Appeal No. 2003-1942 Page 8
Application No. 09/260,796
one group for which access to the information will be granted, and using the determined
access formula and a public key for the group granted access to the information to
encrypt asymmetrically the randomly generated number.
2. Obviousness Determination
Having determined what subject matter is being claimed, the next inquiry is
whether the subject matter would have been obvious. "In rejecting claims under 35
U.S.C. Section 103, the examiner bears the initial burden of presenting a prima facie
case of obviousness." In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed.
Cir. 1993) (citing In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir.
1992)). "'A prima facie case of obviousness is established when the teachings from the
prior art itself would . . . have suggested the claimed subject matter to a person of
ordinary skill in the art.'" In re Bell, 991 F.2d 781, 783, 26 USPQ2d 1529,
1531 (Fed. Cir. 1993) (quoting In re Rinehart, 531 F.2d 1048, 1051, 189 USPQ 143,
147 (CCPA 1976)).
Here, Feistel discloses "a cryptographic coding process to maintain privacy of
communications in a data processing network." Col. 1, ll. 52-54. The reference uses a
randomly generated number to encrypt information. Specifically, "a random
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