Appeal No. 2005-2038
Application No. 09/957,416
views expressed at pages 7 and 8 of the answer as to the rejection of claim
26. Of particular note here, however, is that the examiner apparently
inadvertently refers to Meyers and Deker when the rejection is based upon
Deker only.
We agree with the examiner’s observations that the discussion of the
prior art lateral or horizontal approaches in accordance with Figure 1
beginning at the bottom of column 2 of Deker is strongly suggestive that it
was well known to use a recursive algorithm to determine a horizontal path
of a route planer. On the other hand, substantially all remaining parts of
the reference relate to the determination of a vertical path having vertically
defined hazards in turn having both top and bottom altitudes portions,
where the route is determined based upon what amounts to an adaptive
algorithm. We are therefore unpersuaded by appellants’ urging at page 9
of the brief that there is no teaching of recursive and adaptive algorithms
recited in claim 26. Just because there is not an explicit use of the words
“recursive” and “adaptive” to describe the stated algorithmic approaches,
does not necessarily mean that the artisan would not have understood the
teachings and suggestions from Deker as indicating these approaches were
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