Appeal No. 2003-0360
Application No. 08/947,032
completely undisclosed method,
. . .because such a modification would
allow Blandford to determine if the date
(attribute) was written anytime close
to a specific date or changed months or
years later, to analyze the document
date to make a determination whether the
date was the oldest document date accord-
ing to a timestamp, and to have a skilled
programmer compose formulas for relative
reference dates for archiving the document
answer-page 4).
The examiner has clearly failed to even come close to
presenting a prima facie case of obviousness of the instant
claimed subject matter. The examiner should at least start with
a reference that is substantially like the instant claimed
subject matter but for some slight or otherwise obvious
modification. If one were to follow the dictates of Graham v.
John Deere, 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), one of the
requirements in an analysis under 35 U.S.C. §103 is to determine
the differences between the prior art and the instant claimed
invention. In the instant case, the examiner has determined that
there are stark differences in that the applied prior art has not
a single step of the instant claimed method.
Theoretically, it may be possible to show obviousness of the
claimed subject matter as a whole even where no step is actually
-5-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007