Appeal No. 2006-0688
Application No. 09/838,425
into consideration, in reaching our decision, the appellants’ arguments set forth in the
briefs along with the examiner’s rationale in support of the rejections and arguments in
rebuttal set forth in the examiner’s answer.
It is our view, after consideration of the record before us, that the invention of
claims 1-7 is enabled by the specification of this application. We are also of the view
that the invention set forth in claim 7 complies with the second paragraph of 35 U.S.C. §
112. We are further of the view that claims 6 and 7 are directed to statutory subject
matter. Finally, we are of the view that the evidence relied upon and the level of skill in
the particular art would not have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art the
obviousness of the invention as set forth in the claims on appeal. Accordingly, we
reverse.
We consider first the rejection of claims 1-7 under the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C.
§ 112. The examiner asserts that the preferred embodiment discloses a technically
incorrect solution because the only possible processing option for step number 515 in
Figure 5 of the application is step number 518 “Result=DISJOINED” [answer, page 6].
Appellants argue that the examiner fails to understand how the Boolean values are
assigned in step number 505 of Figure 5 of the application. Specifically, appellants note
that the second operation in step number 505 may change the values established in the
first operation of step number 505 when cells in the two series of cells overlap.
Appellants have provided an example showing that the operations of Figure 5 correctly
represent the claimed invention [brief, pages 5-10]. The examiner reiterates that the
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