Appeal No. 2003-0750
Application 09/310,650
dependent claims 95, 96, 112, 113, and 116 (based on the
combination of Nagao and Suda, we do not sustain these rejections
as well. In addressing the limitations in these dependent
claims, which are directed to various specific features such as
weighted pointers and input and output string processing, the
Examiner looks to Wical and Suda to remedy these deficiencies in
Nagao. For all of the reasons discussed supra, however, the
Examiner has failed to establish a prima facie case of
obviousness since we find no teaching or suggestion in Wical or
Suda that would overcome the innate deficiency of Nagao in
disclosing the particular claimed feature of “hierarchically
arranged semantical units which are similar across hierarchies,”
a feature present in each of independent claims 56 and 109.
Lastly, we also do not sustain the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) rejection of independent claim 98, as well its dependent
claims 99-108, in which Krawchuk is added to the combination of
Nagao and Wical. We agree with Appellants (Reply Brief, pages 6
and 7) that Krawchuk, applied by the Examiner to address the
fractal database feature of independent claim 98, is directed to
a fundamentally different problem than that of the hierarchically
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