Appeal No. 2006-0002
Application No. 09/935,531
Cir. 1983) (when descriptive material is not functionally related
to the substrate, the descriptive material will not distinguish
the invention from the prior art in terms of patentability).
In the present factual situation, we find no claimed
functionality between the claimed “one’s density” representation
and any underlying display structure. Similar to the reasoning
applied by the court in Ngai, the data content of what is
displayed on the claimed display is not dependent on whatever
structure may be ascribed to the display, nor is any such display
structure dependent on what is being displayed.1
1 We make the observation that the subject matter set forth in the claimed “activity display” is
directed to a data compilation which is output in the descriptive form of a three-dimensional graph. As we
found in our above discussion, such displayed information is nonfunctional descriptive matter since it is not
functionally related to any underlying display structure. As such, it is not readily apparent as to which of
the four classes of statutory subject matter enumerated in 35 U.S.C. § 101 such subject matter would fall
since such “nonfunctional descriptive material” is not a process, machine, manufacture, or composition of
matter. It is noteworthy that Appellants, at page 4 of the Brief, characterize their invention as a “time
versus time graph.”
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