Appeal No. 95-4187
Application 07/835,374
should be made subject to a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as
being directed to non-statutory subject matter. It appears to
me that substantially all claims encompass and are so broad as
to be directed to an abstract idea or intellectual concept of
problem-solving without limit. Twenty two of the twenty five
pending claims are not applied in any manner to a train
scheduling environment. It is significant that method claims
1 to 21 and system claims 22 to 25 do not recite an expert
system or computerized system per se. Instead, they merely
recite only broadly defined problem-solving methods or a
system, both of
which expansively encompass mental or thought processes of
storing or memorizing information or such problem solving
using pencil and paper. The claims are directed to abstract
processes of solving problems not necessarily being performed
by a machine or computer; they also do not appear to be
directed to any practical utility except perhaps for dependent
claims 23 through 25. The disclosed train scheduling basis
is not recited in each independent claim on appeal. Even in
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