SRI INTERNATIONALDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMay 5, 202013916346 - (D) (P.T.A.B. May. 5, 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. 13/916,346 06/12/2013 Jeremy Epstein SRI6167-2 1361 14824 7590 05/05/2020 Moser Taboada/ SRI International 1030 Broad Street Suite 203 Shrewsbury, NJ 07702 EXAMINER GREGG, MARY M ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3697 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/05/2020 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): docketing@mtiplaw.com llinardakis@mtiplaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JEREMY EPSTEIN Appeal 2019-004226 Application 13/916,346 Technology Center 3600 Before ERIC S. FRAHM, BETH Z. SHAW, and SCOTT B. HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judges. SHAW, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 2, 3, and 7–23. See Final Act. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as SRI INTERNATIONAL. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2019-004226 Application 13/916,346 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to a method for performing transaction authorization to an online system from an untrusted computer system. Claim 2, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 2. A computer-implemented method for allowing a user of an online system to authorize transactions from untrusted computer systems, the method comprising executing on a processor the steps of, with the online system: receiving a transaction request of the user, the transaction request to accomplish an online transaction, the transaction request comprising financial information including at least an amount of the transaction, and in response to the transaction request: presenting a series of tests to the user, each of the tests comprising text that is human intelligible but not intelligible by computers and at least a portion of the financial information of the transaction request including at least the amount of the transaction; creating, using a microphone, a recording of the user’s voice speaking one of the tests of the series of tests and the portion of the financial information; performing speaker verification, using a speaker model, on the recording to determine if the recording matches a known sample of the user’s voice; performing automated speech recognition, using an acoustic model and a language model, on the recording to determine if the spoken financial information matches the financial information of the transaction request and if the spoken one of the tests matches one of the presented series of tests; and rejecting the transaction request to prevent fraudulent transactions if at least one of a) the one of the tests spoken by the user does not match one of the presented series of tests, b) the recording does not match the known sample of the user’s voice and c) the recognized spoken financial information does not match the financial information of the transaction request. Appeal 2019-004226 Application 13/916,346 3 REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Name Reference Date Bird US 2007/0179885 A1 Aug. 2, 2007 Berstis US 2007/0186184 A1 Aug. 9, 2007 Lee US 2008/0140420 A1 June 12, 2008 Weller US 2010/0114776 A1 May 6, 2010 Hulten US 2011/0314537 A1 Dec. 22, 2011 Gross US 8,494,854 B2 July 23, 2013 REJECTION In the Answer, the Examiner withdrew the rejection of the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Ans. 3. Claims 2, 3, 7–10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18–21, 23, and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Gross and Lee. Final Act. 48, 68, 69. Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Gross, Lee, and Bird. Final Act. 65. Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Gross, Lee, and Berstis. Final Act. 66. Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Gross, Lee, Berstis, and Hulten. Final Act. 68. Claim 22 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Gross, Lee, and Weller. Final Act. 78. Appeal 2019-004226 Application 13/916,346 4 OPINION Section 103 Rejections Appellant argues the Examiner erred in rejecting the claims. We have considered and reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s arguments that the Examiner has erred. We are not persuaded of error for the following reasons, and we agree with and adopt the Examiner’s findings and conclusions in the Final Rejection (Final Act. 48–80) and Answer (Ans. 3– 20). Appellant argues that Gross or Lee, or their combination, fail to teach or suggest various disputed limitations of independent claim 2, as discussed in more detail below. See Appeal Br. 18–29. Presenting a Series of Tests Appellant’s claim includes receiving a transaction request, including an amount of the transaction, presenting a series of tests to a user that include the amount of the transaction, and creating a recording of the user speaking the amount of the transaction. Appeal Br. 19. Appellant argues that Lee and Gross do not teach or suggest “presenting a series of tests to the user, each of the tests comprising . . . at least a portion of the financial information of the transaction request including at least the amount of the transaction,” as recited in claim 2. Appeal Br. 26. In particular, Appellant argues that Lee merely teaches that words spoken by a user of the remote payment device to verify an identity can include a currency name and transaction amount. Id. Appellant’s arguments regarding Lee’s individual shortcomings in this regard are unavailing, because the Examiner does not rely solely on Lee for teaching the disputed series of tests limitation, but rather the cited prior Appeal 2019-004226 Application 13/916,346 5 art collectively. Final Act. 49–54. Therefore, Appellant’s arguments do not show nonobviousness where, as here, the rejection is based on the cited references’ collective teachings. In particular, the Examiner explains, and we agree, that Gross presents a series of tests to the user, each test including text that is human-intelligible but not intelligible by computers and at least a portion of the financial information. Final Act. 49 (citing Gross, 3:50–67; 4:1–59; 5:45–61; 6:10–23). The Examiner additionally finds, and we agree, that Lee teaches the transaction request including at least the amount of the transaction. Final Act. 52, 53 (citing Lee ¶¶ 7–10, 38, 52–57, Figs. 1, 7, 8). Appellant acknowledges that Lee teaches that a first voice “consists of several words of which can be the currency name and the transaction amount.” Appeal Br. 26. Accordingly, Appellant’s arguments with respect to this disputed limitation are not persuasive. Performing Speaker Verification on the Recording Appellant argues Gross fails to teach “performing speaker verification, using a speaker model, on the recording to determine if the recording matches a known sample of the user’s voice,” where the recoding includes “text that is human intelligible but not intelligible by computers and at least a portion of the financial information of the transaction request including at least the amount of the transaction,” as recited in claim 2. Appeal Br. 21. “That is, in the Appellant[’s] independent claim 2, the Appellant[] claims performing speaker verification, using a speaker model, on the recording.” Id. “As such, in accordance with the Appellant[’s] claims, the recording includes text that is human intelligible but not Appeal 2019-004226 Application 13/916,346 6 intelligible by computers and at least a portion of the financial information of the transaction request including at least the amount of the transaction.” Id. Appellant argues that in contrast to Appellant’s claim, “Gross only teaches using speech waveforms of human utterances models to train a device to differentiate between human and machine utterances.” Id. at 22, 23. Appellant acknowledges that “Gross teaches that speaker verification systems are used to make a reliable determination if the identity of a person matches a prior recorded voice print.” Id. Moreover, the Examiner finds, and we agree, that Lee teaches the disputed speaker verification because Lee teaches: Before authorizing the charge, the user inputs a first voice to the speech-recognition piece by speaking, and then the speech-recognition piece will recognize if input speech is the amount to be paid, and verify the similarity of the first voice with the predetermined voice. If the first voice is recognized and matched to the transaction amount, and falls within the recognition zone, the charge will be allowed, which means the user passes the authorization of the remote payment system. Ans. 6 (quoting Lee ¶ 38). The Examiner finds, and we agree, that Lee teaches matching the first voice to a previous voice spoken to the remote payment system (Lee ¶ 43 (“voice is exactly the voice the owner spoke to the remote payment system 1 before”)), “describing an amount of money” (Lee ¶ 7), and “recording a speech” (Lee ¶ 6). Ans. 6. Accordingly, Lee teaches or suggests, “performing speaker verification, using a speaker model, on the recording to determine if the recording matches a known sample of the user’s voice,” as recited in independent claim 2. Appeal 2019-004226 Application 13/916,346 7 Additionally, the Examiner relies on Lee, not Gross alone, to teach the transaction request “including at least the amount of the transaction.” Final Act. 53 (citing Lee ¶¶ 7–10, 38, 52–57). We agree with the Examiner that Lee teaches fraud prevention when a “transaction amount” is “inputted by a first voice.” Lee ¶ 57. Therefore, Appellant’s arguments do not show nonobviousness where, as here, the rejection is based on the cited references’ collective teachings. Performing Automated Speech Recognition Using an Acoustic Model and a Language Model Appellant also argues that Gross fails to teach or suggest “performing automated speech recognition, using an acoustic model and a language model, on the recording to determine if the spoken financial information matches the financial information of the transaction request and if the spoken one of the tests matches one of the presented series of tests,” recited in independent claim 2. Appeal Br. 24. In particular, Appellant argues that Gross does not teach automated speech recognition using a “language model” on the recording. Id.; Reply Br. 26. Regardless of the general contentions and imputed intended meanings articulated by Appellant in the Appeal Brief, “[i]t is the claims that measure the invention.” See SRI Int’l v. Matsushita Elec. Corp. of Am., 775 F.2d 1107, 1121 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (en banc) (citations omitted). Though understanding the claim language may be aided by the explanations contained in the written description, it is important not to import into a claim limitations that are not a part of the claim. For example, a particular embodiment appearing in the written description may not be read into a claim when the claim language is broader than the embodiment. Appeal 2019-004226 Application 13/916,346 8 SuperGuide Corp. v. DirecTV Enters, Inc., 358 F.3d 870, 875 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (citing Electro Med. Sys. S.A. v. Cooper Life Sci., Inc., 34 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1994)). “[A]lthough the specification often describes very specific embodiments of the invention, [the Federal Circuit has] repeatedly warned against confining the claims to those embodiments.” Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc) (citations omitted). The Examiner finds, and we agree, that Gross and Lee teach this disputed element, i.e., the claimed “performing automated speech recognition, using an acoustic model and a language model, on the recording to determine if the spoken financial information matches the financial information of the transaction request and if the spoken one of the tests matches one of the presented series of tests.” Claim 2; Ans. 11–12, 15–16. The Examiner explains how Gross teaches that a spoken test can be a verbal challenge test and how Lee teaches that recording the spoken test can include financial information, including matching the transaction amount. Id.; Lee ¶ 38. Appellant provides insufficient evidence proving that the Specification or claims limit “language model” in a way that, under a broad but reasonable interpretation, is not encompassed by Gross and Lee’s teachings on speech recognition. See Ans. 15–16. Moreover, we note that Gross describes acoustic models (Hidden Markov Model) and that computing systems “can be selected based on a language spoken by the entity.” Gross, 2:26–28, 4:19–24; Final Act. 50. Accordingly, Appellant’s arguments with respect to this disputed limitation are not persuasive. Appeal 2019-004226 Application 13/916,346 9 Rejecting the Transaction Request to Prevent Fraudulent Transactions Appellant argues Gross and Lee fail to teach or suggest, “rejecting the transaction request to prevent fraudulent transactions if at least one of a) the one of the tests spoken by the user does not match one of the presented series of tests, b) the recording does not match the known sample of the user’s voice and c) the recognized spoken financial information does not match the financial information of the transaction request,” as recited in claim 2. Appeal Br. 27. First, we note that claim 2 requires only “at least one” of conditions a, b, or c, to be satisfied to reject the transaction request. The Examiner finds that Lee teaches this disputed element. Ans. 18. We agree with the Examiner that Lee teaches fraud prevention when a “transaction amount” is “inputted by a first voice.” Lee ¶ 57. This is because Lee explains that a remote payment system “will identify the first voice to confirm if the user is the real owner.” Id. Thus, here, Lee at least suggests rejecting the transaction if the voice is not that of the real owner. Moreover, Lee goes on to describe another fraud prevention mechanism, where the system detects if the voice inputted is “too similar” to a predetermined voice, then the system asks the user to input a second voice to be verified. Id. The phrase “too similar” “means the result falls in one of three zones based on the predetermined voice.” Id. “The identification results can roughly be divided into three types: within the recognition zone, below the recognition zone and over the recognition zone. If the identification results falls below the recognition zone, the remote payment system will recognize the inputted voice as a wrong voice and implement the Appeal 2019-004226 Application 13/916,346 10 step of ending directly.” Id. (emphasis added). Thus, this portion of Lee also teaches “rejecting the transaction request to prevent fraudulent transactions if . . . b) the recording does not match the known sample of the user’s voice,” because Lee will end (reject) the transaction if the inputted voice is the “wrong voice.” Lee ¶ 57. In the Reply Brief, Appellant argues that Lee does not teach that the remote payment system uses a test, recording, or financial information. Reply Br. 9. We are not persuaded by this argument because Lee uses a recording (element b of the disputed limitation) as explained above. Lee ¶ 57. Moreover, the Examiner does not rely on Lee alone to teach the series of test element of the claim, but rather, as explained above, the Examiner relies on the combination of Lee and Gross to teach a series of tests. Thus, Appellant’s arguments regarding Lee’s individual shortcomings in this regard (Reply Br. 9) are unavailing, for the Examiner does not rely solely on Lee for teaching the test, but rather the cited prior art collectively. Therefore, Appellant’s arguments do not show nonobviousness where, as here, the rejection is based on the cited references’ collective teachings. Conclusion of Obviousness Finally, Appellant does not argue the Examiner’s rationale in combining the references, and we discern no error therein. As the Examiner finds, both references relate to voice testing technology with the motivation of preventing fraud to provide greater security, and each discloses a variety of voice technology alternatives that a person of ordinary skill would have recognized as being applicable to improve security in the other. Final Act. Appeal 2019-004226 Application 13/916,346 11 55; see Innovention Toys LLC v. MGA Entertainment Inc., 637 F.3d 1314, 1321 (Fed. Cir. 2011); see id. at 1322–23 (finding no error in combining references that share the “same purpose,” “goal,” or “objective”). Moreover, in an obviousness analysis, prior art references must be “considered together with the knowledge of one of ordinary skill in the pertinent art,” In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1480 (Fed. Cir. 1994), and we “take account of the inferences and creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007). On this record, we find (and Appellant does not dispute) the Examiner has articulated ample “reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness.” KSR, 550 U.S. at 418; Ans. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of independent claim 2 under § 103. For the same reasons, we sustain the rejection of independent claim 20, for which Appellant presents the same or essentially the same arguments. See Appeal Br. 29, 32, 33. For the same reasons, we sustain the rejection of claims 3, 7–10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, and 24, for which Appellant presents no additional arguments. Id. We also sustain the various rejections of dependent claims 11, 14, 17, and 22 because Appellant presents the same or essentially the same arguments for these claims as for claim 2. See Appeal Br. 29–31. CONCLUSION The Examiner’s rejection is affirmed. We affirm the rejection of claims 2, 3, 7–10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18–21, 23, and 24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Gross and Lee. We affirm the rejection of claim 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Gross, Lee, and Bird. Appeal 2019-004226 Application 13/916,346 12 We affirm the rejection of claim 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Gross, Lee, and Berstis. We affirm the rejection of claim 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Gross, Lee, Berstis, and Hulten. We affirm the rejection of claim 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Gross, Lee, and Weller. DECISION SUMMARY Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 2, 3, 7–10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18–21, 23, 24 103 Gross, Lee 2, 3, 7–10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18–21, 23, 24 11 103 Gross, Lee, Bird 11 14 103 Gross, Lee, Berstis 14 17 103 Gross, Lee, Berstis, Hulten 17 22 103 Gross, Lee, Weller 22 Overall Outcome: 2, 3, 7–23 TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation