Appeal No. 2004-0570
Application No. 09/425,532
inverted files. In the present application, ‘indexing’ relates to the human activity
of classifying the documents in a database by assigning words from a controlled
vocabulary.” Further, on page 13 of the brief, appellants assert
Caid is designed to obviate the use of a controlled vocabulary and is
intended to replace human indexers, not aid them. The Examiner quotes
Caid as follows: “Caid et al. teaches ‘wherein indexing terms are assigned
to the textual data by human indexers’ (see col. 12, lines 43-53).”
However, Caid is there describing a means for using indexed documents
as a vetted set to train the Caid invention so that human indexing is no
longer needed.
The examiner’s response, on page 6 of the answer, states:
The claim language requires that the extracted indexed terms be
suggested to the human indexer. Examiner maintains that Caid’s indexing
of terms combined with the “human editor” in col. 12, lines 40-55 clearly is
illustrative of applicant’s [sic applicants’] claim language above. Further,
applicant’s [sic applicants’] use of “Human indexer” as defined in page 12,
is synonymous to Caid’s teachings of Human editor, both are used to
process index terms with a human element involved in the process.
We concur with the appellants. Claim 1 includes the limitations of “an
indexing means in communication with the database management means for
indexing the textual data entered into the database management means, wherein
indexing terms are assigned to the textual data by human indexers” and “a
concept extracting means for scanning the textual data and extracting one or
more indexing terms from the textual data and suggesting the extracted indexing
terms to the human indexer.” Similarly, independent claim 11 includes the
limitations of “determining at least one indexing term to associate with the textual
data for storage and retrieval, wherein indexing terms are assigned to the textual
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