Ex Parte Visser

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardMar 26, 2019

12876163 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Mar. 26, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/876, 163 09/05/2010 15093 7590 03/28/2019 Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton/Qualcomm Mailstop: IP Docketing - 22 1100 Peachtree Street Suite 2800 Atlanta, GA 30309 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Erik Visser 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. 093395 (1059679) 1730 EXAMINER MEI,XU ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2654 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/28/2019 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): ipefiling@kilpatricktownsend.com ocpat_uspto@qualcomm.com qcomins t@kilpatricktownsend.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ERIK VISSER Appeal2017-004759 Application 12/87 6,163 Technology Center 2600 Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and CARLL. SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judges. SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from the Final Rejection of claims 1--40, which are all the claims pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b ). We reverse. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant's disclosure relates to signal processing and removing reverberated components from a recorded signal while changes to the voice 1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is QUALCOMM, Inc. App. Br. 3. Appeal2017-004759 Application 12/876,163 color is minimized. See Spec. ,r,r 2-3. Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows: 1. A method of processing a multichannel signal that includes a directional component, said method comprising: performing a first directionally selective processing operation on a first signal to produce a residual signal; performing a second directionally selective processing operation on a second signal to produce an enhanced signal; based on information from the produced residual signal, calculating a plurality of filter coefficients of an inverse filter; and performing a dereverberation operation on the enhanced signal to produce a dereverberated signal, wherein the dereverberation operation is based on the calculated plurality of filter coefficients, and wherein the first signal includes at least two channels of the multichannel signal, and the second signal includes at least two channels of the multichannel signal, and wherein said performing the first directionally selective processing operation on the first signal includes reducing energy of the directional component within the first signal relative to a total energy of the first signal, and wherein said performing the second directionally selective processing operation on the second signal includes increasing energy of the directional component within the second signal relative to a total energy of the second signal. Claims 1,3,5, 7, 14, 15, 17,21,28,29,30,32,and34standrejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Janse (US 2004/0170284 Al; pub. Sept. 2, 2004) and Fukuda (US 2008/0059157 Al; pub. Mar. 6, 2008). See Final Act. 2---6. 2 Appeal2017-004759 Application 12/876,163 Claims 2, 6, 9, 16, 20, 23, 29, 33, and 36 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ I03(a) as unpatentable over Janse, Fukuda, and Leber (US 2001/0036284 Al; pub. Nov. 1, 2001). See Final Act. 6-9. Claims 4, 8, 18, 22, 31, and 35 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ I03(a) as unpatentable over Janse, Fukuda, and Hayakawa (US 2008/0181058 Al; pub. July 31, 2008). See Final Act. 9--12. Claims 10, 11, 24, 25, 37, and 38 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ I03(a) as unpatentable over Janse, Fukuda, and Davis (US 6,771,723 Bl; iss. Aug. 3, 2004). See Final Act. 12-14. Claims 12, 13, 26, 27, 39, and 40 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ I03(a) as unpatentable over Janse, Fukuda, and Watson (US 6,614,911 Bl; iss. Sept. 2, 2003). See Final Act. 14--16. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellant's arguments that the Examiner has erred. We concur with Appellant's contention that the Examiner erred in finding the combination of J anse and Fukuda teaches or suggests all of the recited elements of claim 1. Appellant specifically argues: In paragraph 31, Janse teaches an "adaptive echo canceling (EC) filter means 4" that outputs a residual signal rs(n) for each channels by subtracting an estimated echo Ys(n) from each microphone signal zs(n) (11. 2-10). The applicant respectfully notes that such producing a single-channel residual signal from a corresponding single-channel microphone signal is clearly not a directionally selective processing operation. Although Janse then teaches performing beamforming on the collective residual signals r 1(n) to rs(n) to deliver enhanced signal r(n) as noted above, the allegation that J anse teaches performing a 3 Appeal2017-004759 Application 12/876,163 directionally selective processing operation to produce the residual signals themselves has no basis. App. Br. 11. Additionally, Appellant argues the Examiner's reliance on Fukuda as disclosing "filter coefficients of an inverse filter" and calculating this coefficient "based on information from the produced residual signal." App. Br. 11-12. In response, the Examiner explains "[ t] he presence of intermediate signals referred to by Janse as residual signals does not prevent the outputs eventually produced by Janse from reading on the residual and enhanced signals recited by Appellant." Ans. 16 (citing Janse Fig. 1). The Examiner also finds Janse describes "calculating the beamformer coefficients based on the outputs of Fig. 1, Element 5, even if other processing is also performed on these signals." Id. (citing Janse ,r,r 9, 32). Appellant rebuts the Examiner's findings by asserting that "enhanced signal r(n) is an output of beamformer 5" and cannot be used by filter means 4 and/ or beamformer 5 "to perform a dereverberation operation on enhanced signal r(n)." Reply Br. 7. Appellant further argues "[a]lthough the Answer presents another new interpretation of Janse that equates the outputs of beamformer 5 with feedback signal x (see EA at p. 16, para. 2), Janse does not teach or suggest performing any dereverberation operation on feedback signal x." Id. We agree with Appellant that one of ordinary skill in the art would not have understood the disclosure of Janse results in a directionally selective processing operation on a first and second signal to produce a residual and enhanced signal, respectively. In support of this argument, Appellant correctly points to Figure 1 of Janse where the residual signals rs(n) is 4 Appeal2017-004759 Application 12/876,163 inputted to beamfonner 5 to produce an enhanced signal r(n). See Reply Br. 16; see also Janse ,r,r 31-32. More specifically, as stated by Appellant (Reply Br. 7), the Examiner has not explained how filter means 4 and beamformer 5 may perform a dereverberation operation on signal r(n), which is an output signal of beamformer 5. Therefore, based on the record before us, Appellant's arguments have persuaded us of error in the Examiner's position with respect to the rejection of independent claim 1, and independent claims 14, 15, and 28, which recite similar limitations. The Examiner has not identified any additional teachings in the other applied prior art to meet the disputed claim features. Accordingly, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) rejections of independent claims 1, 14, 5, and 28, as well as claims 2-13, 16-27, and 29-40 dependent therefrom. DECISION We reverse the decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1--40. REVERSED 5