Ex Parte Ferren

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 17, 2016

12611550 (P.T.A.B. May. 17, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
12/611,550 11103/2009 Bran Ferren
26294 7590 05/19/2016
TAROLLI, SUNDHEIM, COVELL & TUMMINO LLP,
1300EASTNINTH STREET, SUITE 1700
CLEVELAND, OH 44114
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
NG(NCD)Ol8723 US PRI 2701
EXAMINER
BLAIR, KILE 0
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2651
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/19/2016 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):
rkline@tarolli.com
docketing@tarolli.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte BRAN FERREN
Appeal2014-009259
Application 12/611,550
Technology Center 2600
Before JOHN P. PINKERTON, NATHAN A. ENGELS, and
CARLL. SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judges.
ENGELS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 1-20. No other claims are pending. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We affirm.
Appeal2014-009259
Application 12/611,550
APPELLANT'S INVENTION
Appellant's invention is directed to systems and methods for
providing directional audio in a video teleconference meeting. Abstract.
Claims 1, 11, and 16 are independent claims. Claim 1, reproduced below, is
illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A system for providing directional audio in a video
teleconference meeting, the system comprising:
a display formed of an acoustically transparent imaging
surface, wherein the display has a leftmost edge and a rightmost
edge;
a plurality of speakers positioned in an area between a
first vertical plane that includes the leftmost edge and a second
vertical plane that includes the rightmost edge of the display;
a teleconference processor configured to receive video
images of remote participants and audio data associated with
sounds of the remote participants over a communication
medium, display each participant about the display and provide
audio data associated with a given participant to one or more
speakers of the plurality of speakers located close to or
coincident with the displayed image of the respective remote
participant; and
an audio router configured to:
receive audio control information that includes
identification of a dominant participant of the remote
participants; and
adjust the audio level of the plurality of speakers
such that audio is presented primarily from one or more
speakers of the plurality of speakers located close or
coincident with the dominant participant.
APPELLANT'S CONTENTIONS
Appellant contends the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-20 under
35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being unpatentable in view of Addeo et a. (US
5,335,011; Aug. 2, 1994) and Stoehr (US 6,477,256 Bl; Nov. 5, 2002).
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Application 12/611,550
ANALYSIS
We have considered each of the Examiner's rejections in view of
Appellant's arguments and the evidence of record, and we agree with the
Examiner that the subject matter of claim 1-20 would have been obvious to
a person of ordinary skill at the time of Appellant's invention as evidenced
by Addeo and Stoehr. We agree with and adopt as our own the Examiner's
findings, conclusions, and reasons presented in the Final Action and the
Examiner's Answer, and we sustain the Examiner's rejections of claims 1-
20. We present the following analysis primarily for emphasis.
Appellant contends the Examiner erred in concluding that the
combination of Addeo and Stoehr teaches or suggests the following
limitation in claim 1 and equivalent limitations in claims 11 and 16: "an
audio router configured to ... adjust the audio level of the plurality of
speakers such that audio is presented primarily from one or more speakers of
the plurality of speakers located close or coincident with the dominant
participant." See App. Br. 9, 16-17, 20. As Appellant advances essentially
the same arguments for each independent claim, we address the independent
claims collectively. We also address collectively Appellant's arguments
directed to claims 3, 14, and 18, each of which is directed to increasing the
volume at the one or more speakers close to or coincident with the video
image of the dominant participant.
First, Appellant argues the claimed "dominant participant" is defined
in Appellant's Specification as "a participant that provides a majority of
conference dialog." Reply Br. 4 (citing Spec. i-f 16); accord App. Br. 11-12.
Appellant also argues that, unlike the claimed arrangement of speakers,
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Application 12/611,550
Addeo teaches a two-speaker video-conferencing system in which "a virtual
sound location of a received audio signal is selected based on information
regarding the identity of a current speaker," but the claimed "dominant
speaker ... may or may not be the current speaker at any single instance in
time." Reply Br. 4 (citing Addeo col. 2, 11. 45-57); see also App. Br. 9-10.
We find Appellants' arguments unpersuasive and agree with the
Examiner's conclusion of obviousness. We disagree with Appellant's
argument that Appellant's Specification defines "dominant participant"
because the Specification lacks any express definition of the term. See
Brookhill-Wilk 1, LLC v. Intuitive Surgical, Inc., 334 F.3d 1294, 1298 (Fed.
Cir. 2003) (absent an express intent to impart a novel meaning to a claim
term in a patent's specification, the words take on the ordinary and
customary meanings consistent with the specification). While the
Specification makes a general statement that "[a]s a great majority of
conference dialogue is dominated by a single speaker, the determination of
the dominant participant may be made through a simple analysis of the audio
levels obtained by the microphones at the remote site by the audio analyzer
18" (Spec. i-f 16), neither that statement nor other evidence of record amounts
to a special definition that could support the interpretation proposed by
Appellant.
To the contrary, Appellant's Specification supports the Examiner's
interpretation that the dominant speaker includes a current speaker, as the
Specification states, for example, that "audio router 32 can ensure that, at
any given time, audio is presented primarily from the speaker close to or
coincident with the image of the dominant speaker." Spec. i-f 16 (emphasis
added); accord Spec. Fig. 6, i-f 14 ("audio is provided from the speaker close
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Application 12/611,550
to or coincident with the local image of the speaking participant"); see also
Spec. i-f 17 ("audio analyzer 18 at the remote site may perform a time of
flight calculation to estimate, based on the time of arrival at the various
microphones 22 arrayed at the remote site, a dominant direction from which
the audio emanates"); App. Br. 26 (claim 7 recites determining the dominant
participant by performing time of flight calculations). Accordingly,
interpreting the disputed limitation consistent with Appellant's Specification
and the plain language of claim 1, we agree with the Examiner that Addeo' s
disclosure of a speaker identified based on the "microphone that generates
the strongest signal" teaches or suggests the "dominant speaker" as claimed.
See Final Act. 3 (citing Addeo col. 2, 11. 45-57).
We also agree with the Examiner that a person of ordinary skill would
have understood the combination of Addeo' s system for creating a virtual
sound location and Stoehr' s videoconference display with loudspeakers
positioned behind the participants' images to teach or suggest "an audio
router configured to ... adjust the audio level of the plurality of speakers
such that audio is presented primarily from one or more speakers of the
plurality of speakers located close or coincident with the dominant
participant." Final Act. 2--4. As cited by the Examiner (see Final Act. 2--4),
Addeo teaches creating a virtual sound location "to coincide with the image
of a speaker on a display device" by "reproducing the sound in a manner
such that it is perceived as emanating from the virtual sound location"
(Addeo col. 2, 11. 55---63) and Stoehr teaches linking audio signals with video
signals using speakers located behind a front-projection video screen (see
Stoehr col. 5, 11. 30-35). Both Addeo and Stoehr are directed to the same
technical field as Appellant's claimed invention, namely video conferencing
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with directional audio associated with images of the appropriate conference
participants, and we agree with the Examiner that claims 1, 11, 16 would
have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill as evidenced by the
combination of Addeo and Stoehr. See Final Act. 2--4. We also agree with
the Examiner that the "increasing the volume" limitations of claims 3, 16,
and 18 would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill as evidenced
by the combination of Addeo and Stoehr for the same reasons. See Final
Act. 3--4; see also Addeo col. 2, 11. 55-57; col. 6, 11. 5-13, 24--45 (describing
filtering left and right audio signals "such that the sound reproduced by the
loudspeakers 130L and 130R is perceived as emanating from the virtual
location 121); Stoehr col. 3, 11. 51---63 (describing that sound is output only
from the loudspeaker in front of a participant).
We are unpersuaded by Appellant's arguments that the speakers
depicted on opposite sides of the video screen in Addeo are "clearly not
located close to or coincident with any particular participant" (see App. Br.
9-11; Reply Br. 4---6), as those arguments attack Addeo individually without
substantively addressing how a person of ordinary skill in the art would have
understood the combination of Addeo and Stoehr. See In re Keller, 642 F .2d
413, 426 (CCPA 1981) ("one cannot show non-obviousness by attacking
references individually where ... the rejections are based on combinations
of references"). Appellant similarly presents an unpersuasive attack on
Stoehr individually (see id.) by arguing that the majority of Stoehr describes
speakers that overlay a video screen with audio presented only from one
speaker directly in front of a video-conference participant (see App. Br. 11 ),
but not substantively addressing how a person of ordinary skill would have
understood the combined teachings. Moreover, we are unpersuaded by
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Appellant's arguments that the prior art fails to achieve certain advantages
described in Appellant's Specification, such as reducing background noise,
as those arguments are not commensurate with the scope of Appellant's
claims. See App. Br. 12.
DECISION
For the above reasons, we affirm the Examiner's rejections of claims
1-20.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended. 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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