Appeal No. 95-5021
Application 07/929,082
The examiner’s interpretation is not reasonable because, as demonstrated by
Appellants, the claim terms “object oriented environment,” “object,” and “complex object”
have certain meanings in the art. Appeal Brief at 5. The terms do not refer to “any
database look up function” as the examiner contends.
Moreover, the claims are specifically limited to “an object oriented environment.”
Therefore, even if it were reasonable to say that an “object” could be any combination of
code and data, it would not be reasonable in this case which is limited to a specific
environment.
The examiner’s interpretation is not consistent with the specification, which states
that “[a]n object generally has a library of methods which are essentially unique to an
object, giving an object its specific behaviors.” Specification at 9, lines 9-11. This is
inconsistent with the examiner’s interpretation that “any combination of related pieces of
code and data may be considered an object.” Examiner’s Answer at 7. Moreover, the
description of Appellants’ figures 3, 4, and 5 confirms that “object” has a specific meaning
in the art.
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