Ex Parte Melanson et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 10, 2018

14247771 (P.T.A.B. May. 10, 2018)

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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).
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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
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