Appeal No. 97-0507
Application 08/202,609
having the same effective filing date as the present application
“has now issued as U.S. Patent 5,355,313 and contains claims to
the invention in method format.” In contrast, the present claims
on appeal are all apparatus claims.
For the reasons set forth by the examiner in the answer, we
will sustain the rejection of claims 25 to 30 under 35 U.S.C. §
102 as being clearly anticipated by Reilly and the separate
rejection of the same claims under 35 U.S.C. § l02 as being
clearly anticipated by McCormack. We do so even though we
conclude that the more persuasive argumentative approach for the
examiner to have taken on the facts presented in this case would
have been to reject the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103 in each
instance since it clearly would have been obvious for the artisan
to have programmed a neural network to process any type of data
whether it be aeromagnetic input data, the seismic trace-type of
data as in McCormack or generic types of data to solve real world
problems in a particular environment as in Reilly’s INTRODUCTION.
In an analogous manner, the nature of neural networks is such
that they are enabled to process all types of data, inherently
within 35 U.S.C. § 102, even the claimed aeromagnetic data.
Contrary to appellants’ initial position in the brief, the
examiner does not appear to us to dissect representative
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