Ex Parte Shostak

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 5, 2017

12389762 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 5, 2017)

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.
12/389,762 02/20/2009 Robert E. Shostak 350942-991241 3825
26379 7590
DLA PIPER LLP (US )
2000 UNIVERSITY AVENUE
EAST PALO ALTO, CA 94303-2248
EXAMINER
VILLENA, MARK
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2658
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/07/2017 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):
PatentDocketingU S -Palo Alto @ dlapiper. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ROBERT E. SHOSTAK
Appeal 2017-004857
Application 12/3 89,7621
Technology Center 2600
Before LINZY T. McCARTNEY, NATHAN A. ENGELS, and
JAMES W. DEJMEK, Administrative Patent Judges.
ENGELS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 1—33. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 Appellant identifies Vocera Communications as the real party in interest.
Appeal Br. 1.
Appeal 2017-004857
Application 12/389,762
ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
1. A speech recognition system, comprising:
a voice command interpreter having a speech recognition
engine and one or more pieces of grammar associated with the
speech recognition engine wherein the one or more pieces of
grammar contains a word and an artificial ambiguity about one
or more homonyms for the word that are inserted into the one or
more pieces of grammar of the speech recognition engine for the
word to create an ambiguity between the word and the one or
more homonyms; and
the voice command interpreter identifies a correct
interpretation for a received word that has the one or more
homonyms based on the received word and the one or more
pieces of grammar for the word that includes the inserted
information about the one or more homonyms.
Appeal Br. 10 (Claims App’x).
THE REJECTION
Claims 1—33 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by
Ju et al. (US 2006/0004571 Al; pub. Jan. 5, 2006) (“Ju”). Final Act. 5-12.
ANALYSIS
Ju discloses creating a grammar from a database of names and other
terms, where the grammar uses a single entry to represent sets of names that
contain homonyms. See, e.g., Ju, Abstract. In rejecting claim 1, the
Examiner finds Ju discloses “an artificial ambiguity about one or more
homonyms for the word that [is] inserted into the one or more pieces of
grammar” because Ju describes consolidating homonyms to economize the
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disclosed database. Final Act. 5 (citing Ju 138) (emphasis omitted).
Appellant argues
Ju specifically discloses that the speech recognition grammar is
reduced and consolidated by eliminating homonym- based
ambiguity ... by grouping the homonyms and inserting the
most popular homonym into the grammar . . . which is
completely opposite of the claimed system that inserts artificial
ambiguity into the grammar which would increase the size of
the grammar.
Appeal Br. 6 (citing Ju 38, 43) (emphasis added); see also App. Br. 5.
In response to Appellant’s arguments, the Examiner explains that
claim 1 does not recite or require “increasing the size of the grammar”
(Ans. 3^4) and that “consolidation is not necessarily the same as reducing”
(Ans. 4). The Examiner also finds Ju discloses the disputed limitation by
describing adding possible name collisions resulting from homonyms (for
example, John Reid and John Reed) into the one or more pieces of grammar.
Final Act. 2—3 (citing Ju 47 (describing a “homonym replacement table”),
51—52 (describing a “confirmation and disambiguation” process)).
Appellant argues this additional disclosure of Ju relates to “a
disambiguation process and not any inserting of artificial ambiguity into
grammar.” Appeal Br. 6. Contrary to the Examiner’s findings, Appellant
submits “a disambiguation process as disclosed in Ju is in fact already set
forth in dependent claim 2 ... . Thus, claim 1 does not recite any
disambiguation process and the disclosure being relied on by the examiner is
inapposite.” Appeal Br. 6.
The Examiner additionally finds Ju discloses the disputed limitation
with an example of inserting additional identifying information into the
grammar, such as adding a building number for each employee entry into the
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Application 12/389,762
grammar, in order to disambiguate between employees with identical names.
Ans. 3 (citing Ju | 54). The Examiner explains that Ju’s disclosure is similar
to Appellant’s disclosure of a disambiguation unit that resolves ambiguity by
inserting additional phrases (such as the employee’s department) into the
database. Ans. 2—3.
Appellant argues in response that Ju’s disambiguation process is
distinct from Ju’s creating of a grammar and that Ju does not disclose a
process for inserting additional information such as an employee’s building
number into the grammar for homonym entries. Reply Br. 1—2.
Having reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellant’s
arguments and the evidence of record, we find the Examiner errs. Ju’s
primary embodiment includes a system that adds employee names to a
database as employees join an organization. Ju 147. Ju’s method for
handling names that contain homonyms includes forming a grammar as a
subset of the database by grouping employees with identically spelled names
and employees with identically pronounced but differently spelled names
into a single entry in the grammar. Ju 38, 43, 51, 54.
Claim 1 requires pieces of grammar containing a word and an
artificial ambiguity inserted into the pieces of grammar. Appellant’s
Specification describes “creating an artificial ambiguity” as the process of
adding multiple potential spellings to a single grammar entry. See Spec. 10
(describing adding alternate spellings to an entry for a user named Steve
Blair, such as “Steve Blare”). Interpreting claim 1 in light of Appellant’s
Specification, a person of ordinary skill would understand the claimed “one
or more pieces of grammar containing] a word and an artificial ambiguity
about one or more homonyms for the word” to require an entry in a grammar
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Application 12/389,762
having a word and at least one homonym for the word, unlike the grammar
of Ju in which the grammar contains only a single entry to represent multiple
homonyms.
To the extent that the Examiner’s rejection combines Ju’s method for
grouping homonyms in a grammar (see Ju 1 38) and Ju’s methods for
subsequently identifying a particular person through a process of
disambiguation (see Ju Tflf 48, 51), those disclosures are distinct aspects of
Ju’s system. For an anticipation rejection, “it is not enough that the prior art
reference. . . includes multiple, distinct teachings that [an] artisan might
somehow combine to achieve the claimed invention.” Net Money IN, Inc. v.
VeriSign, Inc., 545 F.3d 1359, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2008). Rather, to anticipate, a
reference must “clearly and unequivocally disclose the claimed [invention]
or direct those skilled in the art to the [invention] without any need for
picking, choosing, and combining various disclosures not directly related to
each other by the teachings of the cited reference.” Net MoneyIN, 545 F.3d
at 1371 (alteration in original) (quoting In re Arkley, 455 F.2d 586, 587
(CCPA 1972)).
Accordingly, we find the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 as being
anticipated by Ju under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b). We do not sustain the
Examiner’s rejection of claim 1, nor the rejection of independent claims 13
and 23 and dependent claims 2—12, 14—22, and 24—33, each of which
includes the same deficiencies. See Final Act. 6—12; Ans. 2—5.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—33 under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b).
REVERSED
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