Appeal No. 2002-2078
Application No. 09/209,211
Claims 1, 9, 10, 18 and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) as anticipated by Stipanovich.
Claims 2-8, 11-17 and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103. As evidence of obviousness, the examiner offers
Stipanovich with regard to claim 20, adding Parrish with regard
to claims 2-8 and 11-17.
Reference is made to the briefs and answer for the
respective positions of appellants and the examiner.
OPINION
An anticipatory reference is one which describes all of the
elements of the claimed invention so as to have placed a person
of ordinary skill in the art in possession thereof. In re Spada,
911 F.2d 205, 15 USPQ2d 1655 (Fed. Cir. 1990).
Initially, we interpret the claims to be directed to a
machine-implemented method because of the steps of “automatically
cross-referencing” (claims 1 and 19) and “automatically
searching” (claim 10).
The examiner indicates that Stipanovich anticipates the
independent claims by pointing to the abstract for a “method of
recruiting,” to column 5, lines 10-13 for “determining a
plurality of hiring needs...,” to column 3, lines 29-40, for
-3–
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