Yukari Miki et al.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardAug 28, 201914287771 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Aug. 28, 2019) Copy Citation 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. 14/287,771 05/27/2014 Yukari Miki JP920080220US2 8152-0244 5458 73109 7590 08/28/2019 Cuenot, Forsythe & Kim, LLC 20283 State Road 7 Ste. 300 Boca Raton, FL 33498 EXAMINER VILLENA, MARK ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2658 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/28/2019 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): ibmptomail@iplawpro.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte YUKARI MIKI and MASAMI NOGUCHI ____________ Appeal 2019-000164 Application 14/287,7711 Technology Center 2600 ____________ Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, HUNG H. BUI, and JON M. JURGOVAN, Administrative Patent Judges. JURGOVAN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants seek review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 21, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, and 38, which are all the claims pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse.2 1 Appellants identify IBM Corporation as the real party in interest. (App. Br. 1.) 2 Our Decision refers to the Specification (“Spec.”) filed May 27, 2014, the Final Office Action (“Final Act.”) mailed December 6, 2017, the Appeal Brief (“App. Br.”) filed May 7, 2018, the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.”) mailed August 31, 2018, and the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”) filed October 9, 2018. Appeal 2019-000164 Application 14/287,771 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants’ invention is directed to a method and a telephone call answering system “for updating a voice template to recognize a speaker on the basis of the speaker’s voice” using stored voice templates indicating “distinctive characteristics of utterances from speakers,” the distinctive characteristics “extracted for a specific speaker based on a voice message utterance received from that speaker.” (Spec. ¶ 1; Abstract.) Claims 21, 27, and 33 are independent claims. Claim 21, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 21. A computer-implemented method for use with a telephone call answering system with improved caller recognition, comprising: receiving, from a caller through a communication network and by the telephone call answering system, message data including: (i) addressee data including information indicative of an addressee that is an intended recipient of the voice mail message, and (ii) voice data corresponding to audio content of a voice message; extracting, by the telephone answering system and from the audio content of the voice message, distinctive characteristics of the caller; selecting, by the telephone answering system, a plurality of candidate templates from a plurality of voice templates based, at least in part, upon a history of exchange of voice mail messages of the addressee; selecting, by the telephone answering system, a selected specific voice template based upon a degree of similarity between the extracted distinctive characteristics and distinctive characteristics indicated by the selected specific voice template; and Appeal 2019-000164 Application 14/287,771 3 updating, by the telephone answering system, the selected specific voice template based upon the extracted distinctive characteristics. (App. Br. 13–17 (Claims App’x).) REJECTIONS3 & REFERENCES Claims 21, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, and 38 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on Simoneau et al. (US 2008/0133235 A1, published June 5, 2008) (“Simoneau”) and Shaffer et al. (US 6,853,716 B1, issued Feb. 8, 2005) (“Shaffer”). (Final Act. 4–10.) ANALYSIS With respect to independent claim 21, the Examiner finds Simoneau teaches “selecting, by the telephone answering system, a plurality of candidate templates from a plurality of voice templates based, at least in part, upon a history of exchange of voice mail messages of the addressee,” as claimed. (Final Act. 6 (citing Simoneau ¶ 24).) Particularly, the Examiner finds Simoneau uses voicemail repository data to retrieve a phone number and contact group of a voicemail sender, and Simoneau’s “‘determin[ing] which group of contacts is related to the voicemail’ and ‘each group of contacts’ read on ‘selecting . . . a plurality of candidate 3 Claims 21, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, and 38 were rejected based upon non-statutory double patenting over claims 1–5, 6–11, and 13– 17 of US Patent No. 8,775,178 B2. (Final Act. 11–14.) However, this rejection is now moot because a Terminal Disclaimer was filed and approved on March 5, 2018. (See “Terminal Disclaimer – Electronic – Approved” (entered March 5, 2018).) Appeal 2019-000164 Application 14/287,771 4 templates’” because “a group of contacts (‘plurality of candidate templates’) is determined/chosen/selected as being related to the voicemail and for containing the phone number of the voicemail sender.” (Ans. 3–4 (citing Simoneau ¶ 24).) The Examiner further finds Simoneau’s “selection of speech recognition profile using specifically voicemail repository (or voicemail source) data reads on ‘. . . based . . . upon a history of exchange of voice mail message of the address[ee]” as claimed. (Ans. 4.) We do not agree. We agree with Appellants that Simoneau does not teach or suggest “selecting a plurality of candidate templates” as claimed; rather, “Simoneau only teaches that a single ‘corresponding profile is selected.’” (App. Br. 9; Reply Br. 4.) Particularly, Simoneau’s paragraph 24 describes training a language model to obtain “a speech recognition profile to be used with voicemails sent by speakers belonging to the current group of contacts.” (See Simoneau ¶ 24.) Simoneau further provides: the voicemails to index are retrieved from a database. . . . For each voicemail . . . the related group of contacts for this voicemail is found. . . . To determine which group of contacts is related to the voicemail, the system uses the phone number of the voicemail sender which is saved along with the voicemail in the voicemail repository (or voicemail source) (i.e., identifying the contact associated to a person leaving the given voicemail). The phone number is then looked up among the contacts of each group of contacts. If a contact card for this phone number is found, then the corresponding profile is selected. (Simoneau ¶ 24 (emphasis added).) Thus, Simoneau identifies the phone number of the voicemail sender and a contact card for that phone number, and then selects the speech recognition profile (voice template) corresponding to that contact card. That is, Simoneau selects one speech Appeal 2019-000164 Application 14/287,771 5 recognition profile (voice template)—the speech recognition profile of the identified voicemail sender. (App. Br. 9; Reply Br. 4.) We also disagree with the Examiner’s finding that Simoneau’s “group of contacts” teaches the claimed “plurality of candidate templates.” (See Ans. 4.) Claim 21 recites that the “plurality of candidate templates” are “voice templates.” Simoneau’s contacts are not voice templates, and Simoneau’s determining a group of contacts does not teach selecting a plurality of candidate voice templates based upon a history of exchange of voice mail messages of the addressee as recited in claim 21. (App. Br. 7–9; Reply Br. 3–4.) Shaffer does not make up for the above-noted deficiencies of Simoneau. Thus, for the reasons set forth above, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 21, independent claims 27 and 33, argued for substantially the same reasons as claim 21, and claims 23, 24, 26, 29, 30, 32, 35, 36, and 38 dependent therefrom. (App. Br. 6.) Because the above-discussed issues are dispositive as to the obviousness rejection of all claims on appeal, we do not reach additional issues raised by Appellants’ arguments as to the rejections of claims 23 and 26. DECISION The Examiner’s rejection of claims 21, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, and 38 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is reversed. REVERSED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation