Apple Inc.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardNov 3, 202015141645 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Nov. 3, 2020) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O. Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 15/141,645 04/28/2016 Jerome R. BELLEGARDA P25879US1/77870000211101 6931 150004 7590 11/03/2020 DENTONS US LLP - Apple 4655 Executive Dr Suite 700 San Diego, CA 92121 EXAMINER COLUCCI, MICHAEL C ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2656 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/03/2020 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): dentons_PAIR@firsttofile.com patent.docket@dentons.com patents.us@dentons.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte JEROME R. BELLEGARDA and JANNES G. DOLFING Appeal 2019-004354 Application 15/141,645 Technology Center 2600 ____________ Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and CARL L. SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judges. SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL1 Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant2 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1 and 3–17, which are all the claims in this application.3 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 An oral hearing was held for this appeal on October 26, 2020. 2 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Apple Inc. Appeal Br. 4. 3 Claim 2 has been canceled previously. Appeal 2019-004354 Application 15/141,645 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant’s disclosure is directed to “statistical language modeling, and more specifically to techniques for speech prediction and recognition.” Spec. ¶ 2. Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows: 1. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing one or more programs, the one or more programs comprising instructions, which when executed by one or more processors of an electronic device, cause the electronic device to: receive a character of a sequence of characters; determine a current character context based on the received character of the sequence of characters and a previous character context; determine a current word representation based on the current character context, wherein the current word representation has a first vector dimensionality; determine, by the one or more processors, a current word context based on the current word representation and a previous word context; determine, by the one or more processors, a next word representation based on the current word context, wherein the next word representation has a second vector dimensionality; and provide, by a display of the electronic device, the next word representation. REFERENCES AND REJECTIONS The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Name Reference Date Medlock US 2012/0223889 A1 Sept. 6, 2012 Boehl US 2014/0230055 Al Aug. 14, 2014 Bangalore US 2016/0004690 Al Jan. 7, 2016 Zhai US 2016/0299685 Al Oct. 13, 2016 Appeal 2019-004354 Application 15/141,645 3 Claims 1, 3–8, and 12–14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Medlock and Zhai. Final Act. 4–12. Claims 9–11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Medlock, Zhai, and Boehl. Final Act. 12–14. Claims 15–17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Medlock, Zhai, and Bangalore. Final Act. 14–17. ISSUE ON APPEAL Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal Brief present the following dispositive issue4: Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Medlock and Zhai teaches or suggests the following limitation recited in independent claims 1, 13, and 14: determine a current word representation based on the current character context, wherein the current word representation has a first vector dimensionality; . . . determine, by the one or more processors, a next word representation based on the current word context, wherein the next word representation has a second vector dimensionality. Appeal Br. 11. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s contentions in the Appeal Brief and the Reply Brief that the Examiner has 4 We do not address Appellant’s other contentions because this contention is dispositive of the issue on appeal. Appeal 2019-004354 Application 15/141,645 4 erred, as well as the Examiner’s response to Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal Brief. As discussed below, we are persuaded by Appellant’s contentions of Examiner error. For the limitation at issue, the Examiner relies on the disclosure in Medlock of an interface as displayed on a small display of an electronic watch in Figure 17. Final Act. 5 (citing Medlock ¶¶ 43, 69, 95, 160, 161, 261–293, Fig. 17). The Examiner maps the recited “first vector” to Medlock’s entries of “See,” “See you,” and “See you later” and explains that “This also abides by word prediction algorithms where each vector adds to the dimensionality ... and word context from preceding input and next word prediction analogous to terms expressly and predictions thereof (0047, 0220, and fig. 13e).” Final Act. 5–6. The Examiner further adds Zhai “for clarity and rather than taking official notice or an inherency to teach otherwise well-known word prediction based on preceding input” and also as disclosing the next word representation having a second vector dimensionality, similar to the disclosure of Medlock. Final Act. 6 (citing Zhai ¶¶ 88, 91, 112; Medlock ¶¶ 28, 66, 94). Finally, the Examiner finds that Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the system of Medlock to incorporate the above claim limitations as taught by Zhai to allow for well-known fundamental usage of preceding N number of word prediction in context i.e. probability of a next term (word) given the previous analogous to Medlock but in the context of words (present in Medlock) made explicit by Zhai. Final Act. 7. Appellant contends the Examiner erred in reading the claimed vector on the number of words or characters in Medlock because, “as set forth in Appeal 2019-004354 Application 15/141,645 5 the Specification, a representation of the current word, such as a vector, is provided by encoding the current word” and is different from a character or a word. Appeal Br. 14. According to Appellant, “the Specification makes clear that the word representations have dimensions corresponding various factors” that have a certain dimension, but “none even remotely define the term as a number of characters corresponding to a respective word (the alleged ‘vector), or alternatively, the number of words in a respective phrase (also the alleged ‘vector), as asserted by the Examiner.” Appeal Br. 14–15. Appellant further argues that the Examiner’s interpretation of the claim term “vector” is inconsistent with the meaning of the word, as used in the cited prior art or the related publications. See Appeal Br. 16–25. In response, the Examiner points to paragraph 229 of the Specification to support the applied claim interpretation that “dimensionality refers to the number of characters or words such as a user types a word character by character applicable to multiple words in sequence.” Ans. 4–6. Based on this interpretation, the Examiner reiterates that the cited portions of Medlock “demonstrate that the processing of BOTH characters/words AND probabilities are essential to predicting the next word or character based on the current word or character and context thereof.” Ans. 7 (citing Medlock ¶¶ 43, 69, 95; Fig. 17). With respect to Zhai, the Examiner adds that “Zhai analogous to Medlock expressly teaches vector and dimension and analogous to the claims as well as in 0039-0044” and in “fig. 1, fig. 5, and 0088 of Zhai a word is built based on character sequences as most likely word candidates form e.g. ‘S’ and ‘A’ to build one of ‘saying’ or ‘satin’.” Ans. 8. Appeal 2019-004354 Application 15/141,645 6 To the extent paragraph 229 of the Specification can be characterized as how “a number of characters” or “a number of words” correspond to the recited dimensionality, such connection relates to the word representation, and not the number of characters or words a user inputs. See Spec. ¶ 229. We find no indication in this paragraph or the related ones describing the process shown in Appellant’s Figure 11, that “the dimensionality refers to the number of characters or words such as a user types a word character by character,” as asserted by the Examiner. See Ans. 4. As stated by Appellant, In fact, reading paragraph [0229] in isolation would not even lead a reader to make the same conclusion as the Examiner. For example, the sentence in paragraph [0229] describes “a dimensionality of the character of the sequence of characters corresponds to a number of characters.” However, it is unclear how the dimensionality of a single character would somehow correspond to multiple typed characters. Similarly, it is unclear how the dimensionality of a single word representation would correspond to multiple words, based on the description of “a dimensionality of the next word representation corresponds to a number of words.” Reply Br. 9. We also agree with Appellant that “the Application as-filed makes clear that the dimensionality of the next word representation, corresponding to ‘a number of words,’ does not refer to an amount of typed words in a phrase” and instead, “‘a number of words’ corresponds to the size of a vocabulary to which a predicted next word belongs, which may be based on the type of encoding utilized.” Id. In view of the above analysis, we are also persuaded by Appellant’s contentions that the text prediction process disclosed in Medlock is not related to the current and next word representation according to a vector dimensionality. See Appeal Br. 28–30. Similarly, as argued by Appellant, Appeal 2019-004354 Application 15/141,645 7 Zhai discloses a vector in relation with a set of probabilities for the character selection in a neural network, which is different from a word representation having a vector dimensionality. See Appeal Br. 30. Accordingly, we agree with Appellant that the Examiner does not provide prima facie support for the rejection. “[T]he examiner bears the initial burden, on review of the prior art or on any other ground, of presenting a prima facie case of unpatentability.” In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1992). Therefore, on the record before us, we are constrained to conclude the Examiner errs in rejecting claim 1, as well as independent claims 13 and 14 that recite similar limitations, as obvious. CONCLUSION For the reasons stated above, we do not sustain the obviousness rejection of independent claims 1, 13, and 14, as well as claims 3–8 and 12 dependent therefrom, over Medlock and Zhai. The Examiner has not relied upon the additional references to teach or suggest the above-identified limitation in rejecting claims 9–11 and 15–17. See Final Act. 12–17. Accordingly, for reasons similar to those above for independent claims 1, 13, and 14, we do not sustain the remaining rejections. DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 3–8, 12–14 103(a) Medlock, Zhai 1, 3–8, 12–14 9–11 103(a) Medlock, Zhai, Boehl 9–11 Appeal 2019-004354 Application 15/141,645 8 Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Basis Affirmed Reversed 15–17 103(a) Medlock, Zhai, Bangalore 15–17 Overall Outcome 1, 3–17 REVERSED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation