Ex Parte Davis

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 17, 2014

11518034 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 17, 2014)

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.
11/518,034 09/08/2006 Stephen A. Davis 4860P4668 4049
45217 7590 07/18/2014
APPLE INC./BSTZ
BLAKELY SOKOLOFF TAYLOR & ZAFMAN LLP
1279 OAKMEAD PARKWAY
SUNNYVALE, CA 94085-4040
EXAMINER
MCCORD, PAUL C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2656
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/18/2014 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte STEPHEN A. DAVIS
____________

Appeal 2012-002136
Application 11/518,034
1

Technology Center 2600
____________

Before BRUCE R. WINSOR, JOHN A. EVANS, and
BETH Z. SHAW, Administrative Patent Judges.

SHAW, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1-31. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

1
Our Decision refers to Appellant’s Appeal Brief filed June 2, 2011
(hereinafter “App. Br.”); Reply Brief filed November 2, 2011 (hereinafter
“Reply Br.”); and the Examiner’s Answer mailed September 2, 2011
(hereinafter “Ans.”).
Appeal 2012-002136
Application 11/518,034

2
INVENTION

The invention relates to distortion free stitching of digital media files.
(Abstract.)
Claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A method of distortion free stitching a digitally encoded
track A waveform and a digitally encoded track B waveform at a
transition point T, comprising:
determining a transition zone associated with the transition
point, the transition zone including a first plurality of audio samples of
the track A waveform and a second plurality of audio samples of the
track B waveform;
calculating an audio sample value for each of the first and
second plurality of audio samples in the transition zone;
comparing the audio sample values of the first plurality of
audio samples;
comparing the audio samples values of the second plurality of
audio samples;
determining a direction of the track A waveform using the
compared audio sample values for the first plurality of audio samples
and determining a direction of the track B waveform using the
compared audio sample values for the second plurality of audio
samples;
determining a delta value between a last audio sample of the
track A waveform and a first audio sample of the track B waveform;
and
stitching the track A waveform and the track B waveform
together based upon the directions of the tracks A and B and the
associated delta value.

REJECTIONS AT ISSUE

The Examiner rejected claims 1-31 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Smithers et al. (US 7,292,902 B2, issued Nov. 6, 2007)
(“Smithers”), Toyama et al. (US 7,383,508 B2, issued June 3, 2008)
Appeal 2012-002136
Application 11/518,034

3
(“Toyama”), Severson et al. (US 5,832,431, issued Nov. 3, 1998)
(“Severson”), and Official Notice (Ans. 3-16).

ISSUE
Appellant argues the Examiner’s rejection of pending claims 1-31 are
in error because various features required by the claims are not taught by the
applied references. (See App. Br. 5-51.) The dispositive issue presented by
these arguments is did the Examiner err in finding Smithers, Toyama,
Severson, and Official Notice teach or suggest the elements of claims 1-31?

ANALYSIS
We have reviewed Appellant’s arguments and contentions (App. Br.
5-51; Reply Br. 2-6) in light of the Examiner’s findings (Ans. 3-16) and
explanations (Ans. 16-26) regarding claims 1-31. We agree with the
Examiner’s findings and explanations (Ans. 3-26) and adopt them as our
own. Therefore, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-31 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).

DECISION

We affirm the rejection of claims 1-31 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
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). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED

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