Appeal No. 2003-1986
Application 09/315,200
meta-data that would describe something about the true-data
contents of each entry" (Br8). In the reply brief, appellant
notes the examiner's characterization of specific attributes of
Table 4 ("Object Type Name," "Object Type Version," "Last Update
Time," etc.) as meta-data that are used to manage a true-data
attribute, but argues that "[e]ach of these attributes specify
some property of an external object, not properties that are used
to manage the true data attribute itself" (footnote omitted)
(RBr1). It is argued that the "Object Type Version" in Thomas
refers to a version number associated with the external object,
not a version number of the "Object Type #1" attribute (RBr2).
It is argued that the "Last Update Time" attribute indicates when
the external object is updated, not when the information
repository is updated (RBr2). In summary, it is argued that
"Thomas describes a system in which the attributes contained in
an information repository describe external entities, not
entities within the data structure itself" (RBr2).
We can understand why the examiner made and maintained the
rejection. The tables in Thomas show data structures having
parameters indented under headings and, as shown in Table 7, the
headings and parameters are attributes because they are key/value
pairs; thus, the tables closely resemble appellant's Fig. 5A in
appearance. The examiner notes that the "Last Update Time" in
Table 4 of Thomas is similar to the meta-data attribute
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