Appeal No. 1999-1852
Application No. 08/701,242
spends reading the item, the number of hyperlinks in the item that are used by the user,
how often the user returns to a particular document, etc. Criteria might be based on
content as a key preference item, as in the number of times there is a recurrence of
different items accessed by the user. But, in any event, the assistance, i.e., identification
of additional items that may be of interest to the user, offered by the invention of the instant
disclosure is based on user behavior.
Thus, we certainly recognize the differences between the invention disclosed by
Kupiec and that set forth in the instant disclosure. The question, however, is whether any of
those differences are set forth in the instant claim language. It is the examiner’s position
that the claim language does not distinguish over the disclosure of Kupiec.
While we would agree with the examiner that the instant independent claims do not
require any connection to the Internet, that there is no recitation of “browsing,” and that the
claim language referring to “the linked data item” may be broad enough to cover a linkage
between an identifier and any record, or data, we will not sustain the rejection under 35
U.S.C. § 102(a) because there is sufficient language in the independent claims to
distinguish over Kupiec.
Independent claims 1 and 17 call for some data items being linked to at least one
other data item by specifying the identifier of the at least one other data item.
Then, responsive to a user’s selection of an identifier appearing in an “already-
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