Appeal No. 96-2894
Application 08/742,974
the step of "verifying prior authorizations of said student
for executing said courseware." There can be no question,
especially to appellants in this case assigned to Texas
Instruments Corporation, that the examiner's finding that
verifying a password as authorization for logging on to a
computer was notoriously well known in the art at the time
of the invention is correct. Applicants may easily traverse
findings of well-known fact by official notice by either
denying that the fact was well known or that it was not
known by applicants. Merely stating that the facts are not
expressly taught in a reference is not sufficient. In the
situation where an applicant or representative knows the
examiner's assertion of well-known facts is correct, it
would be misleading and, in our opinion, a violation of 37
CFR § 1.56 to assert that the matter is not expressly shown
in the prior art and to insist on an affidavit or other
evidence.
We consider that the well-known procedure of verifying
a password as authorization for a user to log on to a
computer also serves as authorization for the user to
execute software on the computer. The step of "verifying
- 20 -
Page: Previous 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007