Appeal No. 2001-0041
Application No. 08/661,899
not challenged the fact, or otherwise required that evidence of such governmental
mandates be added to the record. Such events would form part of maintenance data
with respect to a vehicle.
Further, we note that one of the entities listed in the alternative in claim 42 is the
“owner” who is “concerned with the performance, deployment, or operation of said
machine.” The claim thus requires no more than the owner of the vehicle in a rental
fleet (Stewart at col. 7) mandating maintenance of the vehicle, such as periodic engine
tune-ups.
Since we are unconvinced that subject matter within the scope of the claims
presented is nonobvious over the applied combination of Ryan, Rovin, and Stewart, we
sustain the section 103 rejection of claims 42 through 45.
Claims 33, 34
We select claim 33 as representative of the subject matter, and consider
appellant’s arguments (Brief at 17-18). Claim 33 further limits the “recording step” as
being performed “by a service providing entity that is not said specific entity.” The
“specific entity” is the entity identified in “entity identification data files” recited in base
claim 29. The “recording step” of claim 33 refers to the step of “recording a permanent
history of event information on said data card” in the base claim.
The Stewart reference, as we have previously noted with respect to base claim
29, discloses automated functions for data collection and processing relevant to
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