Ex Parte Heidasch

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 19, 2016

12953649 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 19, 2016)

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.
12/953,649 11/24/2010 Robert Heidasch 2010P00349US 3865
52025 7590 12/21/2016
SAP SE c/o BUCKLEY, MASCHOFF & TALWALKAR LLC
50 LOCUST AVENUE
NEW CANAAN, CT 06840
EXAMINER
TRUONG, DENNIS
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2169
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/21/2016 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):
martin @ BMTPATENT.COM
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PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ROBERT HEIDASCH
Appeal 2015-002606
Application 12/953,649
Technology Center 2100
Before ERIC S. FRAHM, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and
NATHAN A. ENGELS, Administrative Patent Judges.
FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1—20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Exemplary Claim
Independent claims 1,10, and 16 contain similar features, and
respectively recite a method, computer-readable medium for performing a
method, and system for performing audio information searches using text-
based semantic analysis on audio information that has been operated on by a
speech recognition engine which locates terms of interest (Title; Spec. 1:4—
Appeal 2015-002606
Application 12/953,649
6; claims 1,10, and 16; Abs.). Exemplary independent claim 1 under
appeal, with emphasis on the disputed portion of the claim, reads as follows
1. A method implemented by a computing system in
response to execution of program code by a processor of the
computing system, the method comprising:
receiving, from a remote user, a search query including at
least one search term; receiving audio information at a speech
recognition engine;
automatically creating by the speech recognition engine:
(i) a text transcript representing the audio information, the text
transcript including bold lettering of terms determined to be of
interest to the user based on the at least one search term, and (ii)
meta-data associated with the audio information, the meta-data
including a term index;
automatically performing a textual-based semantic
analysis for the audio information, the textual-based semantic
analysis being based at least in part on a terminology repository
and at least one of the text transcript or the meta-data, wherein
the terminology repository includes information imported from
an external terminology registry;
automatically storing time offset information associated
with the audio information, the time offset information
representing a sentence offset beginning point where a sentence
containing the at least one search term begins; and
storing a result of the semantic analysis in a semantic
index in relation to a record of the audio information.
Examiner’s Rejections
(1) The Examiner rejected claims 1—4, 6—8, 10—13, and 16—20 as
being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over McCusker et al. (US
2008/0033986 Al; published Feb. 7, 2008), English et al. (US
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Application 12/953,649
2011/0060751 Al; published Mar. 10, 2011), and Agrawal (US
2007/0124298 Al; published May 31, 2007).1 Final Act. 2—19.
(2) The Examiner rejected claims 5,9, 14, and 15 as being
unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over McCusker, English, Agrawal,
and Yurick et al. (US 2008/0270344 Al; published Oct. 30, 2008).2 Final
Act. 19-22.
Principal Issue on Appeal
Based on Appellant’s arguments (App. Br. 6—11; Reply Br. 2-4), the
following principal issue is presented:
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 1—20 as being obvious over
the base combination of McCusker, English, and Agrawal because the base
combination fails to teach or suggest “automatically storing time offset
information associated with the audio information, the time offset
information representing a sentence offset beginning point where a sentence
1 Separate patentability is not argued for claims 2-4, 6—8, 11—13, and 17—20,
and Appellant relies on the arguments presented for independent claim 1 as
to the patentability of dependent claims 2-4, 6—8, 11—13, and 17—20 (see
App. Br. 9). Independent claims 1,10, and 16 recite similar subject matter,
namely. We select independent claim 1 as representative of the group of
claims rejected over McCusker, English, and Agrawal (claims 1—4, 6—8, 11—
13, and 17—20). Accordingly, our analysis herein of this rejection will only
address representative claim 1.
2 Appellant argues dependent claims 5, 9, 14, and 15 for the same reasons as
independent claims 1 and 10 from which claims ultimately depend, and also
argues that Yurick fails to cure the deficiencies of the base combination as to
claims 1 and 10. Accordingly, our conclusion as to the obviousness of
claims 5, 9, 14, and 15 stands/falls with our conclusion as to claims 1 and
10, which stands/falls with the result for representative claim 1. We will not
further address this rejection in our analysis herein.
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Application 12/953,649
containing the at least one search term begins,” as recited in representative
independent claim 1, and as similarly recited in remaining claims 2—20?
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection (Final Act. 2—22) in light
of Appellant’s contentions in the Appeal Brief (App. Br. 6—11) and the
Reply Brief (Reply Br. 2-4) that the Examiner has erred, as well as the
Examiner’s response to Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal Brief (Ans. 2—
3). We disagree with Appellant’s arguments. With regard to representative
claim 1, we adopt as our own (1) the findings and reasons set forth by the
Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 2—5), and
(2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in
response to Appellant’s Appeal Brief (see Ans. 2—3). We concur with the
conclusion of obviousness reached by the Examiner.
The Examiner has provided a factual basis and articulated reasoning
with a rational underpinning to support the conclusion of obviousness with
regard to representative independent claim 1 (see Final Act. 2—5; Ans. 2—3).
SeeKSR Inti Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007). We agree with
the Examiner (Ans. 2—3), and Appellant has not refuted in the Reply Brief
with evidence or argument, that McCusker discloses storing index data,
encoded media, and recording records in database 34, storage 32, and/or
index storage 24 (Ans. 2) and automatically storing starting points and time
offsets (Ans. 3 citing Agrawal 132). The Examiner relies on Agrawal for
the missing piece {id.), which is a disclosure of automatically storing time
offset information as recited in claim 1.
The Examiner relies (Final Act. 5; Ans. 3) upon paragraph 32 of
Agrawal as teaching or suggesting the disputed limitation of automatically
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Application 12/953,649
storing time offset information. We agree with the Examiner’s
determination that paragraph 32 meets the recited limitation, because
paragraph 32 also discloses supplemental icons to allow users to select time
offsets representing contextual offsets and sentence beginning points where
a contextual sentence containing a search term begins. We agree with the
Examiner that,
[A]s disclosed in paragraph [0032], instead of indicating the
time offset of where “Katrina” was found, it can also indicate
the beginning of a sentence, paragraph or segment in which the
term appears. Therefore the combination of Agrawal and
McCusker teaches automatically storing time offset information
that represents the beginning point of a sentence containing the
search term in the audio information as recited in independent
claims 1, 10 and 16
(Ans. 3). Specifically, we find that paragraph describes supplemental icons
that are stored for later use by a user to select a desired offset (i.e., the
sentence offset is automatically stored):
Alternatively, the host may return information describing
potential beginnings so that the user may select when the
content will begin. For example, a client may render a
supplemental icon configured to let the user select whether (1)
a preceding 10 seconds of contextual information, (2) the
beginning of a sentence of contextual information, (3) the
beginning of a paragraph of contextual information, or (4) the
beginning of a segment of contextual information should be
used.
Agrawal |32, lines 12—20 (emphases added).
Therefore, Appellant’s arguments (App. Br. 7—9; Reply Br. 2—3) that
the combination of references fails to disclose or suggest automatically
storing time offset information, and Agrawal’s multi-occurrence icons 310
and 320 disclosed in Agrawal’s paragraphs 26 and 32 do not meet this
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limitation (and simply render content in context at a user specified time
offset) are not persuasive.
In view of the foregoing, Appellant has not sufficiently shown that the
Examiner erred in rejecting representative independent claim 1, as well as
claims 2—4, 6—8, 10-13, and 16—20 grouped therewith, under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over the combination of McCusker, English, and
Agrawal. For similar reasons, Appellant has not sufficiently shown that the
Examiner erred in rejecting remaining dependent claims 5, 9, 14, and 15
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over the combination of McCusker, English,
Agrawal, and Yurick.3 Therefore, we sustain both of the obviousness
rejections before us.
CONCLUSIONS
(1) In rejecting claims 1—4, 6—8, 10-13, and 16—20, the Examiner did
not err in determining that the combination of McCusker, English, and
Agrawal teaches or suggests “automatically storing time offset information
associated with the audio information, the time offset information
representing a sentence offset beginning point where a sentence containing
the at least one search term begins,” as recited in representative independent
claim 1.
(2) Appellant has not sufficiently shown that the Examiner erred in
rejecting claims 5, 9, 14, and 15 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §
103(a) over McCusker, English, Agrawal, and Yurick.
3 See supra Decision 3, fn. 2.
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Application 12/953,649
DECISION
The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
are affirmed.
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). See 37 C.F.R.
§§ 41.50(f), 41.52(b) (2013).
AFFIRMED
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