Ex Parte Maes

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Feb 19, 2008

09545078 (B.P.A.I. Feb. 19, 2008)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
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Ex parte STEPHANE H. MAES
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Appeal 2007-1973
Application 09/545,078
Technology Center 2100
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Decided: February 19, 2008
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Before KENNETH W. HAIRSTON, LANCE LEONARD BARRY, and
MAHSHID D. SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judges.

HAIRSTON, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. §§ 6(b) and 134 from the final
rejection of claims 1, 3 to 15, 17 to 191, 21 to 23, 25 to 34, 36, and 37.
Claim 1 is representative of the claimed invention, and it reads as
follows:

1 Claims 17 to 19 improperly depend from canceled claim 16.
Appeal 2007-1973
Application 09/545,078

1. A conversational portal system, comprising:
a computing system comprising a conversational browser to provide a
user interface that adapts an interaction dialog between the conversational
portal system and a client according to one [sic] more modalities supported
by the client, and wherein the conversational browser can retrieve one or
more pages from an information source in response to a request from the
client and serve or present the retrieved pages to the client in at least one
format that is compatible with the one or more modalities supported by the
client, wherein the at least one format comprises a multi-modal format that
can be rendered in two or more synchronized modalities,
an audio indexing system for segmenting and indexing audio and
multimedia data obtained from an information source; and
a multimedia database for storing the indexed audio and multimedia
data,
wherein the conversational portal maintains, for a registered
subscriber, a program comprising user-selected multimedia segments in the
multimedia database to provide a multimedia broadcast on demand service
to the registered subscriber.
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Cobbley US 5,614,940 Mar. 25, 1997

Saylor US 6,501,832 B1 Dec. 31, 2002
(filed Aug. 26, 1999)
Cohen US 6,859,776 B1 Feb. 22, 2005
(filed Oct. 4, 1999)
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Application 09/545,078

The Examiner rejected claims 1, 3 to 15, 17 to 19, 21 to 23, 25 to 34,
36, and 37 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Saylor,
Cohen, and Cobbley.
The Examiner acknowledges that Saylor does not teach an
“information (‘page’) that can be rendered in two modalities” (Final
Rejection 3). Presumably, the Examiner meant a page “rendered in two or
more synchronized modalities” as set forth in all of the claims on appeal
(emphasis added). According to the Examiner, “Cohen teaches a page
configure[d] with two modalities, specifically, both graphical and voice data
(col 10/lines 39-55) or configured with format supporting both voice and
data (col 9/lines 32-43), associated with a browser configured to rendered
[sic] respective two modalities (col 9/lines 10-25)” (Final Rejection 3). The
Examiner is of the opinion that it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art to provide Saylor with the ability to gain access to
“web pages having two modalities” as taught by Cohen (Final Rejection 3
and 4).
Appellant contends inter alia that “there is a stark difference in
functionality of providing hypertext lines in speech or audio to fetch content
pages as taught by Cohen, and multi-modal documents that can be rendered
by a conversational browser in two or more synchronized modalities” (Br.
11). Thus, the Appellant reached the conclusion that “the Examiner has not
explained with legal sufficiency how Cohen suggest[s] a ‘conversational
browser’ capable of processing a multi-modal pages [sic] that can be
rendered in two or more synchronized modalities” (Br. 11).
In response to Appellant’s argument, the Examiner stated that in
Cohen “[s]uch a page is configured to provide either graphical data, voice
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Application 09/545,078

data, or both, depending upon the type of equipment that accesses it” (Ans.
12).
In reply to the Examiner’s explanation, the Appellant reiterated that
the claims on appeal are directed to a multi-modal format “rendered in two
or more synchronized modalities” (Reply Br. 4).
The reference to Cohen describes a browser controller 102 in a voice-
enabled browser 10 that permits spoken dialog between a person and a
speech-enabled site with speech recognition capability (Figures 1A and 1B;
Abstract; col. 3, ll. 37 to 40; col. 4, ll. 23 to 34; col. 5, ll. 20 and 21). Based
upon such a dialog, the browser 10 operates as a conversational browser.
Cohen states that the browser controller 102 can operate in conjunction with
IP telephony protocols for “simultaneous transmission of both voice and
digital data” in the dialog between the person and the speech-enabled site
(col. 9, ll. 35 and 36) (emphasis added). Thus, we agree with the Examiner
that the accessed page in Cohen would provide “both” graphical data and
voice data during the on-going dialog (col. 10, ll. 41 to 43). In other words,
the page in Cohen would be “rendered in two or more synchronized
modalities” as set forth in the claims on appeal.
Turning next to Appellant’s argument that Saylor does not teach a
“modality-independent” format because it does not describe a page that can
be “rendered in one or more modalities (synchronized) supported by the
access device,” we find that Cohen describes such a “modality-independent
format” as set forth in claims 3 and 25 (Br. 13).

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Application 09/545,078

In summary, the obviousness rejection of claims 1, 3 to 15, 17 to 19,
21 to 23, 25 to 34, 36, and 37 is sustained because the Examiner’s articulated
reasoning in the rejection does support a legal conclusion of obviousness.
KSR Int’l v. Teleflex, Inc., 127 S. Ct. 1727, 1741 (2007).
The decision of the Examiner is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 CFR § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
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Application 09/545,078

AFFIRMED

eld

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