Ex Parte Melanson et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 10, 201814247771 (P.T.A.B. May. 10, 2018) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 14/247,771 04/08/2014 115799 7590 05/10/2018 Cirrus Logic c/o Jackson Walker LLP c/o Jackson Walker, L.L.P. 100 Congress A venue Suite 1100 Austin, TX 78701 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR John L. Melanson 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. 141841.00097 4741 EXAMINER SNIEZEK, ANDREW L ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2688 MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE 05/10/2018 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 JOHN L. MELANSON and JOHN C. TUCKER Appeal2018-000371 Application 14/247,771 1 Technology Center 2600 Before JOHN A. EVANS, LINZY T. McCARTNEY, and JAMES W. DEJMEK, Administrative Patent Judges. DEJMEK, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1-5, 11, 12, 14--16, 22, 23, 25-27, 33, 34, and 36-41. The Examiner has objected to claims 6-10, 13, 17-21, 24, 28-32, and 35 as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but has indicated the claims would be allowable if rewritten in independent form. Final Act. 6-7. We have jurisdiction over the remaining pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We affirm. 1 Appellants identify Cirrus Logic, Inc. as the real party in interest. App. Br. 2. Appeal2018-000371 Application 14/24 7, 771 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellants' disclosed and claimed invention is directed to "compressing a digital signal in a digital microphone system." Spec. 1: 10. Claims 1 and 11 are representative of the subject matter on appeal and are reproduced below with the disputed limitations emphasized in italics: 1. A digital microphone system comprising: a microphone transducer configured to generate an analog input signal indicative of audio sounds incident upon the microphone transducer; a digital processing system configured to: convert the analog input signal into a first digital signal having a plurality of quantization levels; and in the digital domain, process the first digital signal to compress the first digital signal into a second digital signal having fewer quantization levels than that of the first digital signal, such that a third digital signal equivalent to the first digital signal can be reconstructed from the second digital signal. 11. A system comprising: a microphone transducer configured to generate an analog input signal indicative of audio sounds incident upon the microphone transducer; and a digital processing system configured to convert the analog input signal into a digital signal having a plurality of quantization levels, such that each quantization level is represented by one or more transitions or one or more absences of transitions of one or more bits of the digital signal during a sampling period of the digital signal. 2 Appeal2018-000371 Application 14/24 7, 771 The Examiner's Rejections 1. Claims 1-5, 14--16, 25-27, 37, 39, and 41 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kong (US 2010/0057474 Al; Mar. 4, 2010) and Chang et al. (US 8,396,230 B2; Mar. 12, 2013) ("Chang"). Final Act. 3--4. 2. Claims 36, 38, and 40 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kong, Chang, and Examiner's Official Notice. Final Act. 4--5. 3. Claims 11, 12, 22, 23, 33, and 34 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(l) as being anticipated by Poulsen (US 2007/0127761 Al; June 7, 2007). Final Act. 5. ANALYSIS 2 Rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103 Appellants assert the Examiner's proposed combination of Kong and Chang fails to teach or suggest compressing a first digital signal into a second digital signal having fewer quantization levels than the first digital signal, "such that a third digital signal equivalent to the first digital signal can be reconstructed from the second digital signal." App. Br. 7-10; Reply Br. 2--4. In particular, Appellants argue the compression taught by Kong (i.e., compressing a first digital signal into a second digital signal having fewer quantization levels than the first digital signal) involves data loss, 2 Throughout this Decision, we have considered the Appeal Brief, filed June 9, 2017 ("App. Br."); the Reply Brief, filed October 12, 2017 ("Reply Br."); the Examiner's Answer, mailed August 16, 2017 ("Ans."); and the Final Office Action, mailed January 13, 2017 ("Final Act."), from which this Appeal is taken. 3 Appeal2018-000371 Application 14/24 7, 771 which precludes a third digital signal to be reconstructed from the second digital signal that is "equivalent" to the first digital signal. App. Br. 7-1 O; Reply Br. 2--4. Further, Appellants contend Chang cannot restore a signal to its original signal using an up-conversion process because data has already been lost in the compression performed by Kong. App. Br. 9. Appellants rely on a dictionary definition for the term "equivalent" as meaning "[ e ]qual in value, amount, function, meaning, etc." 3 App. Br. 8-9 (citing Oxford dictionaries); Reply Br. 2-3. When construing claim terminology during prosecution before the Office, claims are to be given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the Specification, reading claim language in light of the Specification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). We are mindful, however, that limitations are not to be read into the claims from the Specification. In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 1184 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Because "applicants may amend claims to narrow their scope, a broad construction during prosecution creates no unfairness to the applicant or patentee." In re ICON Health and Fitness, Inc., 496 F.3d 1374, 1379 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citation omitted). As an initial matter, we note the term "equivalent" does not appear in Appellants' Specification. Rather, when describing the reconstruction 3 We note that in the definition of equivalent provided by Appellants (see Non-Patent Literature ("NPL") (filed Oct. 25, 2016)), a sentence is provided for the proposed definition: "one unit is equivalent to one glass of wine." Thus, it is clear that for items to be "equivalent," they need not be equal in all aspects. In the same document, an additional definition of "[h ]aving the same or similar effect as" is also provided. See NPL 1. 4 Appeal2018-000371 Application 14/24 7, 771 process, the Specification states the second (compressed) digital signal may be received by a receiver and a (third) digital signal may be reconstructed from the second digital signal having "the same number of quantization levels as [the] first digital signal." Spec. 10:4--7. The claims do not recite that the compression is performed without a loss of data. See Ans. 3. Additionally, Appellants do not identify support within the Specification that the reconstructed (third) digital signal must be equal in value, amount, function, meaning, etc., to the first digital signal. Thus, Appellants' proposed construction is not consistent with the Specification. Rather, consistent with the Specification, if the reconstructed third digital signal is corresponding in effect or function to the first digital signal, the signals are equivalent. The Examiner finds, and we agree, Chang teaches "that previously compressed signals can be reconverted by the use of [an] up-converter arrangement so that processed audio can be placed back in an original format." Final Act. 3. In other words, the reconverted, or reconstructed signal corresponds in effect or function to the original signal. Appellants concede the Examiner's proposed combination may teach a third signal that is "an approximation of the original, uncompressed signal" (App. Br. 9), but do not assert the reconstructed signal differs in effect or function. Accordingly, the Examiner has shown by a preponderance of evidence that the proposed combination of Kong and Chang teaches or reasonably suggests "that a third digital signal equivalent to the first digital signal can be reconstructed from the second digital signal," as recited in independent claims 1, 14, and25. 5 Appeal2018-000371 Application 14/24 7, 771 To the extent Appellants argue the Examiner's proposed combination of Kong is improper because Kong teaches away from the proposed combination or there is no motivation to combine the references (see App. Br. 7-8), we disagree. "A reference may be said to teach away when a person of ordinary skill, upon reading the reference, would be discouraged from following the path set out in the reference, or would be led in a direction divergent from the path that was taken by the applicant." Ricoh Co., Ltd. v. Quanta Computer, Inc., 550 F.3d 1325, 1332 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (citations omitted). "[T]he 'mere disclosure of more than one alternative' does not amount to teaching away from one of the alternatives where the reference does not 'criticize, discredit, or otherwise discourage the solution claimed."' SightSound Techs., LLC v. Apple Inc., 809 F.3d 1307, 1320 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (quoting In re Fulton, 391F.3d1195, 1201 (Fed. Cir. 2004)). Here, Appellants do not provide adequate support for their contention that Kong "explicitly teaches away from the modification and combination being suggested by the Examiner." See App. Br. 8. Nor do Appellants provide sufficient persuasive evidence or reasoning that an ordinarily skilled artisan would be discouraged from the Examiner's proposed combination. Rather, the Examiner determines that one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Chang's up-conversion audio processing to reconstruct predictably the audio signals of Kong after the decimation process "so that processed audio can be placed back in an original format." Final Act. 3. Contrary to Appellants' assertions, the Examiner has set forth "some articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness." In re Kahn, 441F.3d977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 6 Appeal2018-000371 Application 14/24 7, 771 2006) (cited with approval in KSR Int 'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007)). For the reasons discussed supra, we are unpersuaded of Examiner error. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of independent claims 1, 14, and 25, argued collectively. See App. Br. 7-10. Additionally, we sustain the Examiner's rejections of claims 2-5, 15, 16, 26, 27, and 36- 41, which depend directly or indirectly therefrom and were not argued separately. See App. Br. 10; see also 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv)(2016). Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102 Appellants assert Poulsen does not anticipate, inter alia, claim 11 because Poulson fails to disclose the quantization levels are each "represented by one or more transitions or one or more absences of transitions of one or more bits of the digital signal." App. Br. 10-12; Reply Br. 5-6. In particular, Appellants argue the quantization levels in Poulsen are encoded by the levels of the bits, rather than by the transitions (or lack thereof) between levels. App. Br. 11; Reply Br. 5-6. Appellants posit Poulsen discloses that the same resulting quantization level may result under a scenario where both bits (in a two-bit encoder scenario) transition or when neither bit transitions. App. Br. 11 (referring to Poulsen i-f 40). Therefore, Appellants assert, Poulsen cannot disclose each quantization level is represented by one or more transitions or one or more absences of transitions of one or more bits of the digital signal. App. Br. 11. Appellants' arguments do not apprise us of Examiner error. As broadly recited in the claims (see, e.g., claim 11 ), a quantization level is represented by one or more bits of the digital signal either transitioning or 7 Appeal2018-000371 Application 14/24 7, 771 not transitioning during a sample period. We agree with the Examiner (see Final Act. 5; Ans. 4) that Poulsen at least discloses quantization levels represented by bits of a digital signal that are not transitioning during a sample period (i.e., "one or more absences of transitions"). Additionally, to the extent Appellants contend the same quantization level of Poulsen can be represented by different bit transition scenarios (e.g., quantization level {00} is represented by: (i) both bits transitioning from a quantization level represented by { 11}; or (ii) one bit transitioning from a quantization level represented by { 01} ), we are unpersuaded of Examiner error. There is no requirement that the quantization levels are uniquely obtained by a determined transition or absence of transition of particular bits. For the reasons discussed supra, we are unpersuaded of Examiner error. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of independent claims 11, 22, and 33, argued collectively. See App. Br. 10-12. Additionally, we sustain the Examiner's rejections of claims 12, 23, and 34, which depend directly or indirectly therefrom and were not argued separately. See App. Br. 12; see also 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). DECISION We affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-5, 14--16, 25- 27, and 36-41under35 U.S.C. § 103. We affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 11, 12, 22, 23, 33, and 34 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(l). 8 Appeal2018-000371 Application 14/24 7, 771 No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(f). AFFIRMED 9 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation