Appeal No. 2002-1258
Application No. 09/148,551
Accordingly, the examiner has failed to establish a prima facie case of
anticipation with regard to claim 12 and we will not sustain the rejection of this claim
under 35 U.S.C. §102 (e), nor will we sustain the rejection of claims 13-19 on this
ground since they depend from claim 12.
Since independent claim 20 is the method counterpart of claim 12, including
similar recitations, we also will not sustain the rejection of claim 20, or of claims 21-23,
dependent thereon, under 35 U.S.C. §102 (e).
Independent claims 24, 30 and 32 are a bit different. For example, claim 24
requires providing data defining each geographic object within a spatial extent;
partitioning the spatial extent into cells, generating a unique cell identification for each
cell; grouping the defining data by the unique cell identification to form cell grouped
geographic objects; and storing the cell grouped geographic objects in a database
record corresponding to the unique cell identification. Claims 30 and 32 are similar.
The examiner recites all of these claimed steps at pages 4-5 of the answer and
states that Israni teaches all of these things, and then says: “See cover figure spatially
organized data, spatial index, and non-spatially organized data. Also note figure 7A
attribute array (818); figure 11A map display area and intersecting cells; figure 11B
control bit definitions; also see col.2 lines 52-58; col.3 lines 34-40; col.10 lines 52-63"
(answer-page 5).
5
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