Ex Parte Grosse-Schulte et al

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 21, 2016

11928251 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Sep. 21, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
111928,251 10/30/2007
115788 7590 09/23/2016
Nuance
c/o Daly, Crowley, Mofford and Durkee, LLP
354A Turnpike Street
Suite 301A
Canton, MA 02021-2714
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Dominik Grosse-Schulte
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.
NUANCE-003PUS/061579USORG 7093
EXAMINER
ADESANYA, OLUJIMI A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2658
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/23/2016 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):
ip.inbox@nuance.com
docketing@dc-m.com
amk@dc-m.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DOMINIK GROSSE-SCHULTE, MOHAMED KRINI, and
GERHARD UWE SCHMIDT
Appeal2015-000121 1
Application 11/928,251
Technology Center 2600
Before JEAN R. HOMERE, NABEEL U. KHAN, and
AMBER L. HAGY, Administrative Patent Judges.
HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1-24, which constitute all of the
claims pending in this appeal. App. Br. 2. We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as Nuance Communications,
Inc. App. Br. 2.
Appeal2015-000121
Application 11/928,251
Appellants' Invention
Appellants' invention is directed to a signal processing method and
system for enhancing the quality of a speech input signal. Spec. i-f 5. In
particular, a noise reduction circuit (110) is utilized to filter out unwanted
noise from the input signal (104), thereby producing a noise reduced signal.
Further, a signal reconstruction circuit (120) extracts from the input speech
signal (104) an excitation portion and a spectral envelope, which are then
combined to reconstruct the input speech signal (104). Id. Subsequently, a
signal combining circuit (140) combines the noise-reduced signal and the
reconstructed speech signal to thereby generate an enhanced speech output
wherein perturbed portions of the noise-reduced signal are replaced with
corresponding portions of the reconstructed speech signal based on the their
respective signal to noise ratios. Id. i-fi-1 19-23.
Illustrative Claim
Independent claim 1 is illustrative, and reads as follows:
1. A method for processing a speech input signal, comprising:
estimating an input-signal-to-noise ratio or a signal-to-
noise ratio of the speech input signal;
generating an excitation signal corresponding to the
speech input signal;
extracting a spectral envelope of the speech input signal;
reconstructing the speech input signal based on the excitation
signal and the extracted spectral envelope;
filtering the speech input signal with a noise reduction
circuit to generate a noise reduced signal; and
replacing perturbed portions of the noise reduced signal
with the corresponding portions of the reconstructed speech
signal based on the input-signal-to-noise ratio or the signal-to-
noise ratio to generate an enhanced speech output signal.
Rejections on Appeal
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Application 11/928,251
Claims 1-3, 6, 10-13, 16, 20-22, and 24 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103 (a) as being unpatentable over the combination ofDreiseitel et
al, "Evaluation of Algorithms for Speech Enhancement" and Tilp "Single-
Channel Noise Reduction with Pitch-Adaptive Post-Filtering."
Claims 5, 15, and 23 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (a) as
being unpatentable over the combination of Dreiseitel, Tilp, and Pyke
"Extrapolation of Wideband Speech From the Telephone Band."
Claims 7-9 and 17-19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (a) as
being unpatentable over the combination of Dreiseitel, Tilp, and
Zakarauskas (US 2005/0222842 Al, published Oct. 6, 2005).
ANALYSIS
We consider Appellants' arguments seriatim, as they are presented in
the Appeal Brief, pages 4--13, and the Reply Brief, pages 2-10.2
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants'
arguments. We are unpersuaded by Appellants' contentions. Except as
otherwise indicated herein below, we adopt as our own the findings and
reasons set forth in the Examiner's Answer in response to Appellants'
Appeal Brief. Ans. 2--49. However, we highlight and address specific
arguments and findings for emphasis as follows.
2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner, we
refer to the Appeal Brief (filed March 4, 2014), the Reply Brief (filed
September 11, 2014) and the Answer (mailed July 11, 2014) for their
respective details. We have considered in this Decision only those
arguments Appellants actually raised in the Briefs. Any other arguments
Appellants could have made but chose not to make in the Briefs are deemed
to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv) (2012).
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Appeal2015-000121
Application 11/928,251
Regarding the rejection of claim 1, Appellants argue that the
combination of Dreiseitel and Tilp does not teach or suggest "replacing
portions of the noise reduced signal with the corresponding portions of the
reconstructed speech signal based on the input-signal-to-noise ratio or the
signal to-noise ratio to generate an enhanced speech output signal." App.
Br. 5-12, Reply Br. 2-9. In particular, Appellants argue Dreiseitel teaches a
bandwidth extension system with a bandpass path and a bandstop path while
Tilp teaches a system having an attenuated highpass path and a lowpass path
filtered with pitch frequency. App. Br. 3. According to Appellants,
Dreiseitel simply extends telephone bandwidth by combining non-
overlapping frequency bands without regards to signal to noise ratio (SNR).
Id. at 7. Likewise, Appellants submit the noise reduction and filtering
disclosed in Tilp merely attenuates noise components below the pitch
frequency and between the harmonics of voiced speech, as opposed to
replacing any portion of a filtered signal. Id. at 8-11. Appellants therefore
submit that because "reconstructing a signal is performed on a signal without
any noise reduction, it would not make sense to reconstruct the signal after
noise reduction in the context of the claimed invention since the signal is
performed due to low SNR." Id. at 12. This argument is not persuasive.
As correctly noted by the Examiner, Appellants' argument is
tantamount to an individual attack against Dreiseitel and Tilp, as opposed to
an argument against the combination thereof. Ans. 30. In particular, we
agree with the Examiner that Dreiseitel' s disclosure of splitting an input
speech into overlapping blocks to thereby filter out unwanted noise
components based on the SNR therein teaches filtering an speech input
signal to generate a noise reduced signal. Ans. 30 (citing Dreiseitel 433).
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Appeal2015-000121
Application 11/928,251
Likewise, we agree with the Examiner that Dreiseitel' s disclosure of
combining the extracted spectral envelope with the excitation portion of the
speech input signal teaches combining complementary portions of the input
signal to produce a reconstructed speech signal. Id. at 32-33 (citing
Dreiseitel, Fig. 11.11 ). Additionally, we agree with the Examiner that Tilp's
disclosure of combining a noise reduced input signal with a reconstructed
input signal wherein the different portions thereof have been weighted to
determine whether the SNR exceeds a predetermined threshold teaches
replacing perturbed portions in the noise reduced signal to produce an
enhanced input signal. Id. at 37-38 (citing Tilp, sec. 2.2, Fig. 2). In other
words, we agree with the Examiner that the proposed combination of
Dreiseitel and Tilp would predictably result in the noise reduced signal and
reconstructed signal covering the same frequency range such that noise
reduced signal portions identified as being perturbed based on their SNR can
be replaced with corresponding ones from the reconstructed signal. Id. at
41--47. Accordingly, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting
claim 1.
Regarding the rejection of claim 2, Appellants argue the Examiner
erred in finding the combination of Dreiseitel and Tilp teaches or suggests
all the limitations recited in the claim. App. Br. 13. This argument is not
persuasive because it fails to identify an error in the Examiner's finding.
Appellants are reminded that merely reciting the claim limitations and
findings relied upon by the Examiner in the rejection is not a responsive
argument. Such a response to the Examiner's findings is insufficient to
persuade us of Examiner error, as mere attorney arguments and conclusory
statements that are unsupported by factual evidence are entitled to little
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Appeal2015-000121
Application 11/928,251
probative value. Jn re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1470 (Fed. Cir. 1997); see
also In re De Blauwe, 736 F.2d 699, 705 (Fed. Cir. 1984); Ex parte Belinne,
No. 2009-004693, slip op. at 7-8 (BPAI Aug. 10, 2009) (informative); see
also In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011) ("[W]e hold that the
Board reasonably interpreted Rule 41.37 to require more substantive
arguments in an appeal brief than a mere recitation of the claim elements and
a naked assertion that the corresponding elements were not found in the
prior art."); cf In re Baxter Travenol Labs., 952 F.2d 388, 391 (Fed. Cir.
1991) ("It is not the function of this court to examine the claims in greater
detail than argued by an appellant, looking for [patentable] distinctions over
the prior art.") Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of claim 2.
Regarding claims 3-24, because Appellants reiterate substantially the
same arguments as those previously discussed for patentability of claims 1,
and 2 above, claims 3-24 fall therewith. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
DECISION
For the above reasons, we affirm the Examiner's rejections of claims
1-24.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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