IP Library Patent Application 17174715
Patent Application
App. No. 17/174,715

VOICE REQUEST SEQUENCING

Loading inventors, assignments & file history…
Monitor This Case
Get email alerts when status or documents change.
Order Certified Copies
Most orders are placed with the USPTO same day — all within 24 business hours.
Order via The Patent Place →
Pre-filled with this patent's details
Quick Facts
Patent No.
US None
App. No.
17/174,715
Abstract

A method includes receiving, at a voice assistant, data representing a number of requests spoken by a number of speakers, processing the data representing the number of requests to identify a number of commands associated with the number of requests, processing the number of commands to determine a number of responses corresponding to the number of requests, ordering the number of responses according to a sequencing objective, and providing the ordered number of responses for presentation to the number of speakers.

Claims (31)

1 . A method comprising:

receiving, at a voice assistant, data representing a plurality of requests spoken by a plurality of speakers;

processing the data representing the plurality of requests to identify a plurality of commands associated with the plurality of requests;

processing the plurality of commands to determine a plurality of responses corresponding to the plurality of requests;

ordering the plurality of responses according to a sequencing objective; and

providing the ordered plurality of responses for presentation to the plurality of speakers.

2 . The method of claim 1 wherein at least some requests of the plurality of requests are temporally overlapping.

3 . The method of claim 1 wherein at least some of the requests are part of one or more dialogues between a corresponding one or more speakers of the plurality of speakers and the voice assistant.

4 . The method of claim 3 wherein each dialogue of the one or more dialogues includes one or more requests and one or more responses, and the requests and responses of the one or more dialogues are interleaved.

5 . The method of claim 1 wherein processing the data representing the plurality of requests to identify a plurality of commands includes performing a speaker diarization operation on the data representing the plurality of requests.

6 . The method of claim 5 wherein the speaker diarization operation includes performing a speaker separation operation on the data representing the plurality of requests to generate speaker specific audio data for each speaker of the plurality of speakers.

7 . The method of claim 6 wherein the speaker separation operation includes an acoustic beamforming operation.

8 . The method of claim 6 wherein the speaker separation operation is based on voice biometrics.

9 . The method of claim 8 wherein the speaker separation operation is further based on an acoustic beamforming operation.

10 . The method of claim 6 wherein the speaker diarization operation further includes performing an automatic speech recognition operation on the speaker specific audio data for each speaker of the plurality of speakers to generate textual data associated with each speaker of the plurality of speakers.

11 . The method of claim 10 further comprising processing the textual data associated with each speaker of the plurality of speakers to identify the plurality of commands.

12 . The method of claim 1 wherein the sequencing objective specifies that the responses be ordered by relative urgency of their associated requests.

13 . The method of claim 1 wherein the sequencing objective specifies that the responses be ordered in a first-in-first-out order.

14 . The method of claim 1 wherein the sequencing objective specifies that the responses be ordered in a last-in-first-out order.

15 . A method comprising:

receiving, at a voice assistant, a first request from a first speaker and a second request from a second speaker;

processing, using the voice assistant, the first request and the second request to determine a corresponding first answer and second answer;

determining an order of presentation of the first answer and the second answer based at least in part on a sequencing objective; and

presenting the first answer and the second answer according to the determined order of presentation.

16 . The method of claim 15 wherein the order of presentation is determined according to an importance associated with the first and second requests.

17 . The method of claim 15 wherein the order of presentation is determined according to a timeline associated with the first and second requests.

18 . The method of claim 15 wherein the first answer and the second answer are presented with corresponding request identifiers.

19 . The method of claim 15 wherein the first answer and the second answer are presented with corresponding speaker identifiers.

20 . The method of claim 15 wherein the determined order of presentation is different from the order in which the first request and the second request were received.

21 . The method of claim 15 wherein presenting the first answer and the second answer includes forming a combined answer by combining the first answer and the second answer and presenting the combined answer.

22 . The method of claim 21 wherein forming the combined answer includes modifying one or more of the first answer and the second answer based on n relationship between the first answer and the second answer.

Assignments (3)
RELEASE (REEL 067417 / FRAME 0303) Recorded Jan 2, 2025
From: WELLS FARGO BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
To: CERENCE OPERATING COMPANY
Reel/Frame 069797/0422 →
SECURITY AGREEMENT Recorded Apr 15, 2024
From: CERENCE OPERATING COMPANY
To: WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A., AS COLLATERAL AGENT
Reel/Frame 067417/0303 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Mar 25, 2021
From: KATHPAL, PRATEEK; LENKE, NILS
To: CERENCE OPERATING COMPANY
Reel/Frame 055711/0830 →