Appeal 2007-0559
Application 10/037,659
invocation mechanism is invokable by the database for accessing data
external to the database.
We agree with the gist, not the entirety, of the appellants’ assertion.
Nothing in any of the claims on appeal requires the database to support a
“standard” structured query language (SQL) statement. Although for relational
database systems structured query language (SQL) may have evolved into a
“standard” interface recognized by the American Nationals Standard Organization
(ANSI) and the International Standards Organization (ISO) as the appellants
represent, that does not mean a relational database must use structured query
language statements for accessing stored information. Nonetheless, that distinction
is without significance here. We agree with the appellants that both (1) storing a
table function within the database and invoking it from within the database, and (2)
storing an invocation mechanism in the database and invoking it from within the
database mean that the query language of the database is operative to invoke the
table function or the invocation mechanism, as the case may be, without need for
reliance on an external program. In that regard, we note that the one problem
described by the appellants as associated with acknowledged prior art database is
that a user using the prior art database to access messaging data has to rely on an
external program, or additional user defined functions, rather than the preexisting
query language of the database (FF. 14).
The appellants argue that Drexler does not store a table function in the
database system, as is recited in claims 1, 27, and 53, and also does not store the
invocation mechanism in the database, as is recited in claims 67, 75, and 83.
Specifically, the appellants state the following: (Substitute Appeal Br. at 11):
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