Appeal 2006-2085
Application 09/810,629
1 1) characteristics (claim 1); 2) performance (claims 7 and 19); 3) security
2 (claims 11 and 23); and 4) availability (claims 15 and 27). (Br. 4.) The
3 issue turns on whether the combined teachings and suggestions of Gershman
4 and Brockman would have fairly suggested to an artisan (Br. 4) that the
5 report is responsive to the outcome from analyzing information on the
6 service provider's characteristics (claim 1); performance (claims 7 and 19);
7 security (claims 11 and 23), and availability (claims 15 and 17). The issue
8 additionally turns on whether the combined teachings and suggestions of
9 Gershman and Brockman would have taught or suggested providing the
10 report to at least two clients of the service provider. Moreover, with respect
11 to claims 31-42, the Examiner contends that the limitations (Answer 5-6) are
12 not expressly taught or suggested by the combination of Gershman or
13 Brockman. However, the Examiner asserts (id.) that these limitations recite
14 non-functional descriptive material, that is not functionally involved in the
15 steps recited, and that accordingly, the subjective interpretation of the data
16 does not patentably distinguish the claimed invention from the applied prior
17 art.
18
19 FINDINGS OF FACT
20 1. Appellants invented a system for providing information about the
21 characteristics of a service provider, such as an ASP or ISP
22 (Specification 2).
23
24 2. A third party management system gathers information about
25 characteristics of the service provider, analyzes the information,
26 generates a report based on the outcome of the analysis, and provides
27 the report to more than one client of the service provider (id.).
28
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Last modified: September 9, 2013