Appeal No. 2003-0556
Application 09/185,248
is no patentable distinction in using LPCM over the actual PCM
formats actually taught among the references.
From our review of the appellants' specification there
appears to be no criticality as to the use of LPCM anyway. At
specification page 3, in the context of Figure 2, the decoding
operation is expressed in the terms of converting any inputted
digital audio information "into a raw format such as LPCM (block
202)." Thus, the LPCM format is suggested by appellants'
specification to have been known in the art. A similar approach
is taken with respect to the discussion at specification page 5
in the context of the block diagram circuit presented in Figure 3
of the specification as filed. Here, the data is decoded into "a
raw audio data stream (e.g., an audio data stream and LPCM
format)." Note the discussion at lines 8-10. The use of the
term "raw data" by the examiner in his rationale in the answer is
consistent with this disclosed language. The examiner has
persuasively shown to us that the applied prior art clearly
indicates that it was known in the art to mix two signals of a
common digital format, that is, to mix digital PCM formatted
information representing raw audio data.
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