Appeal No. 2006-2458
Application No. 10/147,673
The examiner disagrees [answer, page 13, ¶2]. The examiner asserts
that the claimed “surface semantic output value” is equivalent to Horiguchi’s
teachings of probability and likelihood [id.]. The examiner argues that the
“confidence level” of claim 12 is simply a rating of how likely the word is the
correct one, and has not been defined otherwise by the instant specification
[id.]. The examiner concludes that the “confidence level” recited in claim 12
constitutes a probability or likelihood as disclosed in the cited prior art [id.]
We note that the instant specification discloses that the surface
semantic output can also include one or more attributes including a
confidence attribute that indicates the confidence of the semantic structure
marked by the tags [instant specification, page 12, lines 24-27]. We further
note that Horiguchi discloses the use of probabilities (i.e., broadly denoting a
“confidence level”) in the context of grammar rules for a speech translator
[Horiguchi, col. 18, lines 45-67, cont’d col. 19, lines 1-24]. Therefore, when
we broadly construe the language of the claim in light of the instant
specification, we again find that the weight of the evidence supports the
examiner’s position. Accordingly, we will sustain the examiner’s rejection of
claim 12 for essentially the same reasons argued by the examiner in the
answer. With respect to claim 13 (which depends upon claim 12), we note
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