Appeal No. 2006-1618
Application No. 10/046,797
[id.].2 Appellant responds that any organization of data may not be fairly
considered a "data structure" under the narrower definition since data merely
arranged in a file or otherwise made available for communication or processing
with no specific ordering or arrangement is not a "data structure for better
algorithm efficiency" [reply brief, page 5].
We will sustain the examiner's rejection of claim 12. We agree with the
examiner that the scope and breadth of the limitation "data structure" fully reads
on the quantized transform coefficients of Kim and that format conversion of
graphical information is well known in the art. According to the Microsoft Press
Computer Dictionary, "data structure" is defined as follows:
data structure An organizational scheme, such as a
record or an array, applied to data so that it can be
interpreted and so that specific operations can be
performed upon that data.
Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary, 2d ed., Microsoft Press, 1994, at 110.
Although "[d]ictionaries…are often useful to assist in understanding the
commonly understood meaning of words[,]…any reliance on dictionaries accords
with the intrinsic evidence: the claims themselves, the specification, and the
prosecution history." Free Motion Fitness, Inc. v. Cybex Int'l, Inc., 423 F.3d
1343, 1348, 76 USPQ2d 1432, 1436 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (internal citations omitted).
The definition of "data structure" above fully comports with the term's usage in
2 Under this narrower definition, "data structure" is defined as "[a]n organization of information,
usually in memory, for better algorithm efficiency, such as queue, stack, linked list, heap,
dictionary, and tree, or conceptual unity, such as the name and address of a person. It may
include redundant information, such as length of the list of number of nodes in a subtree"
[answer, page 7].
12
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