Yukari Miki et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Aug 28, 2019

14287771 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Aug. 28, 2019)

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.
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Application 14/287,771

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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
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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).)
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Application 14/287,771

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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
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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