Ex Parte Takatsuka

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 17, 2017

12411031 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 17, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
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Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
12/411,031 03/25/2009 Susumu TAKATSUKA 340193US8X 4391
22850 7590 04/19/2017
OBLON, MCCLELLAND, MAIER & NEUSTADT, L.L.P.
1940 DUKE STREET
ALEXANDRIA, VA 22314
EXAMINER
SHARMA, NEERAJ
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2659
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/19/2017 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):
patentdocket @ oblon. com
oblonpat @ oblon. com
tfarrell@oblon.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SUSUMU TAKATSUKA
Appeal 2015-006155
Application 12/411,031
Technology Center 2600
Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, CAROLYN D. THOMAS, and
JOHN R. KENNY, Administrative Patent Judges.
THOMAS, 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—14 and 17—19, all the pending
claims in the present application. Claims 15 and 16 are canceled. See Claim
Appendix. We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). An
Oral Hearing was held April 6, 2017.
We REVERSE.
The present invention relates generally to a speech synthesis apparatus
that selects a text content to be converted into speech. See Abstract.
Appeal 2015-006155
Application 12/411,031
Claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A speech synthesis apparatus comprising:
a receiver that receives an e-mail as a text content item;
a memory that stores the text content item to be
converted into speech;
a content selection unit that selects the text content item
to be converted into speech based on a vocal command from a user in
which the user commands that the received e-mail be read aloud;
a related information selection unit that selects related
information which can be at least converted into text and which is
related to the text content item selected by the content selection unit,
wherein the related information includes at least identification of a
sender of the e-mail, and wherein when the name of the sender is
locally stored in association with an e-mail address of the sender prior
to receipt of the e-mail, the name of the sender is used as the
identification of the sender, and when the name of the sender is not
locally stored in association with an e-mail address of the sender prior
to receipt of the e-mail, the e-mail address is used as the identification
of the sender;
a data addition unit that converts the related information
selected by the related information selection unit into text by inserting
the related information into a predetermined type of phrase to form a
text phrase, and adds text data of the text phrase to text data of the text
content item selected by the content selection unit, wherein the
predetermined type of phrase includes at least one predetermined
location within the phrase at which the identification of the sender of
the e-mail is inserted;
a text-to-speech conversion unit that converts the text
data supplied from the data addition unit into a speech signal; and
a speech output unit that outputs the speech signal
supplied from the text-to-speech conversion unit.
Appellant appeals the following rejections:
Rl. Claims 1—14 and 17—19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Stephens (US 2008/0059189 Al, Mar. 6, 2008),
Leventhal (US 2009/0055187 Al, Feb. 26, 2009), and Simoneau (US
7,415,409 B2, Aug. 19, 2008); and
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Appeal 2015-006155
Application 12/411,031
R2. Claims 17 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Stephens, Leventhal, Simoneau, and Cooper (US
8,000,453 B2, Aug. 16, 2011).
ANALYSIS
Issue: Did the Examiner err in finding that the combined teachings,
particularly Simoneau’s, teach or suggest that when the name of the sender is
not locally stored. . . the e-mail address is used as the identification of the
sender, as set forth in claim 1?
Appellant contends that “while Simoneau may disclose generally
locating the e-mail address of a person . . . Simoneau clearly does not
disclose using the e-mail address of the person . . . when the actual name is
not locally stored” (App. Br. 13). We agree with Appellant.
The Examiner finds that “nowhere is it claimed that the email address
verbatim replaces the name of the sender” and that Simoneau “does not rely
on locally stored information alone . . . the identification of a sender, his
name or other metadata related to the sender of an email can be easily
obtained by the crawlers from disparate sources even if not stored locally”
(Ans. 3). Although we agree with the Examiner that claim 1 does not
verbatim state that the email address replaces the name of the sender, claim
1 does recite that the email address is used as the identification of the
sender, when the name of the sender is not locally stored, and that this email
address is outputted by the speech output unit (see claim 1).
In other words, claim 1 requires that a determination is first made as
to whether the sender’s name is locally stored prior to receipt of the email,
and depending upon the outcome, either the “name” or “email address” of
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Appeal 2015-006155
Application 12/411,031
the sender is used as the identification of the sender that is output by the
speech output unit {id.). Here, the Examiner has merely directed our
attention to the fact that Simoneau does not rely solely on locally stored
information, but rather acquires information (including email addresses)
from many repositories through crawling (see Ans. 3, citing Simoneau 3:55—
67; 4:1-10, Fig. 1).
For example, Simoneau discloses that “[t]he index 115 is built by
acquiring documents from many locations” (3:63—64) and “[t]he documents
thus retrieved are converted by document converters 160 in order to extract
textual content and metadata from the documents [and] [e]mails from an
email source can hence be obtained by crawling” (4:3—6). However, the
Examiner has not shown where Simoneau, or any of the other cited
references, determines when the name of the sender is not locally stored
prior to receipt, using the email address of the sender in an outputted speech
signal, as required by the claims. At best, in order to index and train the
speech recognition engine, Simoneau links email addresses with a group of
voicemail contacts and uses the textual content of the email documents to
generate training data (see Simoneau 4:24—63). However, the Examiner has
not shown that Simoneau teaches determining when to use the email address
itself as the identification of the sender and actually outputting the same as
speech.
We are therefore constrained by the record before us find the
Examiner erred in rejecting independent claim 1, and independent claims 5,
1,9, 11, and 19 for similar reasons.
Since we agree with at least one of the arguments advanced by
Appellant, we need not reach the merits of Appellant’s other arguments.
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Appeal 2015-006155
Application 12/411,031
Accordingly, we will not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of
claims 1—14 and 17—19.
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1—14 and 17—19 is
reversed.
REVERSED
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