Appeal No. 2003-1942 Page 6
Application No. 09/260,796
Here, the examiner explains, "[i]n Carter, the client is a member of M-of-N
groups, where both M and N equal one." (Examiner's Answer at 16.) As reasoned by
the appellant, however, "if M=N=1, the access formula would be a function of only one
group. Group is singular." (Reply Br. at 4.) In fact, the examiner admits, "Carter does
not teach more complex formulas," (Examiner's Answer at 16); "Carter does not discuss
values of M and N, each greater than one." (Id.) The absence of an access formula
describing a function of more than one group of clients negates anticipation. Therefore,
we reverse the anticipation rejection of claim 1 and of claim 2, which depends
therefrom.
B. CLAIMS 3-5 AND 7
The examiner finds that "Carter depicts . . . encrypting the data portion of a
document with a generated document key, preferably for use with a symmetric
encryption method (see column 13, lines 4-17; figure 2, item 50 and 54; figure 3,
items 68 and 70; figure 4, item 94; and figure 6, step 112); . . . encrypting the document
key with the public key of the collaborative group (see column 13, lines 63-
67; column 14, lines 1-5 and figure 5, item 100). . . ." (Examiner's Answer at 7-8.) He
further finds, "Feistel specifies a random key number generator in a symmetric key
block cipher (see column 5, lines 18-23 and figure1, item 43)." (Id. at 8.) Noting that
"[c]laim 3 also provides for encrypting an information set based on a randomly
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