Appeal No. 2001-1390 Application No. 08/922,599 preference from hedonic data. However, contrary to appellants' point of view, claim 1 does not address a "calculating" step. Giving claim 1 its broadest reasonable interpretation, it appears to us that those having ordinary skill in the art would comprehend the claimed "processing" of hedonic test data to determine at least one predicted forced choice result to broadly denote a mental assessment or review of hedonic test data to determine at least one predicted forced choice result. For example, if two consumers, in hedonic testing, tested only competing food products A and B, on the basis of taste and appearance categories, and each gave the highest rating in both categories to product A, it is quite apparent to us that one having ordinary skill in the art would have been able to process (mentally assess or consider) this hedonic test data and predict a forced choice preference result (product A). The latter view is clearly supported by the Peryam disclosure. Declarant points out (paragraph 9) that the Peryam reference ("Hedonic Scale Method of Measuring Food Preferences") has been reviewed but that the examiner is incorrect in asserting that it would have been obvious from this reference "to process the hedonic scale data to obtain forced choice comparison information," since there is no suggestion in the reference to do so. It appears to us that 7Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007