Appeal No. 2000-0580
Application No. 09/025,347
Claim 1, the only independent claim pending in the application, reads as follows:
1. A phonics training system adapted to teach a pre-school child having a
limited vocabulary of words that identify various objects to spell these words and
thereby be able to read; said system comprising:
A. a computer having an output terminal provided with a video
screen;
B. an electronic dictionary associated with the computer in which is
digitally stored the phonetic sounds of the words in the limited vocabulary of the
pre-school child that identify objects and the letters of the alphabet that spell each
word; said electronics dictionary being contained in software downloaded into
the memory of the computer;
C. an image library associated with the computer in which is digitally
stored images of said objects identified by the limited vocabulary; and
D. means including a voice recognition unit in the input of said
computer, the unit acting to recognize the distinctive sound pattern of the child
speaking into the unit and to condition the phonetic dictionary to respond to this
pattern, whereby when the child speaks into the unit a specific word included in
the dictionary identifying a particular object, the output of the unit is digitized
and the computer then acts to scan the dictionary to find the corresponding
phonetic sounds digitally stored therein, and when a match is found to present on
the screen the letters which spell the specific word and the image of the object
identified thereby.
The examiner's findings with regard to the Corder reference are set forth on pages 3-5
of the final rejection. On the basis of those findings, the examiner has apparently determined
that there are differences between the disclosure of Corder and the claimed subject matter, in
that all of the claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Corder.
However, with particular regard to independent claim 1, as well as claims 4 and 5, the final
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