Appeal No. 1998-2848
Application 08/398,862
Again, the claims define the invention and claim 1 does
not recite that the computer program and the ETC computer code
segment are embodied in physical media. The claimed computer
program and a computer code segment having a certain format
(i.e., a data structure) are abstract. The citation of
In re Beauregard is inapposite because the claimed subject
matter is not embodied in a tangible medium as noted in the
quotation.
For the reasons discussed above, Appellant has not
persuaded us of error in the rejection of claim 1. The § 101
rejection of claim 1 and its dependent claims 2-14 is
sustained.
Independent claims 15, 16, and 19
and dependent claims 17, 18, and 20
Claims 15, 16, and 19 are method claims and, therefore,
the analysis applied to claim 1 does not hold. The Examiner
apparently recognized this when writing the Examiner's Answer
and provided this additional reasoning (EA3-4):
The claimed invention of claims 15, 16, 19, 21 and
those dependent therefrom are directed to abstract ideas.
Each set of claims describe an ethereal function. If the
function is not ethereal then it is unknown who (a
person) or what (a computer) is performing the function
or who or what is being operated on by the function.
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