Ex Parte Naylor

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Feb 28, 2002

08881741 (B.P.A.I. Feb. 28, 2002)

1 Application for patent filed June 24, 1997, entitled
"Apparatus and Method for Continuous Speech Recognition on a
PCMCIA Card."
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The opinion in support of the decision being
entered today was not written for publication
and is not binding precedent of the Board.
_______________
Paper No. 13
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES

Ex parte JOE A. NAYLOR

Appeal No. 1999-2343
Application 08/881,7411

ON BRIEF

Before KRASS, BARRETT, and BARRY, Administrative Patent Judges.
BARRETT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the
final rejection of claims 2-7 and 10-18.
We reverse.
Appeal No. 1999-2343
Application 08/881,741
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BACKGROUND
The disclosed invention relates to a continuous-speech
recognition system implemented on a peripheral PCMCIA card
associated with a personal computer. PCMCIA executable modules
are stored on the personal computer host disk and are downloaded
to the PCMCIA card at run time. This allows the modules to be
easily modified without burning new firmware.
Claim 15 is reproduced below.
15. In a continuous-speech recognition system for the
recognition of words spoken by an individual, including the
steps of receiving input speech data, digitizing the speech
data, and analyzing the speech data by a speech recognition
module which compares the input speech data to previously
obtained templates and generates respective match scores
therefrom, the improvement wherein:
the continuous-speech recognition system is implemented
on a system consisting of a personal computer host with a
peripheral PCMCIA card; and,
PCMCIA executable modules are stored on a host disk
associated with said personal computer host and are
downloaded to said PCMCIA card at run time so that modules
may be easily modified at any time, and wherein PCMCIA
memory is accessible (read and write) by the personal
computer host.
The Examiner relies on the admitted prior art (APA) and on
following reference:
Kuroda et al. (Kuroda) 5,353,377 October 4, 1994
Claims 2-7 and 10-18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Appellant's APA and Kuroda.
Appeal No. 1999-2343
Application 08/881,741
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We refer to the final rejection (Paper No. 4) (pages
referred to as "FR__"), the advisory action (Paper No. 7), and
the examiner's answer (Paper No. 10) (pages referred to as
"EA__") for a complete statement of the Examiner's position, and
to the brief (Paper No. 9) (pages referred to as "Br__") for a
statement of Appellant's arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
The Examiner states that "Appellant's brief includes a
statement that claims 2-7, 10-18 do not stand or fall together
and provides reasons as set forth in 37 CFR 1.192(c)(7) and
(c)(8)" (EA2). However, Appellant clearly states that the claims
stand or fall together (Br4) and does not argue the claims
separately. The claims stand or fall together with claim 15.
The limitation at issue is the following: "PCMCIA
executable modules are stored on a host disk associated with said
personal computer host and are downloaded to said PCMCIA card at
run time so that modules may be easily modified at any time."
The Examiner finds that "Kuroda teaches downloading
executables downloaded from memory and reading and writing
between host memory and PC card memory (abstract, col. 1,
lines 45-62)" (advisory action).
Appellant argue that an "executable" is a program capable of
being executed or run on a computer (Br5). It is argued that
Appeal No. 1999-2343
Application 08/881,741
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Kuroda does not teach downloading executables, but downloads data
which is part of a table of data (Br4-6).
The Examiner does not address the merits of Appellant's
argument. The Examiner finds (EA4-5) that the signal processing
card (SPC) 5 in Kuroda performs specific functions, such as
analog/digital conversion, storing, and vocal analysis, using
software (i.e., "executables"). However, this does not address
the limitation at issue of downloading executable modules, and
doing so at run time. Kuroda discloses that vocal analysis is
performed by signal processor 8 on input data stored in the DSP
(digital signal processor) memory 9 using downloaded probability
value data also stored in DSP 9. We agree with Appellant that
the downloaded probability value data is not executable code, but
is data only, which the Examiner does not appear to contest.
Kuroda does not disclose where the program is stored for
performing the signal analysis, but it is not disclosed to be
downloaded from the main memory 4. Only data is transferred from
the main memory 4 to the DSP memory 9 (col. 3, lines 58-62). The
Examiner has made no argument that it would have been obvious to
download executable code given the teaching of downloading data.
Because Kuroda does not disclose or suggest downloading
executable modules to the card, or doing so at run time, and
because the Examiner has not accounted for these limitations in
the statement of the rejection, the Examiner has failed to
Appeal No. 1999-2343
Application 08/881,741
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establish a prima facie case of obviousness. The rejection of
claims 2-7 and 10-18 is reversed.
REVERSED
ERROL A. KRASS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
LEE E. BARRETT ) APPEALS
Administrative Patent Judge ) AND
) INTERFERENCES
)
)
)
LANCE LEONARD BARRY )
Administrative Patent Judge )
Appeal No. 1999-2343
Application 08/881,741
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Arthur L. Plevy, Esq.
BUCHANAN INGERSOLL, P.C.
College Centre
500 College Road East
Princeton, NJ 08540