Appeal No. 1998-2848
Application 08/398,862
that is not part of a larger computer program. The "ETC
corresponding to a disassociated computer code segment" in all
of the independent claims is interpreted to mean that the ETC
is a separate computer code segment, i.e., a code segment that
is not part of a larger code segment. Because the claims do
not recite that the computer program or the computer code
segment is stored on a tangible medium, no medium is expressly
or impliedly claimed.
35 U.S.C. § 101
The Examiner states (Paper No. 10, page 2):
The claimed invention is directed to data structures
representing descriptive material per se. This
determination is based on the fact that Applicant has
intentionally avoided claiming the mechanism or medium
that is interrelated with the data structure; e.g.:
"disassociated computer program"; "disassociated computer
code segments." See M.P.E.P. 2106.
Section 2106 of the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure
(MPEP) reproduces the Patent and Trademark Office Examination
Guidelines for Computer-Related Inventions (Guidelines),
1184 Off. Gaz. Pat. & Trademark Office 87 (March 26, 1996) .2
MPEP § 2106 incorporates the footnotes of the2
Guidelines into the body of the text and changes some wording,
such as "non-functional" in the Guidelines to "nonfunctional."
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