`
`
`
`
`UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
`
`___________
`
`BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
`
`___________
`
`Comcast Cable Communications, LLC
`Petitioner
`
`v.
`
`
`Promptu Systems Corporation
`Patent Owner
`
`___________
`
`Patent No. 7,047,196
`
`___________
`
`
`
`DECLARATION OF CHRISTOPHER SCHMANDT
`
`REGARDING U.S. PATENT NO. 7,047,196
`
`
`
`(Submitted in Support of Petition 1 of 2)
`
`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, cover
`
`

`

`TABLE OF CONTENTS
`
`
`I.
`
`Background and Qualifications ........................................................................ 1
`
`II. Materials Considered ....................................................................................... 4
`
`III. Legal Standards for Patentability ..................................................................... 6
`
`IV. Background on Speech Recognition in Cable Television Systems ................. 12
`
`A.
`
`B.
`
`Server-Based Speech Recognition ....................................................... 12
`
`Server-Based Speech Recognition in Cable Television Systems .......... 17
`
`V.
`
`The ’196 Patent ............................................................................................. 22
`
`A. Overview of the ’196 Patent ................................................................ 22
`
`B.
`
`C.
`
`D.
`
`E.
`
`Prosecution History of the ’196 Patent................................................. 25
`
`Claims of the ’196 Patent..................................................................... 27
`
`Effective Filing Date of the ’196 Patent ............................................... 41
`
`Level of Ordinary Skill in the Art ........................................................ 42
`
`VI. Construction of Terms Used in the ’196 Patent .............................................. 45
`
`A.
`
`B.
`
`C.
`
`“wireline node” (claims 1, 14, 27, 53) ................................................. 45
`
`“back channel” (claims 1, 2, 14, 27, 28, 53) ......................................... 46
`
`“partitioning said received back channel into a multiplicity of
`[said] received identified speech channels” (claims 1, 2, 27, 28) ......... 47
`
`VII. Overview of Prior Art References .................................................................. 51
`
`A. Overview of Murdock ......................................................................... 51
`
`B.
`
`C.
`
`Overview of Julia ................................................................................ 64
`
`Overview of Nazarathy ........................................................................ 67
`
`D. Overview of Quigley ........................................................................... 69
`
`E.
`
`F.
`
`Overview of Banker............................................................................. 72
`
`Overview of Gordon ............................................................................ 73
`
`VIII. The Challenged Claims Are Rendered Obvious by Murdock Alone Or In
`Combination with Nazarathy, Quigley, Banker, Or Gordon. .......................... 74
`
`A.
`
`Every Element of the Challenged Claims Is Disclosed by
`Murdock Alone or Combined with Nazarathy, Quigley, Banker,
`or Gordon ............................................................................................ 75
`
`1.
`
`Claim 1 ...................................................................................... 75
`
`
`
`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page i
`
`

`

`
`
`TABLE OF CONTENTS
`(continued)
`
`2.
`
`3.
`
`4.
`
`5.
`
`6.
`
`7.
`
`8.
`
`9.
`
`Claim 2 ...................................................................................... 89
`
`Claim 4 ...................................................................................... 96
`
`Claim 5 ...................................................................................... 97
`
`Claim 6 .................................................................................... 103
`
`Claim 12 .................................................................................. 110
`
`Claim 13 .................................................................................. 112
`
`Claim 27 .................................................................................. 113
`
`Claim 28 .................................................................................. 127
`
`10. Claim 30 .................................................................................. 131
`
`11. Claim 31 .................................................................................. 132
`
`12. Claim 32 .................................................................................. 134
`
`13. Claim 38 .................................................................................. 139
`
`14. Claim 39 .................................................................................. 140
`
`15. Claim 40 .................................................................................. 141
`
`16. Claim 41 .................................................................................. 144
`
`17. Claim 42 .................................................................................. 147
`
`B.
`
`C.
`
`A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art Would Have Been
`Motivated to Combine Murdock with the Teachings of Nazarathy
`and Quigley ....................................................................................... 149
`
`A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art Would Have Been
`Motivated to Combine Murdock with the Teachings of Either
`Banker or Gordon .............................................................................. 154
`
`IX. The Challenged Claims Are Rendered Obvious by Julia In Combination
`with Nazarathy, Quigley, Banker, or Gordon. .............................................. 157
`
`A.
`
`Every Element of the Challenged Claims Is Disclosed by Julia
`Combined with Nazarathy, Quigley, Banker, or Gordon.................... 159
`
`1.
`
`2.
`
`3.
`
`Claim 1 .................................................................................... 159
`
`Claim 2 .................................................................................... 172
`
`Claim 4 .................................................................................... 177
`
`
`
`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page ii
`
`

`

`
`
`TABLE OF CONTENTS
`(continued)
`
`4.
`
`5.
`
`6.
`
`7.
`
`8.
`
`9.
`
`Claim 5 .................................................................................... 177
`
`Claim 6 .................................................................................... 182
`
`Claim 12 .................................................................................. 188
`
`Claim 13 .................................................................................. 190
`
`Claim 27 .................................................................................. 192
`
`Claim 28 .................................................................................. 203
`
`10. Claim 30 .................................................................................. 207
`
`11. Claim 31 .................................................................................. 208
`
`12. Claim 32 .................................................................................. 210
`
`13. Claim 38 .................................................................................. 214
`
`14. Claim 39 .................................................................................. 215
`
`15. Claim 40 .................................................................................. 216
`
`16. Claim 41 .................................................................................. 218
`
`17. Claim 42 .................................................................................. 220
`
`A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art Would Have Been
`Motivated to Combine Julia with the Teaching of Nazarathy and
`Quigley .............................................................................................. 222
`
`A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art Would Have Been
`Motivated to Combine Julia with the Teachings of Either Banker
`or Gordon .......................................................................................... 227
`
`B.
`
`C.
`
`X.
`
`Conclusion................................................................................................... 230
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page iii
`
`

`

`
`
`I, Christopher Schmandt, declare as follows:
`
`1.
`
`I make this declaration based upon my own personal knowledge and,
`
`if called upon to testify, would testify competently to the matters stated herein.
`
`2.
`
`I have been asked by Comcast Cable Communications, LLP to
`
`provide technical assistance in connection with the inter partes review of U.S.
`
`Patent No. 7,047,196 (which I will refer to as the “’196 Patent”). This declaration
`
`is a statement of my opinions on issues related to the patentability of claims 1-2, 4-
`
`6, 12-13, 27-28, 30-32, and 38-42 (which I will refer to as the “challenged claims”)
`
`of the ’196 Patent.
`
`3. My compensation is not based on the content of my opinions or the
`
`resolution of this matter.
`
`I.
`
`BACKGROUND AND QUALIFICATIONS
`
`4.
`
`In formulating my opinions, I have relied on my knowledge, training,
`
`and experience in the relevant field, which I will summarize briefly.
`
`5.
`
`I am currently employed as a Principal Research Scientist at the
`
`Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In that role
`
`I also serve as faculty for the MIT Media Arts and Sciences academic program. I
`
`have more than 35 years of experience in the field of Media Technology, and I was
`
`a founder of the MIT Media Laboratory.
`
`6.
`
`I received my B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer
`
`
`
`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page 1
`
`

`

`
`
`Science from MIT in 1978, and my M.S. in Visual Studies (Computer Graphics)
`
`also from MIT. I have been employed at MIT since 1980, initially at the
`
`Architecture Machine Group, which was an early computer graphics research lab.
`
`In 1985, I helped found the Media Laboratory and continue to work there now. I
`
`currently run a research group titled “Living Mobile.” My research spans
`
`distributed communication and collaborative systems, with an emphasis on
`
`multimedia and user interfaces. I have over 70 published conference and journal
`
`papers and one book in these fields.
`
`7.
`
`For the first fifteen years of my career, my research emphasized
`
`speech recognition and speech user interfaces. I built the first conversational
`
`computer system utilizing speech recognition and synthesis (“Put That There”)
`
`starting in 1980. I continued to innovate speech user interfaces using recognition,
`
`text-to-speech synthesis, and recorded audio in a wide variety of projects. I was
`
`later awarded membership to the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
`
`Computer Human Interface (CHI) Academy specifically for those years of work
`
`pioneering speech user interfaces.
`
`8.
`
`In the 1980s and 1990s a major research theme of the Media
`
`Laboratory was the convergence of networking and digital media, including the
`
`delivery of interactive information and entertainment systems to the home, by both
`
`cable and wireless. Distributed multimedia systems required both networking
`
`
`
`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page 2
`
`

`

`
`
`means to deliver content and software and user interfaces to afford interactivity. In
`
`addition to conventional computer networking, we also had in house a broadband
`
`cable television system capable of running hybrid video and data channels. We
`
`developed software to implement media servers that could act as components in a
`
`cable system head end, and interactive client-side software and user interfaces to
`
`manage the content for consumption by the consumer.
`
`9.
`
`In the course of my research I built a number of speech recognition
`
`client/server distributed systems, with the first being in 1985. Much of the initial
`
`motivation for a server architecture was that speech recognition required expensive
`
`digital signal processing hardware that we could not afford to put on each
`
`computer, so a central server with the required hardware was used. Later versions
`
`of the speech recognition server architecture allowed certain computers to perform
`
`specialized tasks serving a number of client computers providing voice user
`
`interfaces, either on screens or over telephone connections.
`
`10. Because of my early work with distributed speech systems, I served
`
`for several years in the mid-1990s on a working group on the impact of multimedia
`
`systems on the Internet reporting to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
`
`and later the Internet Activities Board (IAB). This work impacted emerging
`
`standards such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).
`
`11.
`
`In my faculty position I teach courses and directly supervise student
`
`
`
`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page 3
`
`

`

`
`
`research and theses at the Bachelors, Masters, and PhD levels. I oversee the
`
`Masters and PhD thesis programs for the entire Media Arts and Sciences academic
`
`program. I also have served on the Media Laboratory intellectual property
`
`committee for many years.
`
`12. Based on the above experience and qualifications, I have a solid
`
`understanding of the knowledge and perspective of a person of ordinary skill in
`
`this technical field since at least 1990.
`
`II. MATERIALS CONSIDERED
`
`13.
`
`I have reviewed and considered the following documents, among
`
`others, in connection with my analysis of the ’196 Patent:
`
`• the ’196 Patent (Ex. 1001);
`
`• the prosecution history of U.S. Patent Application No. 09/785,375,
`
`which led to the issuance of the ’196 Patent (“File History”)
`
`(Ex. 1002);
`
`• Provisional Application No. 60/210,440 (“Provisional Appl.”)
`
`(Ex. 1003);
`
`• “Speech Recognition by Machine: A Review” by D. Raj Reddy,
`
`Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 64, No. 4, April 1976 (“Reddy”)
`
`(Ex. 1004);
`
`• “Multimodal User Interfaces in the Open Agent Architecture” by D.
`
`
`
`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page 4
`
`

`

`
`
`Moran, et al., Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on
`
`Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI ’97), pp. 61-68, 1997 (“Moran”)
`
`(Ex. 1005);
`
`• “Quantization of Cepstral Parameters for Speech Recognition over the
`
`World Wide Web” by V. Digalakis, et al., IEEE Journal on Selected
`
`Areas in Communications, Vol. 17, No. 1, Jan. 1999 (“Digalakis”)
`
`(Ex. 1006);
`
`• “Enabling New Speech Driven Services for Mobile Devices: An
`
`Overview of the ETSI Standards Activities for Distributed Speech
`
`Recognition Front-Ends” by D. Pearce, AVIOS 2000: The Speech
`
`Applications Conference, 2000 (“Pearce”) (Ex. 1007);
`
`• “IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin: Speech Recognition Methods
`
`for Controlling Cable Television,” Vol. 38, No. 08, August 1995
`
`(“IBM Bulletin”) (Ex. 1008);
`
`• U.S. Patent No. 6,345,389 (“Dureau”) (Ex. 1009);
`
`• U.S. Patent No. 7,013,283 (“Murdock”) (Ex. 1010);
`
`• Provisional Application No. 60/166,010 (“Murdock Provisional”)
`
`(Ex. 1011);
`
`• U.S. Patent No. 6,513,063 (“Julia”) (Ex. 1012);
`
`• U.S. Patent No. 6,490,727 (“Nazarathy”) (Ex. 1013);
`
`
`
`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page 5
`
`

`

`
`
`• U.S. Patent No. 6,650,624 (“Quigley”) (Ex. 1014).
`
`• U.S. Patent No. 5,477,262 (“Banker”) (Ex. 1015);
`
`• U.S. Patent No. 6,314,573 (“Gordon”) (Ex. 1016); and
`
`• Plaintiff Promptu Systems Corporation’s Disclosure of Asserted
`
`Claims and Preliminary Infringement Contentions, dated December
`
`11, 2017 (“Infringement Contentions”) (Ex. 1017).
`
`14.
`
`In addition, my opinions are based on my years of experience in the
`
`field of interactive television and other multimedia systems.
`
`III. LEGAL STANDARDS FOR PATENTABILITY
`
`15. My opinions are also formed by my understanding of the relevant law.
`
`I am not an attorney. For purposes of this declaration, I have been informed about
`
`certain aspects of the law as it relates to my opinions.
`
`16.
`
`I understand that for an invention claimed in a patent to be found
`
`patentable, it must be (among other things) new and not obvious based on what
`
`was known before the invention was made.
`
`17.
`
`I understand that the information that is used to evaluate whether an
`
`invention was new and not obvious when made is generally referred to as “prior
`
`art.” I understand that the prior art includes all patents and printed publications
`
`that existed before the earliest filing date of the patent (i.e., the “effective filing
`
`date”). This includes foreign language material. I also understand that a patent is
`
`
`
`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page 6
`
`

`

`
`
`prior art if it was filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention and
`
`that a printed publication is prior art if it was publicly available before the effective
`
`filing date.
`
`18.
`
`I understand that in this inter partes review proceeding, Comcast has
`
`the burden of proving that the challenged claims of the ’196 Patent are
`
`unpatentable in light of the prior art by a preponderance of the evidence. I
`
`understand that a preponderance of the evidence is evidence sufficient to show that
`
`a fact is more likely true than not true.
`
`19.
`
`I understand that unexpired patent claims in an inter partes review are
`
`given the broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the patent specification.
`
`After the claims are construed, they are then compared to the prior art.
`
`20.
`
`I understand that in this inter partes review proceeding, the
`
`information that may be evaluated is limited to patents and printed publications.
`
`My analysis, which is set out in detail below, compares the challenged claims of
`
`the ’196 Patent to patents and printed publications that are prior art to the claims.
`
`21.
`
`I understand that prior art can render the claim “obvious” to a person
`
`of ordinary skill in the art. My understanding of this legal standard is set out
`
`below.
`
`22.
`
`I understand that prior art can render a patent claim unpatentable
`
`where subject matter that falls within the scope of the claim would have been
`
`
`
`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page 7
`
`

`

`
`
`obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art. I understand that the following
`
`standards govern the determination of whether a patent claim is rendered
`
`“obvious” in light of the prior art. I have applied these standards in my evaluation
`
`of whether the challenged claims of the ’196 Patent are obvious in light of the prior
`
`art.
`
`23.
`
`I understand that a claimed invention is not patentable if it would have
`
`been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the field of the invention at the time
`
`the invention was made. The person of ordinary skill in the art is a hypothetical
`
`person who is presumed to have known the relevant art at the time of the invention.
`
`Even if all the requirements of a claim were not found in a single prior art
`
`reference, the claim is not patentable if the differences between the subject matter
`
`in the prior art and the subject matter in the claim would have been obvious to a
`
`person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was filed. Prior art
`
`disclosing a method or device that falls within the scope of a claim can render that
`
`claim obvious even if other, different methods or devices might also fall within the
`
`scope of the claim.
`
`24.
`
`I understand that a determination as to whether a claim would have
`
`been obvious should be based on four factors (though not necessarily in the
`
`following order): (i) the level of ordinary skill in the art at the time the application
`
`was filed; (ii) the scope and content of the prior art; (iii) the differences between
`
`
`
`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page 8
`
`

`

`
`
`the claimed invention and the prior art; and (iv) any “objective factors” indicating
`
`obviousness or non-obviousness that may exist in a particular case.
`
`25.
`
`I understand that an obviousness analysis should not be based on
`
`hindsight, but must be done using the perspective of a person of ordinary skill in
`
`the relevant art as of the effective filing date of the patent claim.
`
`26.
`
`I understand the objective factors indicating obviousness or non-
`
`obviousness may include: commercial success of products covered by the patent
`
`claims; a long-felt but unaddressed need for the invention; failed attempts by
`
`others to make the invention; copying of the invention by others in the field;
`
`expressions of surprise by experts and those skilled in the art at the making of the
`
`invention; and the patentee having proceeded contrary to the accepted wisdom of
`
`the prior art. I also understand that any of this evidence must be specifically
`
`connected to the claimed invention rather than associated with the prior art or with
`
`marketing or other efforts to promote an invention. I am not presently aware of
`
`any evidence of such objective factors suggesting the claims of the ’196 Patent are
`
`non-obvious. Should the Patent Owner submit evidence purportedly showing such
`
`objective factors, I reserve the right to consider the evidence and respond to it.
`
`27.
`
`I understand that the teachings of two or more prior art references may
`
`be combined in the manner disclosed in the claim if such a combination would
`
`have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art. In determining whether a
`
`
`
`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page 9
`
`

`

`
`
`combination would have been obvious, the following exemplary rationales may
`
`support a conclusion of obviousness:
`
`• combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield
`
`predictable results;
`
`• simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain
`
`predictable results;
`
`• use of a known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or
`
`products) in the same way;
`
`• applying a known technique to a known device (method, or product)
`
`ready for improvement to yield predictable results;
`
`• “obvious to try” – choosing from a finite number of identified,
`
`predictable solutions, with a reasonable expectation of success;
`
`• known work in one field of endeavor may prompt variations of it for
`
`use in either the same field or a different one based on design
`
`incentives or other market forces if the variations are predictable to
`
`one of ordinary skill in the art;
`
`• some teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art that would
`
`have led one of ordinary skill to modify the prior art reference or to
`
`combine prior art reference teachings to arrive at the claimed
`
`invention; and
`
`
`
`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page 10
`
`

`

`
`
`• common sense.
`
`28.
`
`I understand that the obviousness analysis need not seek out precise
`
`teachings directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged claim, but
`
`instead can take account of the ordinary innovation and experimentation in the
`
`relevant field that does no more than yield predictable results.
`
`29.
`
`I understand that, in assessing whether there was an apparent reason to
`
`modify or combine known elements as claimed, it may be necessary to look to
`
`interrelated teachings of multiple patents and printed publications, the effects of
`
`commercial demands, and the background knowledge of a person of ordinary skill
`
`in the art. I further understand that any motivation that would have applied to a
`
`person of ordinary skill in the art, including motivation from common sense or
`
`derived from the problem to be solved, is sufficient to explain why references
`
`would have been combined.
`
`30.
`
`I understand that modifications and combinations suggested by
`
`common sense are important and should be considered. Common sense suggests
`
`that familiar items can have obvious uses beyond the particular application being
`
`described in a prior art reference, that if something can be done once it would be
`
`obvious to do it multiple times, and that in many cases a person of ordinary skill in
`
`the art can fit the teachings of multiple patents together in an obvious manner to
`
`address a particular problem. Further, the prior art does not need to be directed to
`
`
`
`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page 11
`
`

`

`
`
`solving the same problem that is addressed in the patent.
`
`31.
`
`I understand that a person of ordinary skill in the art is also a person
`
`of ordinary creativity. In many fields, it may be that there is little discussion of
`
`obvious techniques, modifications, and combinations, and it may be the case that
`
`market demand, rather than scientific research or literature, will drive a new
`
`design. When there is market pressure or design need to solve a particular problem
`
`and there are a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, a person of
`
`ordinary skill has a good reason to employ the known options. If this leads to the
`
`expected success, then it is likely the product of ordinary skill and common sense
`
`as opposed to patentable innovation. I understand that if a combination was
`
`obvious to try, that may show that it was obvious and therefore unpatentable. That
`
`a particular combination of prior art elements was obvious to try suggests that the
`
`combination was obvious even if no one made the combination.
`
`IV. BACKGROUND ON SPEECH RECOGNITION IN CABLE
`TELEVISION SYSTEMS
`
`32. The ’196 Patent describes distributed speech recognition over a cable
`
`television system in which spoken user input is captured at home (or wherever
`
`content is being viewed) and transmitted to the cable headend for the actual speech
`
`recognition processing.
`
`A.
`
`Server-Based Speech Recognition
`
`33. Speech recognition became a serious focus of research during the
`
`
`
`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page 12
`
`

`

`
`
`1970s. Some lead research groups were at MIT, Carnegie Mellon University
`
`(CMU), Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN), and the Stanford Research Institute
`
`(SRI), among others. Initial systems could recognize single words (isolated word
`
`recognition), but this soon progressed to connected or continuous speech
`
`recognition of whole sentences. A paper authored by D. Raj Reddy, who was at
`
`the Computer Science Department at CMU, entitled “Speech Recognition by
`
`Machine: A Review,” provided an overview of the already advanced state of
`
`computer speech recognition systems in 1976. Reddy (Ex. 1004). That paper
`
`provided a survey of recent developments in speech recognition and identified a
`
`number of working speech recognition systems. Reddy at 501, 506-508
`
`(discussing “word recognition systems”), 508-511 (discussing “connected speech
`
`recognition” systems including several developed at CMU, MIT, and IBM), and
`
`511-515 (discussing “speech understanding systems” then under development). As
`
`noted in the Reddy paper, “performance [of speech recognition systems] depends
`
`on the size and speed of the computer and the accuracy of the algorithm used.”
`
`Reddy at 503. Thus, generally speaking, a more powerful computer, such as a
`
`mainframe or server computer, would enable faster and more accurate speech
`
`recognition.
`
`34. My research lab, the Architecture Machine Group at MIT, acquired
`
`one of the first commercial connected speech recognizers (i.e., a speech recognizer
`
`
`
`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page 13
`
`

`

`
`
`that does not require each word to be spoken in isolation) from NEC Corp. in 1979,
`
`and I used it extensively in my own research. Within a few years the personal
`
`computer became a popular platform, after the introduction of the IBM PC, and
`
`somewhat less powerful speech recognizers were being sold to run on an
`
`expansion board that could be added inside a PC. By the early 1990s general
`
`purpose computer workstations were capable of running certain forms of speech
`
`recognition in real time without special purpose hardware.
`
`35. Speech recognition systems made great progress in the 1990s, and by
`
`the mid-1990s various groups were building distributed speech recognition systems
`
`(i.e., capturing speech on one device and performing speech recognition processing
`
`on a different local or remote device such as in a client/server architecture). This
`
`was spurred in large part by DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects
`
`Agency), which was the primary source of funding for speech recognition research
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`in the United States at that time. DARPA funded a number of different research
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`groups and was always interested in direct quantitative comparisons between the
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`various groups it was supporting. This led to a directive to build distributed
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`systems so components between research groups could be more easily mixed and
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`matched. For example, the Spoken Language Systems Group at MIT modified
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`their well-known Galaxy speech recognition system into a distributed system,
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`where recognition and other aspects of natural language processing could take
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`
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`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page 14
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`place across one or more distributed computers. The new system, called Galaxy II,
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`was made available to the research community around 1996. Galaxy II went on to
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`be applied in a variety of information-retrieval contexts, such as air travel ticket
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`purchasing and weather information systems. SRI developed a similar distributed
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`architecture speech recognition system with DARPA funding as well. In the SRI
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`system, called Gemini, “[o]nly the primary user interface agents need run on the
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`local computer” and the “preferred speech recognizer” would run on a UNIX
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`workstation. Moran at 61, 65 (Ex. 1005). By the mid-to-late-1990s, it was
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`commonplace to implement speech recognition in a distributed (e.g., client/server)
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`architecture.
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`36. With the growing popularity of mobile telephones and of the World
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`Wide Web in the 1990s, researchers and developers in the computer and
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`telecommunications industries realized the value in distributed speech recognition
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`as well. Neither early mobile phones nor consumer grade PCs with web browsers
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`were powerful enough for computationally intensive speech recognition, so a
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`server-based architecture was an obvious approach for providing robust speech
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`recognition user interfaces. In fact, by 1995, an industry working group called the
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`Aurora Project, which included companies such as Alcatel, Ericsson, IBM, Matra,
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`Nokia, Nortel, and Siemens, was developing a global standard for server-based
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`speech recognition over wireless channels. Digalakis at 84 (Ex. 1006). A later
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`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page 15
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`paper published by the Aurora Project in 2000 summarizing the ETSI (European
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`Telecommunications Standard Institute) standard for Distributed Speech
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`Recognition Front-Ends reflected one of the primary motivations for a distributed
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`speech recognition model: client devices generally lacked processing power for
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`more complex speech recognition and required that speech recognition be done by
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`a more powerful server computer:
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`As has already happened in the wireline world, the trend to ever-
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`increasing use of data communication is spreading to the mobile
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`wireless world. As part of this, people want the ability to access
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`information while on the move and the technologies to enable them to
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`do this are now starting to be deployed. The small portable devices
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`that will be used to access these data services cry out for improved
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`user interfaces using speech input. At present, however, the
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`complexity of medium and large vocabulary speech recognition
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`systems are beyond the memory and computational resources of such
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`devices.
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`Centralised servers can share the computational burden between users
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`and enable the easy upgrade of technologies and services provided.
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`Pearce at 1 (Ex. 1007). The fact that industry standards for server-based
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`speech recognition were being developed and implemented in the 1990s
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`confirms that the concept was well-known by that time—industry standards
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`by their nature trail behind research and development efforts and adopt
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`technologies from among existing, proven options.
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`Comcast – Exhibit 1019, page 16
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`B.
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`Server-Based Speech Recognition in Cable Television Systems
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`37. Speech recognition was also explored as an option for interacting with
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`a cable television system by the mid-1990s. As cable operators acquired the
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`technical capability to serve video content on demand, they sought complementary
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`technologies to allow consumers to easily name a desired movie or program to
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`watch. Speech recognition was therefore desirable as a consumer-friendly user
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`interface for the home market to access emerging cable offerings such as pay-per-
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`view (PPV), video-on-demand (VOD), and other new information access markets.
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`38. A cable television system is so named because the television content
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`is distributed to each subscriber over (conceptually) a single extremely long
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`electrical con