Appeal No. 2006-1534
Application No. 09/829,007
Claims 11 and 35-40 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable as obvious over Finkelstein in view of Brown ‘469.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and
appellants regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the examiner's
answer (mailed December 22, 2004) for the reasoning in support of the rejection, and to
appellants’ brief (filed April 6, 2004) for the arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations that follow.
We first note that the invention is a species of what is broadly referred to in the
relevant art as a diagnostic decision support system. That is, the invention is an aid to
reaching a diagnostic decision. We further note that the claims only refer to the
application of such a system to the field of asthmatic diagnosis in the preambles, and
there is no linkage in the bodies of the claim that depend on the narrowing of the claim
to the application of asthmatic diagnosis. Therefore, the references to asthmatic
diagnosis in the claim preambles are considered to be mere field of use limitations and
not constrictive of the claims’ scope.
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