Appeal 2007-1401
Application 09/882,094
plan is developed based on forecasts, and that the system generates market trend
forecasts based on, inter alia, available shipment history (Findings of Fact 14, 15).
We find that shipment history is a form of purchase data, and thus Huang teaches
retrieving purchase data for parts (Finding of Fact 16).
With regard to creation data, we agree that Table 2 of Huang appears to
include a Date Created field (Finding of Fact 17). We also agree with the
Examiner (Answer 8) that Huang fails to disclose that this date represents the date
a part number for a part was added to the database (Finding of Fact 18).
Huang also does not disclose the steps of evaluating said part data and said
activity data; associating an active or inactive status code with the part data based
upon the results of the evaluating step; and storing the part data and the status code
in a data storage location (Finding of Fact 19). The Examiner relied on
Underwood and Liff for these missing teachings (Answer 9-11).
The Appellants contend that Underwood does not teach the assignment of
active or inactive status codes as claimed, but rather the codes of Underwood are
used for mapping items between databases (Br. 5, citing Underwood, col. 19, l. 24
– col. 20, l. 15). The Examiner contends that Underwood describes using business
objects to perform the mapping (Answer 11). We agree with the Examiner that the
cited portion of Underwood appears to describe using business objects to map
items between databases (Finding of Fact 20). However, we also agree with the
Appellants that this portion of Underwood does not teach assignment of active or
inactive status codes. Underwood relates to software framework designs and
describes a Codes Table framework design, including code and text phrase
11
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