Appeal No. 1999-1598
Application 08/668,656
Data Files
Appellants argue that claim 1 recites operations on one
or more "data files," whereas Rothfield represents a query
that is to be executed against one or more "database tables."
It is argued that the terms "data file" and "database table"
are not synonymous or equivalent as evidenced by the
definitions of data files and tables provided below from the
Dictionary of Computing (4th ed., Oxford Univ. Press 1996)
supplied by Appellants:
data file A *file containing data, such as a file created
within an applications program; for example, it may be a
word-processing document, a spreadsheet, a database file,
or a chart. Data files are normally organized as sets of
*records with one or more associated *access methods.
table A collection of *records. Each record may store
information associated with a key by which specific
records are found, or the records may be arranged in an
*array so that the index is the key. In commercial
applications the word table is often used as a synonym
for matrix or array.
It is argued that one operating Rothfield's system would only
be enabled to conduct operations on data tables not on data
files. It is argued that the structures of data files are not
so organized as data tables, at least not with the objective
of supporting queries (Br5).
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