Appeal No. 1997-3178
Application 08/464,069
instructions at 86 in figure 4. Thus, claims 25 and 32
indicate that the identifying information is not encrypted
and do not define over the use of non-encrypted data as
identifying information. Claims 25 and 32 do not cover the
disclosed concept of using encrypted information to confirm
the identity of the legitimate user, i.e., an imposter could
substitute his own identifying information because it is not
encrypted. Similarly, claims 30, 31, 37, and 38 do not
require encrypting private information.
Third, claim 25 is directed to a digital data structure
stored in a memory. Claim 25 includes a "wherein" clause
which expresses that the digital data structure is used by a
trustee to confirm the identity of the legitimate computer
user and to recover the secret encrypted digital
information. We agree with the Examiner's position (argued
by Appellant at Br18-19) that the "wherein" clause is merely
a statement of intended use of the data structure claim
(although we do not find where this position is stated in
the rejection), which limitation is met as long as the data
structure is capable of such use. We are not persuaded by
Appellant's argument (Br19) that the language in the
- 6 -
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007