Ex Parte Zhu et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 17, 2014

11113852 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 17, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte LIZHONG ZHU, GEORGE MANKARUSE, and
MICHAEL CORRIGAN
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Appeal 2011-012704
Application1 11/113,852
Technology Center 2600
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Before DONALD E. ADAMS, JEFFREY N. FREDMAN, and
ULRIKE W. JENKS, Administrative Patent Judges.

JENKS, Administrative Patent Judge

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 involving claims directed to a
speaker system resistant to radio frequency electromagnetic interference
using an operational amplifier filter in the circuit board. The Examiner has
rejected the claims as obvious. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

1 Appellants identify Research In Motion Limited as the Real Party in
Interest (App. Br. 1).
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Claims 1, 2, 4-12, 14-18, and 20-22 are on appeal, and can be found in
the Claims Appendix of the Appeal Brief. Claim 1 is illustrative of the
claims on appeal, and reads as follows:

1. A speaker system resistant to RF [radio frequency]
electromagnetic interference produced from a nearby mobile
wireless communications device comprising:
a speaker housing that is sized for desktop use with a
personal computer;
an audio transducer carried by the speaker housing;
a circuit board carried by the speaker housing and having
audio circuitry mounted thereon and operative with the audio
transducer, said audio circuitry including a power amplifier
having left and right channel inputs for receiving and
amplifying a respective audio signal; and
a respective RF filter coupled to each of said left and
right channel inputs to reduce the RF electromagnetic
interference produced by the nearby mobile wireless
communications device;
said audio circuitry further comprising an operational
amplifier operative as a preamplifier with said power amplifier
for receiving and amplifying audio signals to the power
amplifier, said operational amplifier including a voltage rail,
left and right operational amplifier channel inputs coupled to
said voltage rail and a feedback line coupled to said left and
right operational amplifier channel inputs, and including an
operational amplifier RF filter coupled to one of at least said
voltage rail, each of said left and right operational amplifier
channel inputs, and said feedback line of said operational
amplifier.
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The following grounds of rejection are before us for review:
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 7-12, 14-18, and 20-22 under
35 U.S.C. §103(a) as obvious over the Mancini2 in view of the Advanic.3
The Examiner rejected claim 6 under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as obvious
over the Mancini in view of Advanic in further view of Böhnke.4

OBVIOUSNESS OVER MANCINI AND ADVANIC
The issue is whether it “[w]ould [] have been obvious to use the
operational amplifier based RF interference reduction audio amplifier of
Mancini in a USB speaker since Advanic teaches a USB speaker with an RF
interference reduction audio amplifier?” (Ans. 10).
After considering the evidence and the arguments, we conclude the
evidence favors the Examiner’s conclusion of obviousness. Accordingly, we
adopt the Examiner’s reasoning (see Grounds of Rejection, Ans. 4-9), and
agree that the Examiner properly found Appellants’ arguments unpersuasive
(see Response to Argument, Ans. 10-19). We provide the following points
for emphasis.
Appellants contend that the Mancini reference presents “disjoint[ed]
and mutually exclusive teachings” (App. Br. 12, see also 11, 13).
We are not persuaded.
Any judgment on obviousness is . . . necessarily a
reconstruction based upon hindsight reasoning, but so long as it
takes into account only knowledge which was within the level

2 Ron Mancini, OP AMPS FOR EVERYONE, Design Reference, Texas
Instruments (2002).
3 Advan, Product No. AD82550 Stereo Digital Audio Amplifier with
Headphone Driver, Advanic Technologies, Inc. (Jan 2005).
4 Böhnke, US 6,546,107 B1, issued Apr. 8, 2003.
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of ordinary skill at the time the claimed invention was made
and does not include knowledge gleaned only from applicant’s
disclosure, such a reconstruction is proper.
In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392, 1395 (CCPA 1971).
We agree with the Examiner’s position that “Mancini teaches various
methods for implementing operational amplifiers, especially in audio
amplifiers; however, appellant provides no basis supporting the contention
that the various sections of Mancini are ‘independent’, ‘mutually exclusive’,
and ‘disjoint’.” (Ans. 11.) Here, Appellants do not identify elements that
are not taught by the cited references. Accordingly, we interpret this to
mean that Appellants acknowledge that all elements are present in the
references. As recognized by the Examiner, Mancini identifies that noise
from wireless devices is a common problem in electronics and provides
several solutions on how to deal with the issue of noise in a printed circuit
board using operational amplifiers (Mancini 17-2; Ans. 4).
Furthermore, the obviousness “analysis need not seek out precise
teachings directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged claim, for
a court can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a person of
ordinary skill in the art would employ.” KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550
U.S. 398, 418 (2007).
In determining whether the subject matter of a patent claim is
obvious, neither the particular motivation nor the avowed
purpose of the patentee controls. What matters is the objective
reach of the claim. If the claim extends to what is obvious, it is
invalid under § 103. One of the ways in which a patent's
subject matter can be proved obvious is by noting that there
existed at the time of invention a known problem for which

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there was an obvious solution encompassed by the patent’s
claims.
Id. at 419-20.
Mancini is a design reference for operational amplifiers and
recognizes that these amplifiers have many uses in today’s electronics. “The
op amp has truly become the universal analog IC [non-integrated circuit]
because it performs all analog tasks. It can function as a line driver,
comparator (one bit A/D), amplifier, level shifter, oscillator, filter, signal
conditioner, actuator driver, current source, voltage source, and many other
applications.” (Mancini 1-3.) The Examiner further acknowledges that:
Although Mancini does not explicitly teach the feature
wherein the audio circuitry and PCB [printed circuit board] is
implemented in a PC speaker with a power amplifier, Advanic
teaches a USB speaker (Advanic, pg. 1, Applications section)
with RF filters for a loudspeaker driver (Advanic, pg. 1, Note6)
and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the
art [to] implement the audio circuitry of Mancini in the USB
speaker of Advanic in order to reduce RF interference since it
has been held that the combination of familiar elements
according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it
does no more than yield predictable results.
(Ans. 6-7.) According to the Examiner “Mancini and Advanic both teach
audio amplifier circuits employing the same RF interference reductions
techniques as disclosed by appellant (i.e. shunt capacitor, serial inductor, and
ferrite beads). Additionally, Mancini teaches a Faraday cage (i.e. RF shield
formed from metal or other electrically conductive material) physically
surrounding the components of an audio circuit.” (Ans. 18.) We agree with
the Examiner’s conclusion that
The results of connecting various well known RF filters
(ferrite beads, serial inductors, and shunt capacitors, Mancini,
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pg. 17-23, § 17.6), tuned for RF frequency rejection, in series
with various circuit wires or traces in various configurations of
audio amplifiers and audio output devices as claimed is no
more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to
their established functions. KSR International Co. v. Teleflex
Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007). See MPEP §
2141 (I).
(Ans. 7.)
Appellants contend that Advanic teaches a “self[-]contained audio
amplifier integrated circuit that has its own fully satisfactory approach that
uses a reduced or minimum number of components” (App. Br. 13-14).
Thus, according to Appellants, “Advanic teaches away from a combination
with Mancini, as a combination would increase board size and decrease
battery life” (id. at 14). Appellants, also contend that “Advanic teaches that
for further noise reduction, LC or ferrite bead filters should be used.” (Id. at
13.) Therefore, according to Appellants the ordinary artisan would not be
motivated to add “an operational amplifier, in particular, a dual operational
amplifier, will add interference” (id. at 15.)
We are not persuaded. “The prior art’s mere disclosure of more than
one alternative does not constitute a teaching away from any of these
alternatives because such disclosure does not criticize, discredit, or
otherwise discourage the solution claimed.” In re Fulton, 391 F.3d 1195,
1201 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Additionally, each reference “must be read, not in
isolation, but for what it fairly teaches in combination with the prior art as a
whole.” See In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
The art recognizes that the operational amplifiers “can function as a
line driver, comparator (one bit A/D), amplifier, level shifter, oscillator,
filter, signal conditioner, actuator driver, current source, voltage source, and
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many other applications” (Mancini 1-3). We agree with the Examiner’s
position that even if there are some disadvantages of the proposed
combination, as alleged by Appellants, the evidence or record would not
have
[P]revented one of ordinary skill in the art from
recognizing the suitability of implementing the audio
operational amplifier of Mancini in the USB speaker disclosed
by Advanic to create a computer speaker with improved RF
immunity and the predictable results obtained therefrom or
-otherwise discouraged one of ordinary skill in the art
from making the proposed combination.
(Ans. 12.)
We conclude that the evidence cited by the Examiner supports a prima
facie case of obviousness with respect to claim 1, and Appellants have not
provided sufficient rebuttal evidence or evidence of secondary
considerations that outweighs the evidence supporting the prima facie case.
As Appellants do not argue the claims separately, claims 2, 4, 5, 7-12, 14-18,
and 20-22 fall with claim 1. Additionally, claim 6 has not been argued
separately, and falls with claim 1 as acknowledged by the Appellants (App.
Br. 16).

SUMMARY
We affirm the rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 7-12, 14-18, and 20-22
under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) over the Mancini in view of the Advanic.
We affirm the rejection of claim 6 under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) over the
Mancini in view of Advanic in further view of Böhnke.

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TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).
AFFIRMED

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