Ex parte Yemmela

• Decision Date: 25 October 2019
• Docket Number: Appeal 2018-005814
• Parties: Ex parte MADHAVI YEMMELA and VALENTIN PETRAN Application 14/885, 849 Technology Center 2600
• Court: Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Ex parte MADHAVI YEMMELA and VALENTIN PETRAN Application 14/885, 849 Technology Center 2600

Appeal 2018-005814

United States Patent and Trademark Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board

October 25, 2019

Filing Date10/16/2015

Before JEAN R. HOMERE, JASON V. MORGAN, and ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges.

DECISION ON APPEAL

MORGAN, Administrative Patent Judge.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

Introduction

Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant^[1] appeals from the Examiner's decision to reject claims 1 and 2. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM.

Summary of the disclosure

Appellant's claimed subject matter relates to software that "uses text to speech technology to perform electronic screenplays, including plays depicting debates, multi-lingual conversations, and scientific conference presentations, using one or more distinctly identifiable voices." Abstract.

Appellant's claims^[2]

1. A method for creating, storing, editing, and consuming, a new kind of technical education media, (that can be passively enjoyed like an audio recording or movie, but that can be aimed at a larger and more diverse audience than a book audio recording or movie, and that is less likely to bore tire or confuse that broader audience, and is less likely to be misunderstood by the members of that broader audience than a book, audio recording or movie, and) which is comprised of performing the below described steps in any order, including in parallel

creating a media authoring environment, comprised of a computer system and non-transitory computer readable media onto which have been recorded machine readable instructions, that provide that authoring environment with functionality that makes it possible for that authoring environment to provide a human subject matter expert with the means to create and configure a media repository, comprised of a collection of empty containers each of which is capable of housing a monologue represented in electronic form (either as a block of text, an audio clip or a video clip), and to document relationships between those monologue containers by, (as many times as is deemed necessary by that human subject matter expert, in order to create a repository of conversations that has a level of granularity that is deemed acceptable to that subject matter expert, and contains as many different wordings, levels of detail, and levels of terseness, that are deemed acceptable to that subject matter expert, ) (where the term monolog[ue] container refers to any electronic repository for a fragment of text that is intended to be spoken by only one person and includes not only individual electronic files, but also any region in such a file whose beginning and end has been documented in electronic form, for example by specifying in machine readable form where a block of text that is expected to be spoken by one character begins and where it ends)[;]

designating a series of containers as intended to be used to house monologues which if presented in order constitute a grammatically correct and conceptually meaningful conversation between real or fictitious characters, that explain a technical concept that the afore mentioned human subject matter expert wishes to teach, by presenting a conversation about that concept;

designating two series of containers as intended to each house a conversation that depict the same technical concepts using the same level of technical detail, and level of terseness but to do so using different wordings, including wordings in different languages;

designating a series of containers as intended to house a less terse version of a conversation that is to be housed in a different series of containers, in the sense that the less terse version includes more banter designed to entertain the intended audience, and give that audience both more time to rest and more opportunities to absorb the technical concepts and terminology being presented before additional more complex concepts which use them are presented;

designating two containers that each belong to different series of the aforementioned variety, as equivalent locations in different conversations, in the sense that they both are intended to house the beginning of an explanation of the same technical concept, and hence, are suitable entry points for jumping into the middle of one conversation, from the middle of another conversation;

populating the aforementioned repository with conversation fragments that have been created by a human author specifically to conform to the afore mentioned inter-container relationships and,

creating a specialized media player, comprised of a computer system equipped with specialized machine readable instructions, recorded on non-transitory computer readable media, that make it possible for that media player to understand all of the afore described relationships between monologue containers, and hence allow it to comply with requests on the part of the audience to not only present media repositories, but also to increase or decrease the level of detail that is being presented, increase or decrease the extent to which the information being presented is terse, repeat again using different wordings an explanation that have already been presented, or facilitate learning through repeated exposure while avoiding audience boredom by always presenting those renditions of an explanation, that are comprised of conversations that a user has heard least often, which, for repositories comprised of several hundred technically equivalent conversations, all but guarantees that no specific conversation ever needs to be listened to more than once, by any given audience member.

2. A method for creating, editing, storing, and consuming, a new kind of computer readable media, (which consumes less space than an audio or video recording, which is less time consuming to create or disseminate than an audio or video recording, whose intellectual content is less likely to be rendered unreadable by technological changes including media file format changes that lead to media format obsolescence, and that is as immersive as a movie) comprised of:

storing the intellectual content component of media, separately from those of it's [sic] aspects that merely create a pleasant ambiance and help block out distractions, and that per unit of play time require at least one hundred times more storage than the intellectual content, and that are comprised of audio and video recordings;

creating a specialized media player, comprised of a computer system, and non-transitory computer readable media onto which have been recorded machine readable instructions, that allow the media player, to combine the afore cited media components at the time the media is consumed, to create a user experience that is not as rich as a traditional movie, but rather, equivalent to sitting each night in the same scenic environment (like for example a waterfront restaurant), and listening to friends talk about different topics, while looking at the scenic environment, rather than at the people who are talking, and thereby making possible for the afore mentioned ambiance focused audio or video recordings to be repeatedly used with different pieces of intellectual content in order to save space;

representing the intellectual content using mere text files, called electronic screenplays, that contain information which is both human and machine readable, and can in the worst case, be easily printed onto paper, to assure authors that it will not be rendered unreadable in the event of corporate bankruptcy or marketing strategy change induced media obsolescence, and that is comprised of conversations between real or fictitious characters, interspersed with commands that are understandable to the aforementioned media player, (which in turn has multi-voice text to speech capabilities that it uses to read the intellectual content out loud, using voices specified by the media authors, using the afore mentioned commands, ) and that has been specifically designed to ignore requests to play still images, audio recordings and video files it can not find, (in order to facilitate dissemination of the more important and less space consuming intellectual content component of the media over the kinds of unreliable low bandwidth telecommunications networks that currently exist in developing countries and rural areas).

The Examiner's rejections^[3] and cited references

The Examiner rejects claims 1 and 2 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to patent-ineligible subject matter. Final Act. 4-6.

The Examiner rejects claims 1 and 2 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) as failing to comply with the written description requirement. Final Act. 6-7.

The Examiner rejects claims 1 and 2 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) as being indefinite. Final Act. 7-8.

The Examiner rejects claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Crystal (US 2009/0144642 A1; published June 4, 2009) and Henning et al. (US 2016/0057181 A1; published Feb. 25, 2016) ("Henning"). Final Act. 9-12.

The Examiner rejects claim 2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Steele (US 2004/0110490 A1; published June 10, 2004). Final Act. 12-14.

35 U.S.C. §101

Principles of law

To be statutorily patentable, the subject matter of an invention must be a "new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or [a] new and useful improvement thereof." 35 U.S.C. § 101. There are implicit exceptions to the categories of patentable subject matter identified in 35 U.S.C. § 101, including: (1) laws of nature; (2) natural phenomena; and (3) abstract ideas. Alice Corp. Pty Ltd. v. CLS Bank lnt'l, 573 U.S. 208, 216 (2014). The Supreme Court has set forth a framework for distinguishing...