Prior art

I have searched the USPTO database for US patent 11244675.

US patent 11244675, titled "Word replacement in output generation for detected intent by voice classification," was granted on February 8, 2022, from an application filed on March 7, 2019. It claims priority from Japanese Application No. 2018-044598, filed on March 12, 2018.

Based on the patent text provided, the most relevant prior art explicitly mentioned is:

• Japanese Examined Patent Application Publication No. H07-109560
  • Full Citation: Japanese Examined Patent Application Publication No. H07-109560
  • Publication/Filing Date: The patent states it was "described in Japanese Examined Patent Application Publication No. H07-109560". Japanese patent publication numbers starting with "H" (Heisei era) indicate a publication during the Heisei era (1989-2019). The "07" likely refers to the 7th year of Heisei, which is 1995. Therefore, the publication date would be around 1995. The specific filing date is not provided in US11244675B2.
  • Brief Description: This prior art discloses "voice control devices that analyze detected voice of a user and perform a processing according to an intention of the user." It also covers "voice control devices that output notification indicating that a processing intended by a user has been performed in voice, or that output an inquiry from a user in voice."
  • Potentially Anticipates (35 U.S.C. § 102): US11244675B2 acknowledges that this prior art describes basic voice control functionality, including analyzing user voice for intent and outputting voice notifications. Therefore, this prior art would likely anticipate the broad concepts of voice control, intent detection, and voice output as foundational elements. However, it does not appear to describe the specific inventive step of modifying the output sentence (word replacement) based on the classification of the input voice (e.g., whisper) to enhance privacy, which is a core aspect of US11244675B2's claims.

The preamble of claim 1 of US11244675B2, for example, describes an "output-content control device comprising: a voice classifying unit configured to analyze a voice spoken by a user... to determine whether the voice is a predetermined voice; an intention analyzing unit configured to analyze the voice... to detect intention information...; a notification-information acquiring unit configured to acquire notification information... based on the intention information; and an output-content generating unit configured to generate an output sentence... based on the notification information". Japanese Examined Patent Application Publication No. H07-109560 would likely anticipate the general idea of an "intention analyzing unit" and "output-content generating unit" for basic voice control, but not the specific "voice classifying unit" determining a "predetermined voice" to trigger word replacement.