Ex parte CANNON et al. - Page 4




              Appeal No. 1997-1012                                                                                       
              Application No. 08/115,937                                                                                 


              limitation and directs our attention to pages 487 and 488 of Strong for a teaching of  this                
              limitation.  (See answer at page 15.)   Appellants argue that “Strong et al.  do not disclose              
              a thesaurus as claimed here.  Strong et al. employ a concept-based hierarchical structure                  
              (i.e., facets and sub-facets).  With regard to independent claim 1, Strong et al. do not                   
              expand the list of search descriptors, but rather only allow the user to navigate down the                 
              hierarchical tree from broad to narrow facets.”  (See brief at page 5.)  We agree with                     
              appellants.  The three brief quotations of the text of the Strong reference cited by the                   
              Examiner do not expressly teach that the thesaurus is used in a manner to function as a                    
              means to “expand” the list of search descriptors.   Furthermore, the Examiner has not                      
              provided a convincing line of reasoning why the skilled                                                    
              artisan would have been motivated to “expand” the list of search descriptors using a                       
              thesaurus means in view of the lack of an express teaching in any of the references                        
              applied against the claims.  Appellants further argue that Kawai, Strong and Cannon “all                   
              base their search strategies on either menus or hierarchies of limited, predetermined                      
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              terms.”  (See brief at page 6.)  We agree with appellants.   Therefore, we will not sustain                
              the rejection of claims 1, 3, 4, 8, 11, 13, 14, 18, 21-22, 24 and 28 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.                



                     While we do not find that Strong teaches the use of a thesaurus to expand the list of search2                                                                                                  
              descriptors, we note that Reed et al. U.S. Patent 5,241,671 at col. 3-4 and IBM Technical Disclosure       
              Bulletin, Vol. 30, No. 12, pp. 117-118, May 1988 teach and suggest the use of a thesaurus in the           
              generation or modification of data base search queries.  We make no finding beyond directing attention     
              thereto.                                                                                                   
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