Appeal 2007-0209
Application 10/021,621
the entire record before us, we conclude that Appellants have not established
that the Examiner erred in finding Losee’s teachings anticipate claim 23.
For the same reasons, we conclude that the Examiner did not err in finding
that Losee’s teachings anticipate dependent claims 23 through 26 and 34
through 39. Additionally, for the same reasons, we conclude that the
Examiner did not err in finding that the combination of Losee and Eggleston
renders dependent claims 27 through 33 unpatentable.
Next, we address independent claims 1, 40, 41, 55 and 78.
Representative claim 1 requires assigning a priority value to a voice message
based upon its acoustical properties. Similarly, Badt teaches assigning a
priority level to a voice message based on the speaker’s level within the
organization. We recognize that Badt does not specifically detail that the
acoustical properties of the voice message must be examined. However, one
of ordinary skill in the art would have readily recognized that in order to
identify the speaker, the acoustical properties of the message must
necessarily be first examined. After considering the entire record before us,
we conclude that Appellants have not established that the Examiner erred in
rejecting representative claims 1 through 22 as being unpatentable over
Smith and Badt in various combinations with Aderlind, Marx, Eggleston,
Helfman, Abu Hakima, Wright, and Cooper. We also conclude for the same
reasons that Appellants have not established that the Examiner erred in
rejecting dependent claims 41 through 85 as being unpatentable over the
teachings of Badt with those of Takkinen, Abu-Hakima, Wright, and
Eggleston.2
2 Appellants have not presented any substantive arguments directed
separately to the patentability of the dependent claims. In the absence of a
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