Appeal 2007-0243
Application 09/777,002
Nonfunctional descriptive material carries no weight in the analysis of
patentability over prior art applied by the Examiner. In re Lowry, 32 F.3d
1579, 1583, 32 USPQ2d 1031, 1034 (Fed. Cir. 1994). Nonfunctional
descriptive material cannot render nonobvious an invention that would have
otherwise been obvious. In re Ngai, 367 F.3d 1336, 1339, 70 USPQ2d
1862, 1864 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
ANALYSIS
We agree with the Examiner that a user at a node would communicate
storage access requests with a storage node that stores data of relevance to
the user (e.g., a politician would store and retrieve data from a node that has
political relevance to the politician, and an economist would more than
likely access a storage node that stored economic data). Accordingly, we
agree with the Examiner that it would have been well known to the skilled
artisan for a data storage management process to select a storage node based
at least in part upon the particular context associated with the storage node
(i.e., particular data is stored at a certain storage node location, and similar
data would be accessed at that same storage node location).
Although we agree with the Examiner that the context associated with
the storage nodes would have been obvious to the skilled artisan, we
additionally find that the claimed contexts (i.e., political, economic,
geographical or network topological) are not functionally related to the
storage nodes. The claimed contexts are mere labels placed on the storage
nodes. Thus, the noted contexts can not render nonobvious an otherwise
obvious invention.
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