Appeal No. 2006-2241
Application No. 09/827,291
We disagree with appellants and find that Pare does teach using a personal
identifier as a data key and as such provides suggestion to use name data to identify as a
key. Claim 16 is dependent upon claim 15 and together they recite “capturing biometric
data corresponding to a consumer … generating a key base upon the biometric data,”
“obtaining name data corresponding to the consumer … identifying a plurality of data
records based upon the name data” and “retrieving a previously stored data record from
the identified plurality of data records based upon the data storage key.” The term
“Name” is data that identifies a person. As discussed supra Pare teaches that a party can
be identified by a combination of biometric data and PIN. In this embodiment the
system searches the database for all matches to the PIN and then compares the biometric
samples associated with the pin to the submitted biometric sample (Pares ‘348 column
11, lines 40 thorough 48 or Pare ‘166, column 11, lines 36 through 44). We note that
while a PIN is not a name, they are both data identifiers of an individual, which amounts
to printed matter. Our reviewing court has stated that “[w]here the printed matter is not
functionally related to the substrate, the printed matter will not distinguish the invention
from the prior art in terms of patentability.” In Re Ngai 367 F.3d 1336, 1339, 70
USPQ2D 1862, 1864 (Fed. Cir. 2004, citing In Re Gulack 703 F. 2d 1381, 217 USPQ
401 (Fed. Cir. 1983)). Thus, we consider Pare’s step of using a PIN to retrieve a set of
samples in a database to correspond to appellants’ claimed “identifying a plurality of
records based on the name data.” Accordingly we find ample evidence to support the
examiner rejection of claim 16.
On pages 28 and 29 of the brief, appellants argue that the rejection of claim 17 is
improper for the reasons asserted with respect to claims 1 and 16. Accordingly, we
sustain the examiner’s rejection of claim 17 for the reasons discussed with respect to
claims 1 and 16.
9
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007