Appeal 2007-2020
Application 10/028,906
Claims 27-39 purport an “apparatus,” but (representative) claim 27
does not require any kind of physical structure in the body of the claim.
Similar to claim 1 and its recitation of “code,” claim 27 recites “logic”
which, according to the context, may refer to an abstraction, a computer
listing per se, hardware implementation of logic, or hardware/software
implementation of logic. Nothing in the claim requires an interpretation of
anything more concrete than a computer listing per se, however. Merely
reciting that the claim is directed to an “apparatus” is not sufficient to place
the invention into a § 101 statutory class; e.g., machine, manufacture, or
composition of matter.
We are thus not persuaded that any claim has been rejected in error.
We sustain the rejection of claims 1-13 and 27-39 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as
being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Prior Art Rejections
For the purpose of our review of the rejections over the prior art, we
will give effect to all the claim terms, consistent with the Examiner’s
position in the Answer (i.e., as if structural and functional interrelationships
are realized in claims 1-13 and 27-39).
Instant claim 1 recites, inter alia, logging code operable to maintain a
statistical log having an entry for each file sent to the computer for review,
each entry being arranged to store a count value indicating the number of
times that the computer has been sent to the computer for review. The
rejection refers (Answer 4-5, 12) to column 4, line 62 through column 5, line
5 of Chess for the teaching.
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Last modified: September 9, 2013