Appeal 2007-1539
Application 09/741,362
user might be identified as part of a test group. (Liu, col. 11, l. 59 through
col. 13, l. 21).
We further agree with Appellants (Br. 8; Reply Br. 6) that, the
Examiner’s arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, Liu has no disclosure
of what might be reasonably interpreted as experimental content and non-
experimental content, let alone any disclosure of the determination of how
such information might be used by a verified member of test and non-test
subject groups as claimed. Although the Examiner cited Liu’s “SportWorld”
example (column 28, lines 29-52) in support of the stated position, we agree
with Appellants that, in Liu’s example, no verification as to whether the
requesting user is a test subject ever takes place. Further, there is no
indication that a requesting user might receive experimental or non-
experimental content depending on whether a requesting user is verified as
being a member of a test group.
In view of the above discussion, since all of the claim limitations are
not present in the disclosure of Liu, we do not sustain the Examiner’s
35 U.S.C. § 102(e) rejection of independent claims 1, 10, 16, and 26, nor of
claims 2-4, 6-9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 18-21, 24, 25, and 28 dependent thereon.1
1 We make the observation that the language of claim 1 lacks clarity and
precision. While the claim recites “offering experiment content…” to a
client device upon verification that the client computing device is a test
subject, the succeeding clause recites that both experiment and non-
experiment content is offered to the client computing device. We leave it to
the Examiner and Appellants to address this matter in any further
prosecution on this application.
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