HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL INC.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 18, 2021

2019006591 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 18, 2021)

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.
15/089,970 04/04/2016 Robert E. De Mers H0053441 (002.2980) 2718
89955 7590 03/18/2021
HONEYWELL/LKGLOBAL
Intellectual Property Services Group
300 S. Tryon Street
Suite 600
Charlotte, NC 28202
EXAMINER
CHAVEZ, RODRIGO A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2658
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/18/2021 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):
DL-PMT-SM-IP@Honeywell.com
honeywell@lkglobal.com
patentservices-us@honeywell.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ROBERT E. DE MERS and DAVID J. DOPILKA
Appeal 2019-006591
Application 15/089,970
Technology Center 2600
Before ALLEN R. MACDONALD, MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, and
JEREMY J. CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judges.
CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–3, 5–7, 9–11, 13, 15–20, and 23–25.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM IN PART.

1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Honeywell.
Appeal Br. 2.
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Application 15/089,970
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to a “[s]ystem and method to distinguish
sources in a multiple audio source environment.” Spec., Title. Claims 1 and
17, reproduced below, are illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. An audio system, comprising:
a memory device comprising a speech recognition
algorithm and audio tags;
a processor coupled to the memory device, and to at least
one of: a source of undesired audio signal and a source of
desired audio signal, the source of the undesired audio signal
and the source of the desired audio signal being separate, the
processor configured to
(i) determine when (a) it has access to the source of
undesired audio signals;
(ii) determine when (b) it has access to the source of
desired audio signals;
(iii) associate a respective audio tag with the source of
desired audio signal based on (a) and (b), wherein the audio tag
is overlaid on the respective audio signal, the audio tag being a
carrier signal that is one of: audible, sub audible, and super
audible;
(iv) receive a collective audio signal comprising speech
emitted from the source of undesired audio, referred to as an
undesired audio signal, and speech emitted from the source of
desired audio signal, referred to as a desired audio signal, the
undesired audio signal and desired audio signal being
concurrent;
(v) based on the audio tag, eliminate the undesired audio
signal from the collective audio signal; and
(vi) responsive to eliminating the undesired audio signal,
use the speech recognition algorithm to identify an intended
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Application 15/089,970
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command in the collective audio signal with the undesired
audio signal eliminated.
17. An audio system, comprising:
a memory device comprising speech recognition
algorithms;
a processor coupled to the memory device, the processor
configured to
(i) receive a collective audio signal comprising
(a) an undesired audio signal comprising speech
from a speaker device,
(b) a desired audio signal comprising speech from
a person, and
wherein the speech from the person and the speech
from the speaker is concurrent or overlapping,
(ii) identify an audio tag in the collective audio signal,
and
(iii) eliminate the undesired audio signal from the
collective audio signal prior to (a) performing speech
recognition on the collective audio signal, and (b) identifying
an intended command therein.
Supp. Appeal Br. 2, 5 (Claims App.).
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is:
Name Reference Date
Lloyd US 2012/0022869 A1 Jan. 26, 2012
Humphrey US 8,713,593 B2 Apr. 29, 2014
Des Jardins US 2014/0270194 A1 Sept. 18, 2014

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REJECTIONS
Claims 17–19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as anticipated
by Lloyd. Final Act. 3–5.
Claims 1–3, 5–7, 9–11, 13, 15, 16, and 23–25 are rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over Lloyd and Des Jardins. Final Act. 5–16.2
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over Lloyd and
Humphrey. Final Act. 16–17.
OPINION
Obviousness Rejection of Claims 1–3, 5–7, 9–11, 13, 15, 16,
and 23–25 over Lloyd and Des Jardins
The Examiner finds Lloyd and Des Jardins teach all limitations of
claim 1. Final Act. 5–8. In particular, the Examiner finds Lloyd teaches “(i)
determine when (a) it has access to the source of undesired audio signals; (ii)
determine when (b) it has access to the source of desired audio signals” as
recited in claim 1. Final Act. 6–7 (citing Lloyd ¶¶ 22, 32, 44).
Appellant presents the following principal arguments:
Lloyd’s system 105 gets audio input from one source - the cell
phone (See, FIG. 4). Applicants agree that the audio input from
the cell phone provides Lloyd’s ASR engine 105 with a
comingled audio signal of (i) desired audio (speech from the
person) and (ii) geographic noise as the undesired audio.
Applicants respectfully re-submit that, first, “geographic noise”
is vague and likely to comprise many sources of sound waves,
and second, that Lloyd does not teach or suggest that the ASR
engine 105 has access to the source of the geographic noise.

2 Claims 23–25 are not included in the formal statement of the rejection of
page 5 of the Final Action, but claims 23–25 are addressed on pages 15–16
of the Final Action.
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Appeal Br. 16; see also Reply Br. 3–5.
In response, the Examiner explains “[t]his disclosure of acoustic
models and noise models by Lloyd confirms that Lloyd is determining
access using the stored models as similarly explained in p[aragraph] 0028 of
the current specification.” Ans. 4. Lloyd’s system “has access to the source
of undesired audio signals because it has access to the noise models,” and
Lloyds system “has access to the source of desired audio signals because it
has access to the acoustic models.” Ans. 5.
Appellant’s arguments persuade us the Examiner erred in finding
Lloyd teaches “(i) determine when (a) it has access to the source of
undesired audio signals; (ii) determine when (b) it has access to the source of
desired audio signals” as recited in claim 1.
Appellant’s Specification discloses the following:
In some embodiments, the system to distinguish sources
102 has access to at least one of: the source of undesired audio
signal and the source of desired audio signal. In these
embodiments, prior to operation, the system to distinguish
sources 102 either (i) adds unique externally created audio tags
to the one or more sources of the undesired audio signal or (ii)
identifies a naturally occurring audio tag associated with the
source of the desired audio signal.
Spec. ¶ 28.
Appellant’s Specification further discloses the following:
In other embodiments, the system to distinguish sources
102 does not have access to any sources of the audio signal
(neither the source(s) of undesired audio signal 104, or the source
of desired audio signal 106); in such embodiments, the system to
distinguish sources 102 audio processes the collective audio
signal to identify naturally occurring audio tags therein, and then
sorts or separates the audio signal in accordance with the
identified naturally occurring audio tags. The identified naturally
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occurring audio tags are associated with audio sources and the
associations are stored.
Spec. ¶ 29.
Thus, Appellant’s Specification distinguishes between embodiments
where the system has access to sources and is thus able to process an
individual audio signal from a source, and embodiments where the system
does not have access to sources and is thus required to process the collective
audio signal. Claim 1 requires “(i) determine when (a) it has access to the
source of undesired audio signals; (ii) determine when (b) it has access to the
source of desired audio signals.” Thus, claim 1 is directed to embodiments
where the system has access to sources and is thus able to process an
individual audio signal from a source.
In contrast, Lloyd is directed to a system where the system does not
have access to sources and is thus required to process the collective audio
signal. See Lloyd ¶¶ 22 (“In addition to voices, the geotagged audio signals
107 to 109 may also include ambient sounds or environmental noises that
occur (naturally or otherwise) at a particular location.” (emphasis added)),
32 (“Ambient noise or environmental sound portions of the audio signals
may be stored by the ASR engine 105 for other purposes, for example to
build geo-specific noise models.” (emphasis added)). Put another way, using
stored acoustic models and noise models, as described in Lloyd, does not
readily teach or suggest that the creation of such models had access to
sources and was able to process an individual audio signal from a source, as
required by our interpretation of claim 1.
We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1.
We also do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 2, 3, 5–7, 9,
10, and 23–25, which depend from claim 1.
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Independent claim 11 recites “determining when (a) it has access to
the source of undesired audio signals; determining when (b) it has access to
the source of desired audio signals.” We, therefore, do not sustain the
Examiner’s rejection of claim 11 for the same reasons discussed above when
addressing claim 1.
We also do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 13, 15, and
16, which depend from claim 11.

Anticipation Rejection of Claims 17–19 by Lloyd
The Examiner finds Lloyd discloses all limitations of claim 17. Final
Act. 3–4. In particular, the Examiner finds Lloyd discloses “(ii) identify an
audio tag in the collective audio signal . . . , and (iii) eliminate the undesired
audio signal from the collective audio signal prior to (a) performing speech
recognition on the collective audio signal,” as recited in claim 17. Final Act.
4 (citing Lloyd ¶¶ 63, 77); see also Ans. 6–7 (citing Lloyd ¶¶ 31–42).
Appellant presents the following principal argument:
Lloyd does not disclose “identifying an audio tag in the collective
audio signal and eliminating the undesired audio signal from the collective
audio signal prior to performing speech recognition.” Appeal Br. 20; see
also Reply Br. 3–5.
Appellant’s arguments do not persuade us of any reversible error in
the Examiner’s findings.
In contrast to claims 1 and 11, claim 17 does not require access to
sources. Using stored acoustic models and noise models, as described in
Lloyd, discloses the disputed limitations of claim 17.
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Lloyd discloses
In general, the one or more acoustic models 111, along
with noise models, language models, and/or other models, are
applied to the audio signal 112 to translate or transcribe the
spoken utterance 113 into one or more textual, candidate
transcriptions 115, and to generate speech recognition
confidence scores to the candidate transcriptions 115. In
particular, the one or more acoustic models 111 include
statistical representations of the sounds that make up each word
of a particular language, and the noise models are used for noise
suppression or noise compensation. Both models enhance the
intelligibility of the spoken utterance 113 to the ASR engine 105.
Lloyd ¶ 44 (emphasis added).
Lloyd further discloses
the speech recognition module 124 of the ASR engine 105
performs speech recognition on the audio signal 112 using the
one or more geo-specific acoustic models 111 for the geographic
location associated with the audio signal 112. When the audio
signal 112 includes metadata that describes a device type of the
mobile device 102, the ASR engine 105 may apply an acoustic
model that is specific to both the geographic location associated
with the audio signal, and to the device type of the mobile device
102. The speech recognition module 124 may generate one or
more candidate transcriptions 115 that match the utterance
encoded in the audio signal 112, and speech recognition
confidence values for the candidate transcriptions.
Lloyd ¶ 63 (emphasis added); see also Lloyd ¶ 77 (disclosing a geotagged
signal).
Thus, Lloyd discloses “(ii) identify an audio tag in the collective audio
signal” (see Lloyd ¶¶ 63, 77), “and (iii) eliminate the undesired audio signal
from the collective audio signal prior to (a) performing speech recognition
on the collective audio signal” (see Lloyd ¶ 44), as recited in claim 17.
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We, therefore, sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 17. We also
sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 18 and 19, which are not
separately argued with particularity.

Obviousness Rejection of Claim 20 over Lloyd and Humphrey
Appellant argues “Humphrey does not remedy the deficiencies of
Lloyd.” Appeal Br. 21.
For reasons explained above, we determine Lloyd is not deficient.
We, therefore, sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 20.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–3, 5–7, 9–11, 13, 15, 16,
and 23–25 is reversed.
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 17–20 is affirmed.
DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claim(s)
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
17–19 102(a)(1) Lloyd 17–19
1–3, 5–7, 9–
11, 13, 15,
16, 23–25
103 Lloyd, Des Jardins 1–3, 5–7, 9–
11, 13, 15,
16, 23–25
20 103 Lloyd, Humphrey 20
Overall
Outcome
17–20 1–3, 5–7, 9–
11, 13, 15,
16, 23–25

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Application 15/089,970
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TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED IN PART