Appeal No. 1996-3089
Application No. 08/006,860
to one or more leaf nodes, each path from the root node to any
leaf node of said three having an equal length where the
length equals a number of nodes in a path;
one or more keys having said information
assigned thereto being stored on one or more of said nodes,
each node having at most 2k+1 sons, where k is a natural
number, each of said nodes, except said root node and said
leaf nodes, having at least one son, and the root node being a
leaf node or having at least two sons; and
wherein said leaf nodes of said tree comprise
additional pointers, said additional pointers pointing from
one of said leaf nodes to another one of said leaf nodes, so
that a sequential search of leaf nodes may be performed
without searching nodes other than leaf nodes.
The references relied on by the Examiner are as
follows:
Bozman 5,089,952 Feb. 18, 1992
Ferguson 5,121,493 Jun. 9, 1992 (filed Jan.
19, 1990)
Claims 1 through 5 and 7 through 9 stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Bozman and
Ferguson.
Rather than repeat the arguments of Appellants or
the Examiner, we make reference to the brief and the answer
for the details thereof.
OPINION
After a careful review of the evidence before us, we
agree with the Examiner that claims 1 through 5, 7 and 8 are
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