Ex Parte Naik

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 8, 2018

13411180 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 8, 2018)

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.
13/411,180 03/02/2012 Devang K. Naik P12434US1/77870000132101 3511
150004 7590 02/12/2018
DENTONS US LLP - Apple
P.O. Box 061080
Wacker Drive Station, Willis Tower
Chicago, IL 60606
EXAMINER
HAN, QI
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2659
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/12/2018 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):
patents.us@dentons.com
dentons_PAIR @ firsttofile. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DEVANG K. NAIK
Appeal 2016-0069611
Application 13/411,1802
Technology Center 2600
Before NORMAN H. BEAMER, ADAM J. PYONIN,
and MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1-20. Claims 21—40 are withdrawn. We have
jurisdiction over the pending rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM-IN-PART.
1 An oral hearing was held February 6, 2018.
2 Appellant identifies Apple Inc. as the real party in interest. (App. Br. 2.)
Appeal 2016-006961
Application 13/411,180
THE INVENTION
Appellant’s disclosed and claimed inventions are directed to
associating a name with a user-selection phonetic pronunciation. (Abstract.)
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A method comprising:
at one or more processors:
receiving a name;
mapping the name to one or more sets of
monosyllabic components that represent alternative
phonetic pronunciations for at least a portion of the
name, wherein monosyllabic components from the one or
more sets of monosyllabic components are combinable to
construct a phonetic pronunciation of the name;
displaying the one or more sets of monosyllabic
components;
receiving a user selection of a monosyllabic
component from each of the one or more sets of
monosyllabic components; and
combining the selected monosyllabic component
from each of the one or more sets of monosyllabic
components to construct the phonetic pronunciation of
the name.
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1-5, 8-15, and 18-20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Wouters et al. (US 2009/0076819 Al,
published Mar. 19, 2009) and Chu et al. (US 2007/0219777 Al, published
Sept. 20, 2007). (Final Act. 3-6.)
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Appeal 2016-006961
Application 13/411,180
The Examiner rejected claims 6-7 and 16-17 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Wouters, Chu, and Feng et al. (US
2006/0025999 Al, published Feb. 2, 2006). Final Act. 7-8.)
ISSUES ON APPEAF
Appellant’s arguments present the following issues:3
Issue One: Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of
Wouters and Chu teaches or suggests all of the limitations of independent
claims 1 and 11. (App. Br. 7-18.)
Issue Two: Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of
Wouters and Chu teaches or suggests the additional limitation of dependent
claims 5 and 15. (App. Br. 19-20.)
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s
arguments that the Examiner errs. Except with respect to claims 5 and 15,
we disagree with Appellant’s arguments, and we adopt as our own (1) the
pertinent findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Action from
which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 3-6) and (2) the corresponding reasons
set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to
3 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the findings of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Nov. 19, 2015, hereinafter
“App. Br.”); the Reply Brief (filed July 5, 2016, hereinafter “Reply Br.”);
the Final Office Action (mailed Jan. 28, 2015, hereinafter “Final Act.”); and
the Examiner’s Answer (mailed May 4, 2016, hereinafter “Ans.”) for the
respective details.
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Appeal 2016-006961
Application 13/411,180
Appellant’s Appeal Brief (Ans. 2-8). We concur with the applicable
conclusions reached by the Examiner and emphasize the following.
Issue One
Appellant argues Wouters does not teach or suggest “mapping the
name to one or more sets of monosyllabic components that represent
alternative phonetic pronunciations,” as required by claim 1, because
“Wouter[s] merely discloses generating ‘alternative unit sequences’ that
represent the same phonetic pronunciations, but with alternative prosodic
properties.” (App. Br. 10.) Appellant relies on the distinction made in
Wouters between phonetic pronunciations and prosodic properties such as
pitch, duration, and stress. (App. Br. 11-12; Wouters 6-8.) In sum,
Appellant asserts the Examiner construes the claims to “render[] the word
‘phonetic’ superfluous.” (Reply Br. 14.)
However, the Examiner relies on a portion of the Specification which
states:
For speech synthesis, the phonetic alphabet is the one supported
by the speech synthesizer used to render the spoken
pronunciation. In one configuration, the synthesizer 206 and/or
any one of the other components of FIG. 2 guesses the syllable
stress when synthesizing a name based on a speech synthesis
dictionary. The syllable stress may be derived from a set of
rules that are specific to a language and/or locale. For example,
the name “Obama” includes sound units “o”, “bam”, and “a.”
The first sound unit “o” may be stressed such that the name is
pronounced “Ohh-bam-a.” Alternatively, the last unit of the
name may be stressed such that the name is pronounced “O-
bam-Ahh.” In certain configurations, the system 800 and/or
100 includes various sounds units that are stressed or not
stressed. The various sound units may be presented to a user as
alternative selectable components like, for example, the
components illustrated in FIGS. 5-7. In some implementations,
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Appeal 2016-006961
Application 13/411,180
the system 800 may present various pronunciations to a user
including pronunciations with stressed and unstressed sound
units which a user may select.
(Spec. ^ 74; Ans. 4.) This description of syllable stress is tantamount to the
“lexical stress” of a syllable that Wouters refers to as a “prosodic property.”
(Wouters ^ 6.) Thus, the Examiner relies on the Specification to conclude
the claim phrase “phonetic pronunciations” broadly but reasonably
encompasses variations in prosodic properties — specifically, “the limitation
of ‘alternative phonetic pronunciations’ can be properly read on sounds of
speech including articulation, stress, and intonation, such as . . . disclosed
by Wouters, in light of the specification (such as paragraph 74).” (Ans. 4.)
We are not persuaded the Examiner errs, and do not agree that the
Examiner’s construction is meant to read out the word “phonetic” from the
claims.4
Appellant also argues Wouters does not teach or suggest the required
“monosyllabic components” of the claims. (App. Br. 12.) To the contrary,
as the Examiner correctly finds (Final Act. 4), Wouters explicitly discloses
use of monosyllabic components:
The inventive solution can be refined by partitioning the
alternative unit sequences into several subsets. Each subset is
associated with a single syllable, word, or other meaningful
linguistic entity of the prompt to be optimised.
(Wouters ^ 59 (emphasis added).)
For example, realisations [sic] in a subset associated with a
word can be grouped into a first set of realisations that modify
4 Separately, we note claim 1 recites “one or more sets of monosyllabic
components that represent alternative phonetic pronunciations for at least a
portion of the name,” and Wouters discloses displaying at least one set of
linguistic descriptions. (See Wouters Fig. 5, ^ 4).
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Appeal 2016-006961
Application 13/411,180
the first syllable in the word, a second set that modify the
second syllable, etc.
(Wouters ^ 63 (emphasis added).)
Appellant further argues Wouters does not teach or suggest the
required displaying or user selection of monosyllabic components — again
relying on the above discussed argument that the components of Wouters on
which the Examiner relies represent alternative prosodic properties rather
than phonetic pronunciations. (App. Br. 14.) This argument is unpersuasive
for the reasons discussed above.5
Appellant also argues Wouters does not teach or suggest the required
combining of the selected monosyllabic components to construct the
phonetic pronunciation, but rather the components relied on by the Examiner
“are concatenated to alternative speech waveforms before the alternative
speech waveforms are presented to an operating person for selection.” (App.
Br. 16.) Therefore, argues Appellant, “‘concatenating’ is not performed on
5 In the Reply Brief, Appellant alternatively argues Wouters does not display
monosyllabic components, but rather, “[w]hat is displayed are labels — the
descriptors of the alternative unit sequences.” (Reply Br. 17.) This
argument could have been raised in the opening brief and is therefore
waived. See In re Hyatt, 211 F.3d 1367, 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2000) (noting that
an argument not first raised in the brief to the Board is waived on appeal);
Ex parte Borden, 93 USPQ2d 1473, 1477 (BPAI 2010) (informative)
(“Properly interpreted, the Rules do not require the Board to take up a
belated argument that has not been addressed by the Examiner, absent a
showing of good cause.”); see also 37 C.F.R. § 41.41(b)(2) (“Any argument
raised in the reply brief which was not raised in the appeal brief, or is not
responsive to an argument raised in the examiner’s answer, . . . will not be
considered by the Board for purposes of the present appeal, unless good
cause is shown.”). Moreover, we conclude that, in the context of the claims,
displaying a label that identifies a particular sound component falls within a
broad but reasonable construction of displaying that sound component.
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Appeal 2016-006961
Application 13/411,180
Vuser] selected monosyllabic component,’ as required by claim 1.” (Id.)
This argument is unpersuasive because the concatenation described in
Wouters, on which Appellant relies, relates to the manner in which the
individual sound components are formed, prior to being presented to the user
for selection. (Wouters 53, 59.) The Examiner correctly relies on the
separate disclosure in Wouters of the alternative syllable-oriented
embodiment discussed above, in which the individual syllables of a word or
phrase (after being formed via the concatenation that Appellant relies on) are
separately displayed in the manner illustrated in Figure 5. (Final Act. 4;
Ans. 5-6; Wouters Fig. 5, 59, 62, 63.) As at least suggested by the
disclosure of Wouters, for each syllable, the user may select any one of the
various prosodic pronunciations displayed, and upon completing that
selection a waveform of the combined series of selected syllables is
generated. (Wouters Figs. 4, 5, 54, 59, 62-65.) As stated in the Wouters
Abstract, “[a]n input linguistic description is converted into a speech
waveform.” (See also Wouters ^ 65: “After optimisation of a speech
prompt, the result can be stored as a waveform and used for playback on a
device of choice.”)
In addition to the above arguments, Appellant asserts Wouters teaches
away from the claimed invention, and modifying Wouters to satisfy the
claim limitations would impermissibly change its principle of operation.
(App. Br. 17-19.) However, these arguments are premised on the above-
discussed arguments that the claimed “phonetic pronunciation” does not
cover prosodic pronunciation, and that Wouters does not teach or suggest
monosyllabic components, which arguments are unpersuasive for the
reasons discussed above.
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Appeal 2016-006961
Application 13/411,180
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent
claims 1 and 11.
Issue Two
Claims 5 and 15 require “displaying a second portion of the one or
more sets of monosyllabic components in response to a user selection of one
of the first portion of the one or more sets of monosyllabic components.”
(App. Br. 22, 24.) In rejecting these claims, the Examiner relies on portions
of Wouters disclosing displaying different components of words for user
selection, and on the disclosure in Chu of “different ‘n paths,’” in the context
of linguistic analysis. (Final Act. 6; Wouters Figs. 4-5; Chu Fig. 5, ^ 49.)
Appellant argues the Examiner errs because there is no teaching or
suggestion in the references of displaying a second portion of monosyllabic
components in response to selection of a first portion. (App. Br. 20.) We
agree with Appellant — the Examiner does not cite to any pertinent
disclosure in the references that teaches or suggests this aspect of the claims.
Therefore, on the record before us, we are constrained to not sustain the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 5 and 15.
CONCLUSIONS
For the reasons stated above, we sustain the obviousness rejections of
independent claims 1 and 11 over Wouters and Chu. We also sustain the
obviousness rejections of claims 2—4, 8-10, 12-14, and 18-20 over Wouters
and Chu, and of claims 6-7 and 16-17 over Wouters, Chu, and Feng, which
rejections are not argued separately with particularity. (App. Br. 12, 15.)
Also for the reasons stated above, we reverse the obviousness
rejections of claims 5 and 15 over Wouters and Chu.
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Appeal 2016-006961
Application 13/411,180
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of claims 1—4, 6-14,
and 16-20.
We reverse the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of claims 5 and 15.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
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