Appeal No. 2006-1817 Page 16
Application No. 09/851,514
the inventor, would have been led to apply the teachings of Harhen to the system
and method of Gerace in view of Deaton to make the combination recited in claim
2. For the same reasons provided above in our discussion of claim 1, we hold that
one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention would have been
motivated to combine the art to provide more advanced modeling and, therefore,
better optimization of Gerace’s optimization system and method.
V. Dependent Claim 4
With respect to dependent claim 4, the examiner determined that Gerace
teaches providing a report which identifies the contradictions and resolutions.
(Examiner’s Answer, pp. 8-9.) The examiner further determined that Harhen
discloses providing output reports of a final hypothesis, and Deaton discloses
providing automatic reports as event-driven activities. (Examiner’s Answer, pp.
27-28.) With respect to Harhen, the examiner points specifically to a description
of an output report that includes a summary of the evidence that was chosen as the
basis for the final hypothesis and includes a problem solution tree containing,
among other information, an explanation of the reasoning methods selected and the
reasoning methods and solutions discarded. (Harhen, col. 46, lines 9-56.) As such,
the examiner rejected this dependent claim as obvious over Gerace in view of
Harhen in view of Deaton.
The appellants argue that Gerace and Harhen do not teach or suggest a report
that includes an identification of the contradictions and resolutions. Rather,
according to the appellants, the section of Gerace cited by the examiner teaches
web-based reporting that includes advertisements and other reports. (Appellants’
Brief, p. 15 and Appellants’ Reply Brief, p. 4.)
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