Ex Parte Carriere et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Mar 28, 2011

09531743 (B.P.A.I. Mar. 28, 2011)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte STEVEN JEROMY CARRIERE, KELLY JAMES SLOUGH, and
STEVEN GREGORY WOODS
____________

Appeal 2010-002917
Application 09/531,743
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before: MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, HUBERT C. LORIN, and ANTON W.
FETTING, Administrative Patent Judges.

CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL1

1 The two-month time period for filing an appeal or commencing a civil
action, as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 1.304, or for filing a request for rehearing,
as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 41.52, begins to run from the “MAIL DATE”
(paper delivery mode) or the “NOTIFICATION DATE” (electronic delivery
mode) shown on the PTOL-90A cover letter attached to this decision.

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Application 09/531,743

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is an appeal from the final rejection of claims 28-30 and 33-35.
We have jurisdiction to review the case under 35 U.S.C. §§ 134 and 6
(2002).
The claimed invention is generally directed to systems and methods
for funneling user responses in an Internet voice portal system as to
determine a desired item for service (Spec. 1:1-4). Claim 28, reproduced
below, is further illustrative of the claimed subject matter.
28. A method of operating an interactive user operated
Internet voice portal having established multiple predetermined
vertical domains of interest and a hierarchy of attributes within
each vertical domain of interest from top to bottom, the method
comprising operations of:
responsive to a user placing a telephone call to the voice
portal, identifying the user and obtaining user selection of a
vertical domain of interest;
performing funneling operations comprising:
(a) building a vocabulary set containing top-level
attribute values appropriate to the selected vertical
domain of interest;
(b) querying the user to choose a top-level attribute
value, applying speech recognition to user responses
where recognized answers are limited to contents of the
vocabulary set;
(c) until a bottom level attribute value is chosen,
repeatedly performing operations comprising: (1)
building an updated vocabulary set containing attribute
values appropriate to the latest chosen attribute value,
and (2) querying the user to choose a next-lower-level
attribute value and applying speech recognition to user
responses where recognized answers are limited to
contents of the updated vocabulary set;
responsive to a bottom level attribute being chosen,
conducting an Internet search of HTML non-voice sources for
prescribed types of information pertaining to the chosen
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bottom-level attribute value and, unassisted by voice extensions
and enhancements to said HTML, audibly providing resultant
information to the user via the telephone call.

Claim 28 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, for
failing to comply with the written description requirement; claim 28 stands
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, for indefiniteness; and
claims 28-30 and 33-35 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Krane (US Pat. 5,799,063, iss. Aug. 25, 1998) in view of
Uppaluru (US Pat. 6,400,806 B1, iss. Jun. 4, 2002).
We AFFIRM-IN-PART.

ISSUES
Did the Examiner err in asserting that “unassisted by voice extensions
and enhancements to said HTML,” as recited in independent claim 28, does
not comply with the written description requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 112, first
paragraph, or the definiteness requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph?
Did the Examiner err in asserting that a combination of Krane and
Uppaluru renders obvious “conducting an Internet search of HTML non-
voice sources for prescribed types of information pertaining to the chosen
bottom-level attribute value and, unassisted by voice extensions and
enhancements to said HTML, audibly providing resultant information to the
user via the telephone call,” as recited in independent claim 28?
Did the Examiner err in asserting that a combination of Krane and
Uppaluru renders obvious “applying one or more text patterns to a web page
to identify said information and extract it; applying a plurality of rules to
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said information to construct grammatical sentences from said information,”
as recited in independent claim 33?

FINDINGS OF FACT
We agree with the Appellants’ statements on pages 14 to 22 of the
Appeal Brief concerning the application of Uppaluru as it relates to claim 28
and adopt the same as our findings of fact.
We adopt the Examiner’s findings of fact concerning the application
of Uppaluru to the subject matter of independent claim 33, as set forth on
pages 11-12 of the Examiner’s Answer.

Specification
The Specification discloses the following HTML code:

Programming Perl
written by Larry Wall

Learning Perl (<b> 2nd edition </b>)
written by Randal Schwartz

(27:23 to 28:1).

ANALYSIS
Written Description and Indefiniteness
We are persuaded the Examiner erred in asserting that “unassisted by
voice extensions and enhancements to said HTML,” as recited in
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independent claim 28, does not comply with the written description
requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, or the definiteness
requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph (App. Br. 9-11; Reply Br.
4-8). Pages 27-28 of the Specification provide an example of HTML code
that is audibly rendered “unassisted by voice extensions and enhancements.”
We believe this provides sufficient written description support for the
aforementioned aspect of independent claim 28.
For the same reasons, we also do not sustain the indefiniteness
rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph.

Independent Claim 28
We are persuaded the Examiner erred in finding that a combination of
Krane and Uppaluru renders obvious “conducting an Internet search of
HTML non-voice sources for prescribed types of information pertaining to
the chosen bottom-level attribute value and, unassisted by voice extensions
and enhancements to said HTML, audibly providing resultant information to
the user via the telephone call,” as recited in independent claim 28 (App. Br.
14-22; Reply Br. 9-11). The portions of Uppaluru cited by the Examiner
specifically recite that the web pages include voice extensions. For example,
column 2, lines 31-34 recite “[t]he invention features a set of web pages
containing information (components) formatted using MIME and hypertext
markup language (HTML) standards with extensions for voice information
access and navigation” (emphasis added). In another example, column 5,
lines 9-10 disclose that “voice web page 103 is web page specified using a
navigable markup language that includes voice extensions” (emphasis
added). See also, Uppaluru, col. 5, ll. 46-49; col. 7, ll. 19-23. Uppaluru then
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makes extensive reference to these voice web pages, which, as set forth
above in column 5, lines 9-10, include voice extensions.
Accordingly, because Uppaluru does not disclose HTML pages
“unassisted by voice extensions and enhancements to said HTML,” we
cannot sustain this rejection.

Independent Claim 33
We are not persuaded the Examiner erred in asserting that a
combination of Krane and Uppaluru renders obvious “applying one or more
text patterns to a web page to identify said information and extract it;
applying a plurality of rules to said information to construct grammatical
sentences from said information,” as recited in independent claim 33 (App.
Br. 22-24; Reply Br. 13-14). Appellants assert that the speaker dependent
voice patterns of Uppaluru do not correspond to the recited text patterns
(Reply Br. 13). However, Uppaluru discloses that
[t]hese preferences are components within the personal profile
pages and are easily available to the voice web system for
dynamic retrieval. For example, if the user requests his/her
stock portfolio from the voice web, it first retrieves the user’s
preferred portfolio of companies from her/her profile, and
applies this list to limit the search on stock quotes from all
companies.
(Col. 3, ll. 59-65). Accordingly, the system of Uppaluru applies the speaker
dependent voice pattern to the personal profile page to identify stock
portfolio information and extract it.
Appellants also assert that the “text to speech” conversion of e-mails
in Uppaluru does not produce grammatically correct sentences (App. Br. 22-
24; Reply Br. 13-14). However, the term “correct” is not set forth in the
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claim, as independent claim 33 only recites “grammatical sentences.” See
CollegeNet, Inc. v. ApplyYourself, Inc., 418 F.3d 1225, 1231 (Fed. Cir.
2005) (while the specification can be examined for proper context of a claim
term, limitations from the specification will not be imported into the claims).
Accordingly, the word-for-word “text to speech” conversion of e-mails set
forth in column 12, lines 3-5 of Uppaluru, even if they are not grammatically
correct, does meet the broadest reasonable construction of “grammatical
sentence.” See In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed.
Cir. 2004) (“[d]uring examination [of a patent application, a pending claim
is] given [the] broadest reasonable [construction] consistent with the
specification, and . . . claim language should be read in light of the
specification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art”)
(internal citation and quotations omitted).
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED-IN-PART

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