Appeal No. 2006-2354 Page 16
Application No. 09/877,157
of the policy, it would have been obvious that if the policy is manipulated via a
GUI that it would be readable to a user. Answer, p. 3. The appellants argue that
none of the references teach or suggest this step. Brief, p. 16. The appellants
further argue that the fact that a prior art device could be modified so as to produce
the claimed device is not a basis for an obviousness rejection unless the prior art
suggested the desirability of such a modification. Brief, p. 16 (citing In re Gordon,
733 F.2d 900, 221 USPQ 1125 (Fed. Cir. 1984)).
We find that Abraham does, in fact, disclose the step of generating a human-
readable version of the policy. For example, when a system administrator sets a
site policy that allows a group to access all sites with the exception of specified
sites, or denies access to the group to all sites with the exception of specified sites,
the policy is displayed to the administrator in human readable form in the site
policy tab window, as shown in Figure 8O. Abraham, page 41, lines 17-30.
Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of claims 5 and 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
Claims 6, 7, 17, and 18
The appellants argue claims 6, 7, 17, and 18 as a group. We treat claims 6
and 7 as representative claims. Claims 6 and 7 recite that the human readable
version of the policy is an HTML or XML version, respectively. The examiner
took Official Notice that generating a “hypertext markup language version of the
policy” or “an extensible markup language version of the policy” is common and
well known in the prior art in reference to policy management. Answer, p. 4. The
examiner made this same rejection of these claims based on Official Notice in the
Non-Final Office Action dated March 11, 2004 and in the Final Office Action
Page: Previous 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007