Ex Parte Rajput et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 9, 2015

12822802 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 9, 2015)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/822,802 06/24/2010
89885 7590 12/09/2015
FERENCE & ASSOCIATES LLC
409 BROAD STREET
PITTSBURGH, PA 15143
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Nitendra Rajput
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
IN920100056US 1(790.069) 6523
EXAMINER
SHAH, PARAS D
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2659
MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE
12/09/2015 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 NITENDRA RAJPUT and OM D. DESHMUKH
Appeal2014-001662
Application 12/822,802
Technology Center 2600
Before BRUCE R. WINSOR, LINZY T. McCARTNEY, and
NATHAN A. ENGELS, Administrative Patent Judges.
ENGELS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of
claims 10-26. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). Claims 1-9 are
canceled. Br. 25.
We affirm.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is International Business
Machines Corp. Br. 3.
Appeal2014-001662
Application 12/822,802
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants' invention relates to "[ s ]ystems and associated methods
configured to provide user-driven audio content navigation for the spoken
web . . . . Embodiments allow users to skim audio for content that seems to
be of relevance to the user ... and mark point[ s] of interest within the
audio." Abstract. Claims 10, 19, 21, and 24 are independent. Claim 10 is
illustrative of the subject matter on appeal:
10. A computer program product comprising:
a computer readable storage medium having computer
readable program code embodied therewith, the computer
readable program code comprising:
computer readable program code configured to,
responsive to receiving one or more audio browsing commands
over a [sic] audio channel, save an application state
corresponding to a current point of user interaction with audio;
and
computer readable program code configured to;
responsive to the one or more audio browsing commands,
perform one or more of:
generating a marker corresponding to a marked position
in the audio; and re-synthesizing at least a portion of the audio
to produce a portion of the audio having an altered playback
speed according to the one or more audio browsing commands.
Br. 25.
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Appeal2014-001662
Application 12/822,802
-- - - - ,.,
1'he 1','xaminer s Rejections""
Claims 10-16 and 19--24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Maes et al. (US 7,092,496 Bl; issued Aug. 15, 2006)
("Maes") and Holtzberg (US 6,625,261 B2; issued Sept. 23, 2003). Final
Act. 6-13.
Claims 17, 18, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Maes, Holtzberg, and Cruickshank et al. (US 6,009,386;
issued Dec. 28, 1999). Final Act. 14--15.
Claim 26 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Maes, Holtzberg, and Dow et al. (US 2004/0037401 Al; published Feb.
26, 2004). Final Act. 15-16.
Related Appeals
Although not identified as such by Appellants, we note that co-
pending Appeal 2014-003239, pertaining to Application 13/596,313, is
related to the instant appeal. See Br. 4; 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(ii).
Provisional Obviousness-Type Double Patenting
Appellants do not traverse the provisional non-statutory obviousness-
type double patenting rejection of claims 10-25 over claims 1-9 of
co-pending Application No. 13/596,313. Compare Br. 17-23, with Final
2 Should there be further prosecution of this application, the Examiner may
wish to consider reviewing claims 10-18 and 21-26 for compliance under
35 U.S.C. § 101. See In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2007);
Ex parte Mewherter, 107 USPQ2d 1857 (PTAB 2013) (precedential)
(expanded panel).
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Appeal2014-001662
Application 12/822,802
Act. 3---6. Accordingly, we summarily and proforma sustain the provisional
rejection of claims 10-25 on the ground of non-statutory obviousness-type
double patenting. 3
ANALYSIS
Claims 10-25
With respect to claims 10, 19, 21, and 24, Appellants merely state the
Examiner's rejection, cite certain claimed features and case law, and state
that those claimed features are not taught or suggested by Maes and
Holtzberg when the claim is properly construed in light of the specification.
Br. 17-21.
We find Appellants' arguments unpersuasive because they do not
address substantively the Examiner's findings and conclusions and point out
with particularity the Examiner's purported error. Cf 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv); In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011)
(explaining that appellants must advance substantive arguments beyond
mere recitation of the claim elements and naked assertions that the
corresponding elements were not found in the prior art). Accordingly, we
sustain the Examiner's rejections of claims 10, 19, 21, and 24, as well as
dependent claims 11-18, 20, 22-23, and 25, which were not argued
separately with particularity beyond the arguments advanced for claims 10,
19, 21, and 24. See Br. 19, 21.
3 We note that our summary affirmance of the non-statutory obviousness-
type double patenting rejection does not change the provisional nature of the
rejection.
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Appeal2014-001662
Application 12/822,802
Claim 26
Appellants argue Maes and Holtzberg fail to teach or suggest the
limitations of claim 26 because "Maes and Holtzberg have nothing to do
with a telecom voice application with a plurality of voice sites." Br. 21
(citing Appellants' Figs. 1-2B).
We find Appellants' arguments unpersuasive because they do not
address substantively the Examiner's findings and conclusions and point out
with particularity the Examiner's purported error. Cf 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv); Lovin, 652 F.3d at 1357. Further, contrary to Appellants'
arguments, we agree with the Examiner that a person of ordinary skill in the
art would have understood Maes' s "website accessed by a phone call" and
Holtzberg's "voicemail retrieval using a phone" to relate to telecom voice
applications. See Ans. 8 (citing Maes col. 10, 11. 60-62; Holtzberg Fig. 2;
col. 1, 11. 8-10).
Appellants also argue Dow fails to teach or suggest the limitations of
claim 26 because Dow describes traditional computer-based websites that
are not "voice sites." Br. 21-22 (citing Dow i-f 12). We find Appellants'
argument unpersuasive because Appellants do not substantively address or
rebut the Examiner's findings. See Ans. 8-9 (citing Dow i-fi-14--5; Spec. i-f
30). Further, we agree with the Examiner's finding that, consistent with
embodiments described in Appellants' Specification, Dow's voice-enabled
websites teach the claimed "plurality of voice sites." See Ans. 6; compare
Dow i-fi-1 4--5 (disclosing that a telephone can be used with a VoiceXML
browser running on a telephony server to access voice enabled web sites),
with Spec. 30 (disclosing that voice sites are voice-driven applications
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Appeal2014-001662
Application 12/822,802
hosted in the telecom network that can be accessed from any phone
instrument through an ordinary phone call).
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 26.
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 10-26 is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal maybe extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l).
See 3 7 C.F.R. § 1.13 6( a )(1 )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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