Appeal No. 96-1534
Application 07/888,991
Kuechler. With respect to this rejection, claims 25-27 stand or
fall together and claims 28-30 stand or fall together [brief,
page 6; reply brief, page 7]. The examiner has specifically
considered the limitations of claim 25, and has noted that the
analysis covers broader claim 28 as well. Although the examiner
is of the belief that only one of the steps of claims 25 and 28
needs to be suggested by a reference to render the claims
unpatentable, the examiner nevertheless has indicated that all
the steps of claim 25 are suggested by Kuechler.
With respect to claim 25, appellants argue that the
examiner has failed to point out where Kuechler teaches any of
substeps (b)(4)-(b)(7). The examiner points to Kuechler’s
technique of direct access to meet substep (b)(4), points to
Kuechler’s summary of the invention to meet substeps (b)(5) and
(b)(6), and asserts obvious default operation to meet substep
(b)(7) [answer, pages 10-11]. Appellants respond that the direct
accessing of Kuechler does not perform a filtering operation as
recited in substeps (b)(4) and (b)(7).
We have carefully reviewed Kuechler, and we cannot find
any suggestion therein for filtering records as they are accessed
if the database file is below a pre-selected size as recited in
substep (b)(4). Kuechler does not consider the size of the
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