Ex Parte Suzuki et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Nov 24, 2009

10844032 (B.P.A.I. Nov. 24, 2009)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
_____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
_____________

Ex parte RYUJI SUZUKI, MICHIE SATO, RYUICHI TANAKA,
TSUTOMU SHOJI, and NOBORU SHUHAMA
_____________

Appeal 2009-0021231
Application 10/844,032
Technology Center 2600
______________

Decided: November 24, 2009
_______________

Before KENNETH W. HAIRSTON, JOHN C. MARTIN, and
ROBERT E. NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judges.

MARTIN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

1 The real party in interest is Sony Corporation.

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejections of claims 2-11, which are all of the pending claims.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm.

A. Appellants’ invention
Appellants’ invention is a speaker system that enables “efficient
dispersion of intelligible sound far in all directions from a specific point
along a certain planar direction.” Specification 2:11-14.
Figure 1 is reproduced below.

Figure 1 is a perspective view of an exterior appearance of a speaker
system according to an embodiment of the invention. Id. at 4:7-9. As
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shown in this figure, the speaker system 1 has a cover member 2, a holding
member 3, a speaker 15, and a speaker box 20. Id. at 5:8-11.
Figure 3 is reproduced below.

Figure 3 is a cross-sectional view of the internal structure of a speaker
system according to an embodiment of Appellants’ invention (id. at 4:12-
14),
minus the cover 2. The sound waves produced by speaker 15 are reflected
or directed by the bottom surface 3f of holding member 3 and the top surface
21f of speaker box 20. Id. at 10:12-21. A disk-shaped printed circuit board
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30 that is normally hidden by cover 2 is provided with a plurality of
directional microphones 40. Id. at 6:5-7.
Figure 4 is reproduced below.

Figure 4 is a view showing the positional relationship between a
reflective surface of a holding member side and a reflective surface of a
speaker box side. Id. at 4:15-17.
Appellants’ Specification explains that “[i]n the above embodiment,
the reflective surface 3f and the reflective surface 21f were both curved
surfaces, however, either the reflective surface 3f or the reflective surface
21f may be a flat surface as well.” Id. at 15:23 to 16:2. We understand the
term “flat surface” to mean a surface that would appear as a straight line in a
view like that presented in Figure 4. However, the claims before us require
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that both of these reflective surface (recited as “sound directing” surfaces) be
curved.

B. The claims
The sole independent claim before us is claim 2, which reads:
2. A speaker system comprising:
a first sound directing surface including a concave
contour portion perpendicular to a center axis of a speaker and a
flat peripheral portion extending to the end of the concave
contour portion, facing the direction of output of sound from
said speaker;
a second sound directing surface including a curved
contour and arranged facing said first sound directing surface to
direct sound in a direction perpendicular to the center axis of
the sound output direction of the speaker by cooperating with
the first sound directing surface; and
a speaker mounted on the second sound directing surface.
Claims App. to Brief.

C. The references
The Examiner relies on the following references:
Queen US 5,359,158 Oct. 25, 1994
Chu et al. (“Chu”) US 5,787,183 Jul. 28, 1998
Tsuji et al. (“Tsuji”) US 2003/0059061 A1 Mar. 27, 2003
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D. The rejections2
Claims 2-7 and 11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for
obviousness over Tsuji in view of Queen. Final Action 6.
Claims 8-10 stand rejected under § 103(a) for obviousness over Tsuji
in view of Queen and Chu. Id. at 9.

THE ISSUES
Appellants have the burden on appeal to show reversible error by the
Examiner in maintaining the rejection. See In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 985-
86 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (“On appeal to the Board, an applicant can overcome a
rejection by showing insufficient evidence of prima facie obviousness or by
rebutting the prima facie case with evidence of secondary indicia of
nonobviousness.” (citation omitted)).
The principal issue before us is whether Appellants have shown that
the Examiner erred in finding that Queen’s curved surfaces 22 and 24 “direct
sound in a direction perpendicular to the center axis of the sound output
direction of the speaker,” as required by claim 2.

ANALYSIS
Tsuji discloses an audio input and output unit for use in a remote
conference system, such as a videoconferencing system. Tsuji ¶ 0002.

2 A rejection of claims 2-7 and 11 for obviousness over Tsuji (Final
Action 2) and a rejection of claims 8-10 for obviousness over Tsuji in view
(Continued on next page.)
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Figure 5 of Tsuji is reproduced below.

Figure 5 is a front view showing, partly in a cross-sectional fashion,
an outward appearance of a microphone/speaker portion of an audio input
and output unit employing Tsuji’s invention. Id. at ¶ 0071. This figure
shows a speaker 6 facing in the upward direction (id. at ¶ 0093) and a
reflective plate 4 of circular cone shape (id. at ¶ 0094). Sounds upwardly
outputted from the speaker 6 are reflected in the horizontal direction by the
reflective plate 4. Id. at ¶ 0137. The audio input and output unit also

of Chu (id. at 4) were withdrawn at page 3 of the Answer.
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includes microphones 1a-1d, of which only 1a-1c are shown in this figure.
Id. at ¶ 0104.
Appellants note that in “Tsuji, the object is to direct sound
perpendicularly outwardly from the center axis.” (Br. 11.)
The Examiner reads the recited “first sound directing surface” on
surface 4 and the recited “second sound directing surface” on the
unnumbered top surface of cylindrical enclosure 5, which houses the
speaker, while conceding that neither of these surfaces has the claimed
curved shape. Final Action 6-7.
For a teaching of using curved surfaces, the Examiner relies on
Queen, which discloses a ceiling-mounted loudspeaker that provides a wide
angle of uniform sound coverage over the planned listening area. Queen,
col. 1, ll. 8-11.
Figure 2 of Queen is reproduced below.
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Figure 2 is a sectional view taken approximately along the line 2--2 of
Figure 1, which is an isometric view of a ceiling-mounted loudspeaker
according to Queen’s invention. Id. at col. 3, ll. 47-50.
“The upper structure 12 defines a wall 22 for restricting the
propagation of sound energy upwardly in the axial direction, while the lower
structure 14 defines a wall 24 for restricting the propagation of sound energy
in the downward axial direction.” Id. at col. 4, ll. 7-11 (bolding omitted).
Appellants’ arguments (Reply Br. 2) to the contrary notwithstanding, we
agree with the Examiner that the term “restricting” in this sentence means
“restricting from,” i.e., “preventing.” See Answer 9 (“[S]ince the sound is
restricted from propagating ‘upwardly’ and ‘downwardly’ in the axial
direction, the sound is traveling perpendicular to the axis of the speaker.”).

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Queen’s walls 22 and 24 define a passageway 26 that “extend[s] 360
degrees about the vertical axis to direct the flow of sound energy outwardly
from the vertical axis.” Id. at col. 4, ll. 11-14.
As illustrated by Figure 2, the passageway 26 “radiates sound energy
frequencies above the horn cutoff frequency radially from the horn at a wide
coverage angle from the centerline vertical axis of the loudspeaker.” Id. at
col. 4, ll. 24-28. In addition, the sound path for at least some of the sound
energy emerging from the passageway outlet mouth 26b “continues, by
diffraction, around the bottom wall 80 of the enclosure 90 toward the
vertical axis (that is, directly below the loudspeaker 10).” Id. at col. 5, ll. 54-
59 (bolding omitted).
The Examiner concluded that “one of ordinary skill in the art would
have found it obvious to substitute [i.e., replace] a radial horn formed by flat
sides with a radial horn formed by curved sides to direct the propagation of
sound from the speaker.” Final Action 8. Appellants do not deny that it
would have been obvious to combine the teachings of Tsuji and Queen in
this manner.3 Instead, Appellants argue that the combined teachings of
Queen and Tsuji will not satisfy claim 2 because Queen’s curved reflecting
surfaces do not “direct sound in a direction perpendicular to the center axis

3 It is therefore unnecessary to address the Examiner’s “art-recognized
equivalents” rationale for making that combination (Final Action 8) or the
Examiner’s reliance on Appellants’ disclosed alternative (Specification
15:23 to 16:2) of replacing either of the curved directing surfaces with a flat
directing surface. Final Action 7.
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of the sound output direction of the speaker,” as claimed. (Br. 11.)
Specifically, Appellants (quoting Queen, column 6, line 8) argue that “the
bottom surface [in Queen] is shaped ‘so that the convex bottom acts as a
downwardly-directed diffractor.[’]” (Br. 11.) We agree with the Examiner
(Answer 9-10) that Appellants’ reliance on the diffraction provided by the
bottom surface 80 is misplaced. Although surface 80 causes some sound
energy to be diffracted downwardly rather than in a direction perpendicular
to the speaker’s center axis, the Examiner is not reading either of the claimed
first and second sound directing surfaces on Queen’s surface 80, and claim 2
does not require that all of the sound energy emitted by the speaker be
directed in a direction perpendicular to the speaker’s center axis. It is clear
from Figure 2 that curved surfaces 22 and 24 (on which the Examiner reads
the recited first and second sound directing surfaces) cooperate to direct
some of the sound energy emitted by the speaker in the claimed direction.
Because Appellants have not shown error in the Examiner’s finding
that Queen’s curved surfaces 22 and 24 direct sound in a direction
perpendicular to the center axis of the sound output direction of the speaker,
we are affirming the rejection of claim 2 for obviousness over Tsuji in view
of Queen.
This ground of rejection is also affirmed with respect to dependent
claims 3-7 and 11, which are not separately argued. In re Nielson, 816 F.2d
1567, 1572 (Fed. Cir. 1987). Appellants’ mere observation that “claim 3
(similarly, claims 6 and 9) recite, ‘the distance between said first sound
directing surface and said second sound directing surface increases
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continuously along the position from the center axis of said speaker to the
end of the surfaces’” (Br. 12) does not amount to a separate argument for
patentability. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (2008) (“A statement which
merely points out what a claim recites will not be considered an argument
for separate patentability of the claim.”).
The rejection of dependent claims 8-10 for obviousness over Tsuji in
view of Queen and Chu, which ground of rejection is not separately argued
in the Brief, is also affirmed. Nielson, 816 F.2d at 1572.

DECISION
The rejection of claims 2-7 and 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for
obviousness over Tsuji in view of Queen is affirmed.
The rejection of claims 8-10 under § 103(a) for obviousness over
Tsuji in view of Queen and Chu is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED

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