Appeal No. 2006-1785 Page 5
Application No. 10/768,827
We further note that under the PTO’s “Interim Guidelines for Examination of
Patent Applications for Patent Subject Matter Eligibility” [OG, 22 Nov. 2005],
when functional descriptive material is recorded on a computer-readable
medium it becomes structurally and functionally interrelated to the medium
and will be statutory in most cases since use of technology permits the
function of the descriptive material to be realized. See also In re Lowry, 32
F.3d 1579, 1583-84, 32 USPQ2d 1031, 1035 (Fed. Cir. 1994) (a claim to
data structure stored on a computer readable medium that increases
computer efficiency held statutory). Therefore, we do not agree with the
examiner that instant claim 15 recites an unpatentable data structure, per
se. Accordingly, we will reverse the examiner’s rejection of claims 15-25
under 35 U.S.C. §101.
II. We consider next the examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 13, 14, 15, 24
and 25 as being anticipated by Bodamer. Since Appellants’ arguments with
respect to this rejection have treated these claims as a single group which
stand or fall together, we will consider independent claim 1 as the
representative claim for this rejection. See 37 C.F.R.§ 41.37(c)(1)(vii)
(2004).
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. §102, a single prior art reference
that discloses, either expressly or inherently, each limitation of a claim
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