Appeal No. 2002-1109
Application 09/316,436
telephone directory listings. Figure 1 shows a sample listing
for the "ABC Department Store." The listing has indents at
different levels, e.g., "Apparel" is at the first level of indent
(indicated by "(1)"), "Men's" is at the second level of indent
(indicated by "(2)"), and "Suits," "Casual," and "Shoes" are at a
third level of indent (indicated by "(3)"). The indent has one
or more word labels and may have an associated telephone number
(note the 4-digit numbers) or other data (col. 5, lines 51-59).
The listing in Fig. 1 is used to create the "pre-index table" of
Fig. 2, which is used for searching. Each listing, here the
listing for the ABC Department store, has a unique "Listing
Object Identifier" (LOID); other stores or organizations would
have their own unique LOID. Each indent within a listing is
uniquely identified by a "Caption Set Object Identifier" (CSOID),
which is a varying length string, where each additional three-
byte string indicates another level of indentation. Each unique
level of indentation, which is the "Indentation Object
Identifier" (IOID), is represented by a three-byte string.
Haegele discloses that the CSOID "contains the complete hierarchy
and navigational tree" (col. 6, lines 20-22). The pre-index is
keyed to a relational database of the complete telephone
directory listings, including the telephone numbers (col. 3,
line 62 to col. 4, line 5). The CSOID and the LOID, and
optionally the IOID, are used as numeric keys to index the table
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