Appeal No. 1998-3335
Application 08/014,867
In this case, the claims define a practical application
of a computer algorithm because they recite finding the
longest common subsequence of atomic groups between two
sequences of atomic groups (a specific practical use) using a
gene information survey apparatus (i.e., this is not an
abstract mental process), which result is displayed. The
claims are not to a longest common subsequence detection
algorithm in the abstract. The claims define "a useful,
concrete and tangible result" and, hence, the rejection of
claims 31-37 under § 101 is reversed.
35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
The Examiner admits that MATLAB does not disclose the
specific steps of claims 31 and 35, but finds that MATLAB is
capable of performing the recited operations and concludes
that "one skilled in the chemical arts, specifically
sequencing, at the time of the invention would [have] know[n]
that the specific conditional statements are design, program
and conditionally dependent and would [have] know[n] how to
program MATLAB with the statements such that optimal results
were achieved" (EA15).
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