Appeal 2007-1319
Application 09/797,017
licensing certificate, which is supplied to the DCS client, contains licensing
parameters that dictate whether the merchandise is permitted to be executed.
Krishnan, col. 4, ll. 21-44. The item of merchandise may be digital content.
Col. 7, ll. 53-54.
Krishnan thus discloses: a computer-readable medium (at the DCS
server) having stored thereon a digital license for specifying rights with
regard to corresponding digital content; the digital license specifying storage
of the license (at least the portion comprising the electronic licensing
certificate) on a computer storage device (at the DCS client) and specifying
a condition precedent (the client request of an item of merchandise) to
allowing the event to proceed.
In view of the breadth of instant claim 28 and the disclosure of
Krishnan, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection, even if one were to presume
that all the recitations of the claim serve to limit the scope of the subject
matter. We sustain the rejection of claim 28, and that of claims 24-27, 29-
33, 34-44, and 68-82, which fall with claim 28.
As we have indicated in our discussion of the rejection of the claims
under § 101, however, the claims are directed to nonfunctional descriptive
material. We designate a new ground of rejection under § 102(e) over
Krishnan, infra.
New Grounds of Rejection
The Examiner, inexplicably, did not reject (independent) claim 30
when rejecting claims 28, 35, and 41 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being
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