VONAGE BUSINESS INC.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Aug 3, 2020

2019002880 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 3, 2020)

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.
14/641,599 03/09/2015 Sanjay SRINIVASAN 10297-016US1 1066
155371 7590 08/03/2020
FisherBroyles, LLP - Vonage
4316 Brookside Dr.
Alexandria, VA 22312
EXAMINER
ZENATI, AMAL S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2651
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/03/2020 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):
docketing@fisherbroyles.com
john.eisenhart@fisherbroyles.com
patent@fisherbroyles.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SANJAY SRINIVASAN, TANNER POSTERT, LARRY LOW,
KEITH CROXFORD, and ADAM BAIRD
Appeal 2019-002880
Application 14/641,599
Technology Center 2600
Before JAMES R. HUGHES, JOYCE CRAIG, and
MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges.
HUGHES, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Claims 1–6, 8, and 10–22 are pending, stand rejected, are appealed by
Appellant,1 and are the subject of our decision under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a).
See Final Act. 2–8; Appeal Br. 9–15.2 We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.

1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42(a) (2017). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Vonage
Business Inc. See Appeal Br. 3.
2 We refer to Appellant’s Specification (“Spec.”), filed Mar. 9, 2015; Appeal
Brief (“Appeal Br.”), filed July 31, 2018; and Reply Brief (“Reply
Appeal 2019-002880
Application 14/641,599

2
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The invention, according to Appellant, relates “to conference calling,
and more specifically, to systems and methods for connecting a participant
to a conference call.” Spec. ¶ 1. In particular, “information about scheduled
audio conference calls or video conferences are extracted from an
individual’s electronic calendar, and this information is used to
automatically connect the individual to a scheduled conference when it is
time for the conference to begin.” Id. ¶ 35. In an embodiment, a conference
call bridge may ask the caller to speak their name, and a recording of what
the caller says may be played for others already on the conference call. Id.
¶ 67. The user’s telephony device may use “speech recognition assets” to
determine when the conference call bridge asks for the caller’s name, and
then play an audio recording of the caller’s name that was provided during a
configuration process. Id. ¶¶ 68–69.
Claims 1 (reciting a method), 19 (reciting a system), and 20 (reciting a
system), are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the
claimed subject matter:
1. A method for connecting a user’s telephony device
to a conference call, comprising:

obtaining, using one or more processors, information
about a scheduled conference call from an individual’s electronic
calendar, wherein the information includes at least an access
identifier that is to be used to access the conference call;

Br.”), filed Feb. 25, 2019. We also refer to the Examiner’s Final Office
Action (“Final Act.”), dated Oct. 2, 2017; and Answer (“Ans.”) dated Dec.
31, 2018.
Appeal 2019-002880
Application 14/641,599

3
setting up a communications channel between the
conference call and a telephony device used by the individual at
a time that is based upon a start time of the scheduled conference
call, wherein setting up the communications channel comprises:

monitoring, with at least one processor, audio on the
communications channel, and using speech recognition
techniques to determine when a conference call bridge for
the conference call has asked for a participant to speak
their name; and

playing an audio recording to the conference call
bridge after it is determined that the conference call bridge
has asked for a participant to speak their name.

Appeal Br. 16 (Claims App.).
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner as evidence is:
Name Reference Date
Hunter et al. US 2003/0231746 A1 Dec. 18, 2003
Schrage US 6,850,609 B1 Feb. 1, 2005
Berstis et al. US 7,085,558 B2 Aug. 1, 2006
Perry et al. US 8,897,434 B2 Nov. 25, 2014
REJECTIONS3
1. The Examiner rejects claims 1–6, 8, and 13–20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being unpatentable over Perry and Hunter. See Final Act. 2–5.
2. The Examiner rejects claims 10–12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Perry, Hunter, and Berstis. See Final Act. 6–7.

3 The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (“AIA”), Pub. L. No. 112–29, 125
Stat. 284 (2011), amended 35 U.S.C. § 103. Because the present application
Appeal 2019-002880
Application 14/641,599

4
3. The Examiner rejects claims 1 and 19–22 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being unpatentable over Perry and Schrage.4 See Final Act. 7–8.
OPINION
Obviousness Based on Perry and Hunter
The Examiner rejects independent claim 1 (as well as independent
claims 19 and 20, and dependent claims 2–6, 8, and 13–18) as being obvious
over Perry and Hunter. See Final Act. 2–5. In particular, the Examiner
relies on Hunter for teaching “monitoring, with at least one processor, audio
on the communications channel, and using speech recognition techniques to
determine when a conference call bridge for the conference call has asked
for a participant to speak their name,” as recited in claim 1. Final Act. 3.
Appellant contends, inter alia, that “none of the methods and
techniques disclosed in Hunter involve using speech recognition techniques
to determine when a conference call bridge has asked for a participant to
speak their name.” Appeal Br. 11; see also Reply Br. 3 (“Hunter’s ASR
system 150 does not use speech recognition techniques to determine when a
conference call bridge has asked for a participant to speak their name . . . .”).
We are persuaded the Examiner erred because none of the Examiner-
cited portions of Hunter (see Final Act. 3 (citing Hunter ¶¶ 6, 11, 26, 32;
Abstract); Ans. 3–5 (citing Hunter ¶¶ 12, 16, 17, 20–22, 25–30, 32–34;

has an effective filing date (March 9, 2015) after the AIA’s effective date,
this decision refers to 35 U.S.C. § 103.
4 Although the Examiner’s statement of the rejection lists only claims 1, 19,
and 20 as unpatentable over Perry and Schrage, the Final Action discusses
the limitations of claims 21 and 22 vis-à-vis Schrage. See Final Act. 7–8.
Thus, we deem claims 1 and 19–22 to stand rejected as unpatentable over
Perry and Schrage.
Appeal 2019-002880
Application 14/641,599

5
Abstract; Fig. 3)) teach or suggest the disputed feature of Appellant’s claim
1—“monitoring, with at least one processor, audio on the communications
channel, and using speech recognition techniques to determine when a
conference call bridge for the conference call has asked for a participant to
speak their name.” Appeal Br. 16 (Claims App.).
Hunter discloses “a method to allow conference call participants to
determine the identity of the current speaker without interrupting the call by
verbally requesting the identity of the speaker.” Hunter, Abstract.
Specifically, a conference bridge prompts participants to repeat a
predetermined list of words. Hunter ¶ 22. An Automatic Speech
Recognition (ASR) system then creates a voice profile for each participant.
Hunter ¶ 26. When a participant makes a speaker identification request, the
ASR system determines the identity of the participant currently speaking by
“distilling the voice of the current speaker into phonemes and comparing
them to the predetermined set of voice templates for the conference
participants.” Hunter ¶ 31. Thus, Hunter uses speech recognition to
determine which participant in a conference call is speaking. In contrast,
claim 1 uses speech recognition “to determine when a conference call bridge
for the conference call has asked for a participant to speak their name.”
Appeal Br. 16 (Claims App.). The Examiner has not pointed to, and we
have not found, any disclosure in Hunter of determining when a conference
call bridge has asked a participant to speak their name.
Consequently, we are constrained by the record before us to find that
the Examiner erred in finding that the combination of Perry and Hunter
renders obvious Appellant’s claim 1, as well as independent claims 19 and
Appeal 2019-002880
Application 14/641,599

6
20, which include limitations of commensurate scope. Claims 2–6, 8, and
13–18 depend from and stand with their respective base claims.
Obviousness Based on Perry, Hunter, and Berstis
The Examiner rejects dependent claims 10–12 as being obvious over
Perry, Hunter, and Berstis. See Final Act. 6–7.
The Examiner does not find Berstis cures the deficiencies of Perry and
Hunter. See supra. Therefore, we reverse the Examiner’s obviousness
rejection of dependent claims 10–12 for the same reasons set forth for claim
1.
Obviousness Based on Perry and Schrage
The Examiner rejects independent claim 1 (as well as independent
claims 19 and 20, and dependent claims 21 and 22) as being obvious over
Perry and Schrage. See Final Act. 7–8. In particular, the Examiner relies on
Schrage for teaching “determin[ing] when a conference call bridge for the
conference call has asked for a participant to speak their name,” as recited in
claim 1. Final Act. 8.
Appellant contends, inter alia, that although Schrage’s “transcription
service (arguably a part of the conference call bridge) may ask the
participant to speak their name,” “there is no attempt in Schrage to monitor
audio on the communications channel, using speech recognition techniques,
to determine when the transcription service asked the participant to speak
their name.” Appeal Br. 14 (emphasis omitted). Rather, Appellant argues
“it is the participant that notes when the transcription service asks for the
participant to speak their name.” Id.
We are persuaded the Examiner erred because none of the portions of
Schrage the Examiner cites (see Final Act. 8 (citing Schrage 6:40–49); Ans.
Appeal 2019-002880
Application 14/641,599

7
8–9 (citing Schrage 4:47–67, 5:1–3, 6:25–52; Fig. 4A)) teach or suggest the
disputed feature of Appellant’s claim 1—“using speech recognition
techniques to determine when a conference call bridge for the conference
call has asked for a participant to speak their name.” Appeal Br. 16 (Claims
App.).
Schrage discloses “a remotely located recording and/or transcription
device coupled to one or more audio sources, e.g., telephones.” Schrage
2:47–49. Specifically, a transcript server prompts a user to provide
transcript-related information, such as “a request for a speaker identifier,
e.g., name, to be used in the transcript.” Schrage 6:26–29. “The user of the
system can respond to the transcript server prompt either orally or via the
use of DTMF signals (touch tones).” Schrage 6:40–42. Here, Schrage
discloses no use of “speech recognition techniques to determine when a
conference call bridge for the conference call has asked for a participant to
speak their name,” as recited in claim 1. Appeal Br. 16 (Claims App.).
Rather, Schrage simply discloses that “[t]he user of the system can respond.”
Schrage 6:40. Schrage does disclose that “[a]udio recordings produced by
transcript server 12 are provided . . . to transcription system 13,” which “is
responsible for performing . . . an automated speech recognition operation
on the recorded speech.” Schrage 6:65–7:2. But this speech recognition is
part of a transcription operation, and is unrelated to determining when the
transcript server has prompted the user to provide their name.
Consequently, we are constrained by the record before us to find that
the Examiner erred in finding that the combination of Perry and Schrage
renders obvious Appellant’s claim 1, as well as independent claims 19 and
Appeal 2019-002880
Application 14/641,599

8
20, which include limitations of commensurate scope. Claims 21 and 22
depend from and stand with their respective base claims.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons discussed above, Appellant has shown that the
Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1–6, 8, and 10–22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–6, 8, and
10–22.
DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/
Basis
Affirmed Reversed
1–6, 8, 13–20 103 Perry, Hunter 1–6, 8, 13–20
10–12 103 Perry, Hunter,
Berstis
10–12
1, 19–22 103 Perry, Schrage 1, 19–22
Overall
Outcome

1–6, 8, 10–22
REVERSED