KENNEWICK, Michael RyeDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardDec 2, 20212021004073 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 2, 2021) 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. 14/631,772 02/25/2015 Mike KENNEWICK 62MV-218285 2282 133759 7590 12/02/2021 Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP 650 Town Center Drive, 10th Floor Costa Mesa, CA 92626 EXAMINER HUANG, JAY ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3685 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/02/2021 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): SheppardMullin_Pair@firsttofile.com dmipdocketing@sheppardmullin.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte MIKE KENNEWICK and LYNN ELISE ARMSTRONG ____________ Appeal 2021-004073 Application 14/631,772 Technology Center 3600 ____________ Before JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, BRADLEY B. BAYAT, and AMEE A. SHAH, Administrative Patent Judges. BAYAT, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1–3, 11, 14, 15, 17–19, 31–34, 36–38, and 40–51, which constitute all claims before us for review.2 An oral hearing was held on November 2, 2021. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as “AI THINKTANK LLC.” Appeal Br. 2. 2 Claims 4–10, 12, 13, 16, 20–30, 35, and 39 are canceled. Id. at 20–24, Claims App. Appeal 2021-004073 Application 14/631,772 2 Claimed Subject Matter Appellant’s “invention generally relates to providing a natural language content dedication service in a voice services environment, and in particular, to detecting multi-modal device interactions that include requests to dedicate content, identifying the content requested for dedication from natural language utterances included in the multi-modal device interactions, processing transactions for the content requested for dedication, processing natural language to customize the content for recipients of the dedications, and delivering the customized content to the recipients of the dedications.” Spec. ¶ 2. Claims 1 and 17 are independent and recite substantially similar subject matter. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject matter on appeal. 1. A system for providing a natural language content service in a voice services environment, the system comprising: a voice-enabled client device comprising one or more physical processors programmed to execute computer program instructions which, when executed, cause the one or more physical processors to: receive a natural language utterance of a user; responsive to receipt of the natural language utterance, perform speech recognition on the natural language utterance, via an automatic speech recognizer, to determine one or more words of the natural language utterance; obtain context information associated with the user; determine, based on the one or more words of the natural language utterance and the context information, an intent of the user to obtain a copy of content playing on a separate device, wherein the separate device is different from the voice-enabled client device; identify the content playing on the separate device based on the determined intent of the user; and; obtain a copy of the identified content playing on the separate device based on the determined intent of the user. Appeal 2021-004073 Application 14/631,772 3 Rejections Claims 1–3, 11, 14, 15, 17–19, 34, 37, 38, 40–44, 48, 50, and 51 are unpatentable over Freeman et al. (US 2008/0189110 A1, published Aug. 7, 2008) (“Freeman”) and Kopra et al. (US 2008/0032622 A1, published Feb. 7, 2008) (“Kopra”). Claims 31–33 and 45–47 are unpatentable over Freeman, Kopra, and Kondrk et al. (US 2010/0076778 A1, published Mar. 25, 2010). Claims 36 and 49 are unpatentable over Freeman, Kopra, and Schrock (US 2008/0010135 A1, published Jan. 10, 2008). OPINION Independent claims 1 and 17 Alleging error in the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1 and 17 as unpatentable over Freeman and Kopra, Appellant submits that Freeman fails to teach or suggest at least the following features of claim 1 (and the similar features of claim 17): [a] determine, based on the one or more words of the natural language utterance and the context information, an intent of the user to obtain a copy of content playing on a separate device, wherein the separate device is different from the voice-enabled client device; [b] identify the content playing on the separate device based on the determined intent of the user; and [c] obtain a copy of the identified content playing on the separate device based on the determined intent of the user. Appeal Br. 10. Appellant argues that “Freeman fails to teach or suggest any of the claim elements [a]-[c] as they relate to content playing on a separate device.” Id. at 11. The Examiner is unpersuaded by Appellant’s argument Appeal 2021-004073 Application 14/631,772 4 because “Kopra, not Freeman, is relied [upon] to teach content playing on a separate device” (Ans. 3). We also are unpersuaded by Appellant’s argument because Freeman explicitly discloses that “voice-based inputs may include multiple requests, multi-modal requests, cross-device requests, cross application requests, or other types of requests.” Freeman ¶ 26. Freeman explains that “[t]he utterance may thus include multiple requests, including cross-device requests (e.g., calculate a route using a navigation device, and make a telephone call using a mobile device), as well as cross-application requests (e.g., search for an address and/or phone number using a voice search engine, and calculate a route using a navigation application).” Id. In fact, the example cited by the Examiner in paragraph 37 of Freeman describes a cross device request between a satellite radio player and the user’s mobile phone. Thus, Appellant’s argument that “Freeman is only concerned with identifying a song playing on its device” (Appeal Br. 11) is without merit.3 Relying on the example provided in paragraph 37 of Freeman, Appellant next argues: Freeman’s method is different, and involves two distinct steps. In Freeman, the user issues a request for a song’s name to the device in which the song is playing (i.e., a satellite radio player) and, in response, the system identifies the song by name and presents an ad with an offer to purchase a ringtone that “corresponds to the song.” Then, the user may, in a second and different request, accept the offer in the ad by purchasing and 3 During oral hearing, Appellant appears to have conceded this point: “I’m not sure that we are necessarily disputing that there is a separate device or that there’s a separation in Freeman of the device the user is using versus — I’m sorry, no, we did say that. That’s not the — that’s not — really, I think that’s not really the biggest issue with this rejection.” Tr. 7. Appeal 2021-004073 Application 14/631,772 5 downloading the ringtone. Thus, even assuming arguendo that Freeman’s ringtones and responses to a user’s requests can be analogized to the claimed “content” and “determined intent” (as Appellant understands the Examiner’s assertion) Freeman discloses two separate communications, two separate utterances, and two separate processing steps. Appeal Br. 11–12. We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument. Freeman discloses that “the utterance may include one or more requests for performing an action, retrieving information, or various combinations thereof.” Freeman ¶ 15. An utterance received in Freeman may include a request for information and a command for performing an action. Id. ¶ 26. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, the Examiner finds that the claimed utterance “can be interpreted as a set of phrases.” Ans. 4. Based on the teachings of Freeman, a user may thus request information about a song currently playing and also issue a command for performing an action as part of the same utterance (e.g., What is this song; I’ll buy that.). In other words, after receiving that natural language utterance and performing speech recognition to identify the requests, Freeman’s system may output the requested information about the song and present an advertisement that enables the user to purchase the song for a mobile phone by interacting with the advertisement (e.g., clicking on the advertisement to confirm purchase). Freeman ¶ 37, Fig. 3. The user’s interaction with the advertisement in Freeman is akin to the claimed context information associated with the user.4 See Spec. ¶¶ 31–35, 41, 46. In this example, the 4 Appellant acknowledged during the hearing that Freeman’s interaction with an advertisement could be considered context information. See Tr. 15–16. Appeal 2021-004073 Application 14/631,772 6 intent of the user to obtain a copy of content playing is determined based on the words of the natural language utterance and the context information. Freeman indicates that “[p]rocessing may subsequently return to operation 325 to present output resulting from the interaction” in operation 335 (Freeman ¶ 37, Fig. 3), such as “information relating to an action based on the request” (id. ¶ 29). The information outputted relating to the user’s interaction with the advertisement identifies the content being purchased based on the user’s utterance and context associated with the user (e.g., clicking a purchase button on the advertisement). “For example, the output may include requested information, an indication of whether a requested task was successfully completed, whether additional information is needed to service the request (e.g., including a prompt for the information), or other information relating to an action based on the request.” Id. Freeman indicates that after the user’s interaction, which may include completing a transaction for the content, the content is downloaded and obtained by the mobile phone. Id. ¶ 37; see also Ans. 4. Accordingly, we are unpersuaded by Appellant’s arguments which limit the teachings of Freeman strictly to the example described in paragraph 37. Therefore, we sustain the rejection of independent claims 1 and 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Dependent claims 2, 11, 14, 18, 37, 38, 40, 42, 43, 50 Regarding claims 2, 11, 14, 18, 37, 38, 40, 42, 43, 50, we agree with the Examiner (Ans. 5–6) and are unpersuaded by Appellant’s arguments (Appeal Br. 15–17) for the reasons discussed above. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of claims 2, 11, 14, 18, 37, 38, 40, 42, 43, 50, which depend from claims 1 and 17. Appeal 2021-004073 Application 14/631,772 7 Dependent claims 31–33, and 45–47 Claims 31–33 and 45–47 relate to “the determination if a request should be granted based on subscription terms (claims 31 and 45), the determination if a predetermined number of content items has been obtained or accessed (claims 32 and 46), and the determination if the terms specify obtaining or accessing an unlimited number of content items (claims 33 and 47).” Appeal Br. 18. Appellant argues that paragraphs 5, 6, 26, 55, and 56 of Kondrk, on which the Examiner relies (see Final Act. 11–12), “teaches the broad concept of subscription services, the cited paragraphs do not teach or suggest any of the specific features of claims 31-33 and 45-47.” Appeal Br. 18. The Examiner is unpersuaded because “Appellant merely provides a conclusory statement that Kondrk fails to teach any of the specific features of claims 31-33, 45-47 without providing supporting analysis or evidence.” Ans. 6. We agree with the Examiner. Paragraph 55 of Kondrk, for example, describes “the limited subscription entitles the purchaser to gain access to a limited amount of user-specified media content available from the online media store.” Appellant does nothing to call into question the specific underlying factual findings made by the Examiner and the evidentiary support cited therefor. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of dependent claims 31–33 and 45–47. Dependent claims 36 and 49 “Appellant respectfully submits that rejected dependent claims 36 and 49 are allowable, at least by virtue of their dependency.” Appeal Br. 18. For the reasons discussed above, we sustain the rejection of claims 36 and 49, which depend from independent claims 1 and 17. Appeal 2021-004073 Application 14/631,772 8 DECISION SUMMARY Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1–3, 11, 14, 15, 17–19, 34, 37, 38, 40–44, 48, 50, 51 103(a) Freeman, Kopra 1–3, 11, 14, 15, 17–19, 34, 37, 38, 40–44, 48, 50, 51 31–33, 45– 47 103(a) Freeman, Kopra, Kondrk 31–33, 45–47 36, 49 103(a) Freeman, Kopra, Schrock 36, 49 Overall Outcome 1–3, 11, 14, 15, 17–19, 31–34, 36–38, 40–51 No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation