Appeal 2007-0459
Application 10/285,927
the input documents received by an information retrieval system
in order to determine the subject categories of each received
document for storage in a system database such as the image/text
database 118.
(Barr, col. 31, l. 61 through col. 32, l. 8, see also Fig. 10).
We do not agree with Appellants’ assertion that the Examiner has
impermissibly used hindsight in formulating the rejection. In contrast, we
find the Examiner has taken the proffered motivation directly from the Barr
reference at col. 3, ll. 20-24:
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide an
automated system for processing incoming documents to be
stored on a library or database, which system categorizes each
incoming document into one or more subjects, and which does
not require an individual to read each incoming document and
make a separate judgment categorizing the subject of such
document.
Thus, we find that an artisan having knowledge of Liddy would have
been reasonably motivated to look to Barr’s automatically categorized
document database as an enhancement to the generic document database
(and associated index) used by Liddy for matching queries (e.g., see Liddy,
col. 32, ll. 40-66). In particular, we find that such a combined system would
avoid searching for documents in the database that are unlikely to be of
interest to the user (Barr, col. 31, ll. 49-50). Therefore, for at least the
aforementioned reasons, we conclude the Examiner has met the burden of
establishing a prima facie case of obviousness. Accordingly, we will sustain
the Examiner’s rejection of claim 33 as being unpatentable over Liddy in
view of Barr.
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