Appeal No. 2000-0935
Application 08/567,447
additional attachments or definition to take on an identity
can be deemed an abstract in the sense of a summary of
particulars of the item.
In this connection, the examiner has failed to make out a
satisfactory showing or explanation.
On page 8 of the answer, the examiner makes the following
statement:
Further, regarding the argument that “Spencer does
not show abstract of business information”, it would
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the
art at the time of the invention to have store
abstract of business information in Spencer’s system
because “abstract of business information” is a
descriptive material which is not functionally
related to the method of storing, searching,
accessing and retrieving information in a database.
Also, storing abstract of business information will
not distinguish the invention from the prior art in
terms of patentability (see Cf. In re Gulack, 703
F.2d 1381, 1385, 217 USPQ 401, 404 (Fed. Cir. 1983))
(Emphasis in original).
The examiner’s position is misplaced. The appellants do
not simply claim storing abstracts of business information.
According to independent claim 1, the information stored in a
business information database must relate in a certain way to
the data separately maintained in a data storage system.
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