Ex Parte Chengalvarayan et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 19, 2013

11336081 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 19, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE
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.
11/336,081 01/20/2006 Rathinavelu Chengalvarayan GP-307550 (2760/274) 4597
60770 7590 06/20/2013
General Motors Corporation
c/o REISING ETHINGTON P.C.
P.O. BOX 4390
TROY, MI 48099-4390
EXAMINER
CHAWAN, VIJAY B
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2658
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/20/2013 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte RATHINAVELU CHENGALVARAYAN and
JOHN J. CORREIA
____________

Appeal 2011-002359
Application 11/336,081
Technology Center 2600
____________

Before JEFFREY S. SMITH, KALYAN K. DESHPANDE, and
MATTHEW R. CLEMENTS, Administrative Patent Judges.

CLEMENTS, Administrative Patent Judge.

Dissenting Opinion filed by SMITH, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1-8 and 19-23. Claims 9-18 are cancelled. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE.

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants’ invention generally relates to a speech recognition system
using dynamic nametag scoring. See generally Abstract. Claim 19 is
illustrative:
19. A method for determining a plurality of confusion tables
comprising:
receiving a plurality of test utterances in a speech recognizer
including acoustic models;
generating via the speech recognizer, a plurality of component
sequences based on the test utterances and at least one circumstantial
condition;
determining via the speech recognizer, a confusion matrix
based on the component sequences and the test utterances; and
generating a confusion table based on the confusion matrix but
sorted by phoneme misrecognition, and stored in at least one of a
mobile vehicle telematics unit or a remote server.

REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Goldberg US 6,223,158 B1 Apr. 24, 2001
Bushey US 7,110,949 B2 Sept. 19, 2006
(filed Sept. 13,
2004)

Endo US 7,292,978 B2 Nov. 6, 2007
(filed Dec. 4,
2003)

Ng et al., Recent Advances In Cantonese Speech Recognition,
Proceedings, 12th European Signal Processing Conference,
Sept. 2004, pp. 341-344.

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THE REJECTIONS
1. Claim 19 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated
by Goldberg. Ans. 4-5.1
2. Claims 1-3, 6-8, and 20-23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over Goldberg, Ng, and Endo. 2 Ans. 5-10.
3. Claims 4-5 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Goldberg, Ng, Endo, and Bushey. Ans. 10-11.

THE ANTICIPATION REJECTION OVER GOLDBERG
The Examiner finds that Goldberg discloses every recited element of
representative claim 19. Ans. 4-5.
Appellants argue, inter alia, that Goldberg’s confusion table is sorted
alphanumerically and is therefore not “sorted by phoneme misrecognition.”
App. Br. 7-8.

ISSUE
Under § 102, has the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 19 by finding
that Goldberg discloses “a confusion table based on the confusion matrix but
sorted by phoneme misrecognition?”

1 Throughout this opinion, we refer to (1) the Appeal Brief filed June 22,
2010 (“App. Br.”); (2) the Examiner’s Answer mailed Sept. 10, 2010
(“Ans.”); and (3) the Reply Brief filed Nov. 10, 2010 (“Reply Br.”).
2 Appellants identify claims 1-3, 6-10, and 20-23. App. Br. 6, 8. However,
claims 9 and 10 are cancelled. App. Br. 16; accord Ans. 2.
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ANALYSIS
We agree with Appellants’ argument that the Examiner’s construction
of “sorted by phoneme misrecognition” to include sorting by alphabetical
order is unreasonably broad. While the Examiner has not provided a clear
construction of “sorted by phoneme misrecognition,” the Examiner found
that Goldberg describes a “matrix [that] is sorted so that the axes are in
alphabetical order, wherein the populated fields represent the probability of a
match, as well as a mismatch, between characters and spoken characters.”
Ans. 12. As such, the Examiner appears to construe “a confusion
table…sorted by phoneme misrecognition” to include arranging the table
such that the rows and columns, i.e. the axes, are in alphabetical order.
However, we find such a construction to be neither reasonable nor
consistent with the Specification. As described in the Specification, “[a]
confusion table is sorted” based on the numerical values within the cells of
the table such that those values are in order of increasing frequency of
misrecognition or of decreasing frequency of misrecognition. Reply Br. 3;
Spec. ¶ 0025. Although this description is not to be read in to the claims, the
claims must be read in light of this description. Furthermore, the plain and
ordinary meaning of sorting a table based on a value, as understood by a
person with ordinary skill in the art, includes sorting based on the values
within the table rather than the column or row headings or labels.
Accordingly, we do not agree with the Examiner that Goldberg describes “a
confusion table based on the confusion matrix but sorted by phoneme
misrecognition” and therefore we do not sustain the Examiner’s anticipation
rejection of claim 19.
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We have decided the appeal of the Examiner’s anticipation rejection
before us. However, we leave it to the Examiner to determine whether it
would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art to modify
Goldberg’s confusion table, which includes phoneme misrecognition values,
by sorting the table based on the phoneme misrecognition in the table and
whether such a modification would have yielded anything more than
predictable results.

THE OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION OVER
GOLDBERG, NG, AND ENDO
We are persuaded by Appellants’ argument that Goldberg does not
teach a confusion table “sorted by phoneme misrecognition” (App. Br. 8-9;
Reply Br. 1-4) for the reasons discussed above with respect to claim 19. We
therefore do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of (1) independent claim 1;
(2) independent claim 20 which recites a commensurate limitation; and (3)
dependent claims 2-8 and 21-23 not separately argued with particularity.
Because this issue is dispositive, we need not reach Appellants’ other
arguments.

THE OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION OVER
GOLDBERG, NG, ENDO, AND BUSHEY
Since the Examiner has not shown that Bushey cures the deficiencies
noted above, we will not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of
dependent claims 4 and 5. Ans. 10-11.

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CONCLUSION
The Examiner erred in rejecting claim 19 under § 102 and claims 1-8
and 20-23 under § 103.

ORDER
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-8 and 19-23 is reversed.

REVERSED

rwk

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SMITH, Administrative Patent Judge, dissenting.

Principal Issue
Does the confusion matrix sorted by the alphabetical order of
misrecognized phonemes shown in Figure 2 of Goldberg describe a
confusion table sorted by phoneme misrecognition as recited in claim 1?

Standard for Claim Interpretation
The claims measure the invention.3 During prosecution before the
USPTO, claims are to be given their broadest reasonable interpretation, and
the scope of a claim cannot be narrowed by reading disclosed limitations
into the claim.4 “Giving claims their broadest reasonable construction
‘serves the public interest by reducing the possibility that claims, finally
allowed, will be given broader scope than is justified.’”5
Our reviewing court has repeatedly warned against confining the
claims to specific embodiments described in the specification.6 Though
understanding the claim language may be aided by explanations contained in
the written description, it is important not to import into a claim limitations
that are not part of the claim. For example, a particular embodiment
appearing in the written description may not be read into a claim when the
claim language is broader than the embodiment.7

3 See SRI Int’l v. Matsushita Elec. Corp., 775 F.2d 1107, 1121 (Fed. Cir.
1985) (en banc).
4 See In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997).
5 In re Amer. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
6 Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc).
7 Superguide Corp. v. DirecTV Enterprises, Inc., 358 F.3d 870, 875 (Fed.
Cir. 2004).
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Interpretation of confusion table sorted by phoneme misrecognition
Appellants’ Specification does not explicitly define “phoneme
misrecognition.” In fact, Appellants’ Specification does not mention the
term “phoneme misrecognition” at all. Paragraph 25 of Appellants’
Specification discloses an example of phonemes as spoken letters such as m
and n, where n is a misrecognized phoneme, or “phoneme misrecognition,”
of n. Thus, the term “phoneme misrecognition,” when read in light of
Appellants’ Specification, encompasses misrecognized phonemes.
Appellants’ Specification also does not explicitly define “sorted.”
Appellants’ Specification merely distinguishes between a confusion matrix
as unsorted and a confusion table as sorted. Spec. ¶ 25. Appellants’
Specification gives an example of sorting a matrix by the frequencies of
“phoneme misrecognition.” However, the unsorted matrix may be
alphabetically unsorted. For instance, the unsorted matrix disclosed by
paragraph 25 places the letter m “a positional distance from” the letter n,
rather than in alphabetical order next to the letter n.8 When the
alphabetically unsorted matrix is sorted by the alphabetical order of
“phoneme misrecognition,” the result is a “confusion table … sorted by
phoneme misrecognition” within the meaning of claim 1.
Thus, the scope of “confusion table … sorted by phoneme
misrecognition,” when read in light of Appellants’ Specification,
encompasses a confusion matrix sorted by the alphabetical order of
misrecognized phonemes.

8 “A confusion table is unsorted … ‘m’ is a positional distance from ‘n’ in
the confusion matrix”.
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Analysis of Appellants’ arguments
Appellants contend that the characters of Goldberg are not sorted by
phoneme misrecognition. According to Appellants, if Goldberg’s Figure 2
taught “a confusion table … sorted by phoneme misrecognition,” the
characters would be sorted in ascending or descending order of recognition
probabilities, rather than in alphabetical order. App. Br. 7; Reply Br. 3. The
Examiner finds that claim 1 does not limit the scope of “sorted by phoneme
misrecognition” to a table sorted in ascending or descending order of
recognition probabilities. Ans. 12. I agree with the Examiner.
Appellants’ argument is based on the premise that the meaning of
“phoneme misrecognition” is limited to recognition probabilities. However,
Appellants have not provided persuasive evidence to show that the meaning
of “phoneme misrecognition” is limited to, or even includes, recognition
probabilities. Rather, Appellants’ Specification discloses examples of
phonemes as spoken letters such as m and n, where m is a misrecognized
phoneme, or “phoneme misrecognition,” of n. The scope of “phoneme
misrecognition,” when read in light of Appellants’ Specification,
encompasses misrecognized phonemes described by Goldberg. That is,
misrecognized letters shown in Figure 2 of Goldberg describe “phoneme
misrecognition.” Thus, the alphabetically sorted table of Goldberg is “sorted
by phoneme misrecognition” within the meaning of claim 1.
Appellants contend that paragraph 25 of their Specification uses the
term “sorted” consistent with the ordinary meaning. Reply Br. 3. Paragraph
25 gives an example of an unsorted table sorted based on the frequency of
misrecognized phonemes. However, this non-limiting example from
Appellants’ Specification does not provide a definition of “sorted” that
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excludes the ordinary meaning of “sorted” by alphabetical order of
misrecognized phonemes. “Absent an express definition in their
specification, the fact that appellants can point to definitions or usages that
conform to their interpretation does not make the PTO’s definition
unreasonable when the PTO can point to other sources that support its
interpretation.” In re Morris, 127 F.3d at 1056.

Conclusion
Appellants’ Specification only gives a non-limiting example of
“sorted,” does not explicitly define “phoneme misrecognition,” and does not
exclude the interpretation that the scope of “a confusion table … sorted by
phoneme misrecognition” encompasses the table sorted by alphabetical
order of misrecognized phonemes shown in Figure 2 of Goldberg.
Therefore, I would affirm the Examiner’s rejection.