device control of the controllable device if a sufficient level of similarity has been determined. This enables the controller to determine if the user input device is in the same space as the first sound sensor, and it allows the creation of a control space of the controllable device based on the characteristics of the first sound sensor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 30, 2015
    Date of Patent: January 28, 2020
    Assignee: SIGNIFY HOLDING B.V.
    Inventors: Adrianus Johannes Stephanus Maria De Vaan, Jan Van Wijgerden, Johan-Paul Marie Gerard Linnartz
  • Patent number: 10540966
    Abstract: A method includes: loading, by a processor, a grammar specification defining at least one parameterizable grammar including a plurality of rules; setting, by the processor, an initial state of a grammar processor as a current state, the current state including parameters supplied to the rules; selecting, by the processor, a rule of the plurality of rules matching the parameters of the current state of the grammar processor; applying, by the processor, the selected rule to the audio and updating the current state; determining, by the processor, whether termination conditions have been met; in response to determining the termination conditions are not met, selecting, by the processor, from the plurality of rules in accordance with parameters of the updated state; and in response to determining the termination conditions are met, outputting, by the processor, a recognizer result of the current state.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 2, 2017
    Date of Patent: January 21, 2020
    Inventor: Felix Immanuel Wyss
  • Patent number: 10540956
    Abstract: According to one embodiment, a training apparatus for speech synthesis includes a storage device and a hardware processor in communication with the storage device. The storage stores an average voice model, training speaker information representing a feature of speech of a training speaker and perception representation information represented by scores of one or more perception representations related to voice quality of the training speaker, the average voice model constructed by utilizing acoustic data extracted from speech waveforms of a plurality of speakers and language data. The hardware processor, based at least in part on the average voice model, the training speaker information, and the perception representation score, train one or more perception representation acoustic models corresponding to the one or more perception representations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 6, 2016
    Date of Patent: January 21, 2020
    Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
    Inventors: Yamato Ohtani, Kouichirou Mori
  • Patent number: 10540971
    Abstract: During a video conference meeting, a virtual assistant may provide in-meeting assistance responsive to verbalized group intent. The virtual assistant may automatically perform actions, such as recording notes, creating calendar events, and obtaining information derived from previous meetings, in response to the detected group intent. The virtual assistant may also provide pre-meeting assistance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 26, 2018
    Date of Patent: January 21, 2020
    Assignee: Blue Jeans Network, Inc.
    Inventor: Navneet Kumar
  • Patent number: 10540441
    Abstract: A device and method for providing recommended words for a character input by a user are provided. The method by which the device provides recommended words includes: receiving an input for inputting a character in a character input window; recommending at least one pseudo-morpheme including the input character by analyzing the input character; recommending at least one extended word including a selected pseudo-morpheme in response to receiving an input for selecting one of the at least one pseudo-morpheme; and displaying a selected extended word in response to receiving an input for selecting one of the at least one extended word.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 20, 2017
    Date of Patent: January 21, 2020
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Hee-jun Song, Jung-wook Kim
  • Patent number: 10528661
    Abstract: A computer-implemented method includes identifying at least one parse tree. The method includes identifying a pattern library. The method includes searching the pattern library for patterns that match at least one fragment of any of the at least one parse tree. The method includes determining whether the at least one parse tree is fully matched by a combination of matching patterns from the pattern library. The method includes ranking the at least one parse tree based on an extent to which the at least one parse tree is fully matched by the combination of matching patterns from the pattern library.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 11, 2016
    Date of Patent: January 7, 2020
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Yishai A. Feldman, Eyal Shnarch
  • Patent number: 10529326
    Abstract: Techniques are described herein that are capable of suggesting intent frame(s) for user request(s). For instance, the intent frame(s) may be suggested to elicit a request from a user. An intent frame is a natural language phrase (e.g., a sentence) that includes at least one carrier phrase and at least one slot. A slot in an intent frame is a placeholder that is identified as being replaceable by one or more words that identify an entity and/or an action to indicate an intent of the user. A carrier phrase in an intent frame includes one or more words that suggest a type of entity and/or action that is to be identified by the one or more words that may replace the corresponding slot. In accordance with these techniques, the intent frame(s) are suggested in response to determining that natural language functionality of a processing system is activated.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 13, 2017
    Date of Patent: January 7, 2020
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Shane J. Landry, Anne K. Sullivan, Lisa J. Stifelman, Adam D. Elman, Larry Paul Heck, Sarangarajan Parthasarathy
  • Patent number: 10522134
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and devices for verifying a user are disclosed. A speech-controlled device captures a spoken command, and sends audio data corresponding thereto to a server. The server performs ASR on the audio data to determine ASR confidence data. The server, in parallel, performs user verification on the audio data to determine user verification confidence data. The server may modify the user verification confidence data using the ASR confidence data. In addition or alternatively, the server may modify the user verification confidence data using at least one of a location of the speech-controlled device within a building, a type of the speech-controlled device, or a geographic location of the speech-controlled device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2016
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2019
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Spyridon Matsoukas, Aparna Khare, Vishwanathan Krishnamoorthy, Shamitha Somashekar, Arindam Mandal
  • Patent number: 10522139
    Abstract: According to one embodiment, an electronic device determines whether one or more devices should be controlled based on a second utterance input subsequent to a first utterance input from outside in accordance with the first utterance. The electronic device includes a management unit and a controller. The management unit prepares and manages a determination audio data item for determining whether the first utterance is a desired utterance by utterances input from outside at a plurality of times, and determines whether the first utterance is the desired utterance using the prepared and managed determination audio data item. The controller controls the one or more devices based on the second utterance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 28, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2019
    Assignees: QINGDAO HISENSE ELECTRONICS CO., LTD., TOSHIBA VISUAL SOLUTIONS CORPORATION
    Inventors: Hidehito Izawa, Reiko Kawachi, Kunio Honsawa, Hiroyuki Nomoto
  • Patent number: 10515623
    Abstract: A system and method for a wearable device capable of detecting a wake gesture for purposes of capturing and forwarding audio data corresponding to a spoken utterance. The device may wake for purposes of capturing utterance audio data in response to a combination of a wake gesture and wakeword. The wake gesture may enable a wakeword detector. The device may also attempt to detect a wakeword utterance in a noisy environment. In response to determining the noisy environment, the device may receive motion data from a motion sensor; determining the motion data corresponds to a wake gesture, and send the audio data corresponding to an utterance to a remote device for processing. The device may also wake based on a combined confidence of wakeword and wake gesture detection.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 23, 2016
    Date of Patent: December 24, 2019
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Travis Grizzel
  • Patent number: 10515624
    Abstract: Disclosed is a content processing method including receiving content including broadcast data and advertisement data into which additional information is inserted, extracting the additional information from the advertisement data, identifying the advertisement data from the content based on the extracted additional information, and extracting the broadcast data excluding the advertisement data identified from the content, wherein the additional information is inserted at at least one of optimal intervals determined based on test additional information inserted at a plurality of analysis intervals of an audio signal associated with the advertisement data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 20, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 24, 2019
    Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
    Inventors: Young Ho Jeong, Seung Kwon Beack, Tae Jin Lee, Jin Soo Choi
  • Patent number: 10509626
    Abstract: Systems and methods disclosed herein include (i) receiving a voice command via a networked microphone device configured to receive voice commands for a media playback system, wherein the media playback system comprises a primary media playback device configured to perform a function and/or provide a first feedback in response to voice commands received via the networked microphone device, (ii) determining that the primary media playback device is not available to perform a function and/or provide the first feedback in response to the voice command, and (iii) in response to determining that the primary media playback device is not available to perform a function and/or provide the first feedback in response to the voice command, instructing a fallback device to perform a function and/or provide a second feedback in response to the voice command.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 18, 2016
    Date of Patent: December 17, 2019
    Inventors: Mark Plagge, Simon Jarvis, Christopher Butts