Appeal 2007-2127
Reexamination Control No. 90/006,621
As to group 33 (claim 78), the Examiner finds that the limitation "to
form input data code into groups" lacks written description because he finds
no teaching of this limitation (Final Rejection 46 ¶ II.3(V)).
As to group 34 (claim 79), the Examiner finds that the limitation "to
form input data code into words" lacks written description because he finds
no description of forming code into "words" (Final Rejection 46-47
¶ II.3(W)). It is stated that computer programming variables and statements
are not words and sentences and operation on a natural language requires
different lexical and semantic analyses (Final Rejection 46-47).
Patent Owner notes (Br. 109) that the '604 patent specification
explains that "the lexical analyzer of the compiler then determines if the
source character read in constitutes the last character of a symbol, such as an
identifier, operator or punctuation mark" (col. 5, lines 46-49). Patent Owner
argues that "symbols" and "identifiers" in the context of a source code
compiler include many normal English language words (Br. 109) and "[t]he
fact that some 'symbols' in the context of source code compilation are not
English language words does not negate that fact that many source code
'symbols' are in fact normal English language words" (Br. 110). Patent
Owner concludes that "claims directed to parsing English language words
are fully supported by the disclosure of the '604 patent" (Br. 110).
Programming language symbols are known to consist of keywords
(words reserved for the language, such as "BEGIN," "END", "IF, "THEN,"
etc.), identifiers (variable names, such as "X" or "Y"), operator symbols (for
mathematical and logical operations, such as "+," "-," "=," ">," etc.), and
punctuation marks (for delimiting expressions and comment statements,
such as "(," ")," "{," "}, "//," etc.). See Aho & Ullman, Principles of
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