Appeal No. 2000-0357
Application 08/941,186
In his response to appellant’s argument, at page 5 of the answer, the examiner explains that
when the term “key” is used in a database management context it
constitutes an attribute that is used to enable the retrieval and/or
update of information as well as a sort for the purpose of establishing
the order of their associated fields. Accordingly, while Stodghill’s
explicitly teaches [sic] of a “key” being provided as a hidden attribute
for the storage and retrieval functions of formatting and validation, it also
suggests sorting for the purpose of establishing the order of their
associated fields since it is one of the functions that is generally associated
with the term in a database management environment and Stodghill’s
uses [sic] the term in such a context.
The examiner may very well be correct in his assessment as to a key constituting an attribute
used to enable retrieval and/or update of information as well as a sort. The problem is that the
examiner has offered no evidence of this allegation. While the instant claims are broad, e.g., claim 12
requires nothing more than “associating a sort key with cell data so that the sort key is not displayed”,
having nothing before us that would suggest the use of a hidden object for sorting purposes, we could
only sustain the outstanding rejections by resorting to speculation. That is, we would need to speculate
that Stodghill’s disclosure of the algorithms used by the doda (“are not limited and may be selected or
programmed by the developer”) would have suggested a sorting algorithm to an artisan. Such
speculation could only be born of hindsight gleaned from appellant’s disclosure.
Minakuchi, cited by the examiner merely for sorting of data by clicking on a header, does not
provide for the deficiencies of MacGregor and Stodghill.
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