Appeal No. 97-0507
Application 08/202,609
popcorn” (emphasis added). This reasoning also confirms the
proprietary of the examiner’s approach not to give patentable
weight to the aeromagnetic data input into the neural network
claimed.
The answer does not rely upon Ex parte Masham, 2 USPQ2d 1647
(Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 1987), but the final rejection does make
reference to it at the top of page 2. The examiner made
reference there to this prior Board’s decision indicating that
this case held that a recitation with respect to the manner in
which a claimed apparatus is intended to be employed does not
differentiate the claimed apparatus from a prior art apparatus
satisfying the claimed structural limitations. Schreiber
confirms this. Appellants’ rebuttal of the examiner’s reliance
upon Masham at page 5 of the principal Brief on appeal is
misplaced. That the board affirmed a rejection of a claim based
upon a patent having the same utility as that of the claim on
appeal before it was not dispositive. What appears to us to have
been dispositive in that case was that the recitation with
respect to a different material intended to be worked upon by the
claimed apparatus did not impose any structural limitation upon
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