Opinion ID: 208012
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Existence and Adequacy of an Index

Text: The above conclusion that the Lister manuscript was available at the Copyright Office for inspection by any interested person does not end our inquiry. We must also consider whether anyone would have been able to learn of its existence and potential relevance prior to the critical date. Dr. Lister argues that this criterion is not met for two reasons. First, he asserts that the catalogs and databases relied upon by the Board were not sufficiently searchable to lead an interested researcher to the manuscript. Second, he argues that even if some of the catalogs and databases were adequate, there is no evidence that the manuscript was in fact listed in any of them prior to the critical date. The parties agree that the only evidence in the record pertaining to the cataloging or indexing of the Lister manuscript is a statement made by Dr. Lister in an Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) filed with the USPTO during prosecution of his application. See Oral Arg., 20:31-47, June 4, 2009; available at http://oralarguments.cafc.uscourts.gov/mp3/XXXX-XXXX.mp3. In relevant part, that statement reads: [A]lthough the Copyright Office maintains a public record of the registrations of copyrighted works, searching of the catalog cannot be done by subject. See U.S. Copyright Office, How to Investigate The Copyright Status of a Work 4, Circular 22, Jan. 1991 (visited Dec. 30, 1997) (The Copyright Office does not maintain any listings of works by subject). Effective with registrations made since 1978, copyright registration information is available to the public through an automated catalog, accessible either at the Library of Congress or over the Internet. [Id. at 3] Searching of the automated catalog can be performed by the first word in the title of the work or by the author's last name. However, the automated catalog does not enable subject matter searching or key word searching of the text of deposits. Telephone Interview with Copyright Information Specialist, U.S. Copyright Office (Jan. 6, 1998). . . . Applicant further submits that any copyright information available through computerized databases such as DIALOG is not sufficiently indexed to make Applicant's deposited work § 102(b) prior art. The information contained in these databases comes directly from the Library of Congress, and therefore is available in essentially the exact same format as found in the automated catalog of the Library of Congress. Telephone Interview with Linda Jarmy, Catalog Distribution Service, Library of Congress (Jan. 9, 1998). Computerized searching in these databases does not offer subject matter searching of copyright registrations. The only additional feature offered by computerized searching, such as in the WESTLAW database, is the ability to search the title of works using key words. J.A. 122-23 (footnote omitted). As stated in the IDS and confirmed by the parties at oral argument, the undisputed facts relating to the indexing of the manuscript are summarized as follows. There are three relevant databases, the Copyright Office's automated catalog and two commercial databases, Westlaw and Dialog. The automated catalog was not sorted by subject matter and could only be searched by either the author's last name or the first word of the title of the work. Westlaw and Dialog obtained the automated catalog data from the Copyright Office and entered it into their own databases. Users of the Westlaw and Dialog databases could perform keyword searches of the titles, but not the full texts, of the works. Relying on Cronyn, Dr. Lister argues that none of the databases indexed or cataloged the manuscript in a meaningful way that would permit a researcher to locate it. See 890 F.2d at 1161. With respect to the Copyright Office's automated catalog, he asserts that neither searching by author nor the first word in the title (Advanced) would guide a researcher interested in his golfing method to the manuscript. At oral argument, the government conceded that the automated catalog alone would have been insufficient to support a finding of public accessibility. Oral Arg. at 18:48-19:08, 29:47-30:05; cf. Cronyn, 890 F.2d at 1161 (Here, the only research aid was the student's name, which, of course, bears no relationship to the subject of the student's thesis.). Turning to the Westlaw and Dialog commercial databases, which, unlike the Copyright Office's automated catalog, permit the searching of titles by keyword, Dr. Lister argues that the Board erred by concluding that a researcher would have found the manuscript by searching for the word golf in combination with the word handicap. Dr. Lister criticizes the Board's conclusion as not taking into account the possibility that such a search would have either inundated the researcher with hundreds or thousands of irrelevant results or failed to retrieve relevant documents that happened not to include both words in their title. Additionally, he suggests that the term handicap is not a good descriptor of the invention because it is not used in any of the claims and that an interested researcher would have used other search terms, such as tee or ball, which would not have yielded the manuscript. Dr. Lister attempts to impose too rigid of a test for whether an interested researcher could find a reference. The question is not whether an individual, selecting terms from the claim language, could execute a single keyword search that would yield all relevant references including the anticipatory reference at issue. Rather, our inquiry is whether it could be located by persons interested and ordinarily skilled in the subject matter or art exercising reasonable diligence. Kyocera, 545 F.3d at 1350 (emphasis added) (quotation marks omitted). A reasonably diligent researcher with access to a database that permits the searching of titles by keyword would be able to attempt several searches using a variety of keyword combinations. We agree with the Board that an individual interested in ways to expedite the game of golf and make it easier for casual players would be inclined to use handicap as a search term. Indeed, Dr. Lister used the term in his specification to describe his invention. See, e.g., J.A. 81 (In accordance with one embodiment the present invention provides . . . a golf handicap method (T Handicap) which generally involves the unrestricted use of teeing the ball after the first shot, except in hazards and greens.). Regardless of whether Dr. Lister views other search terms as more descriptive of his invention, a reasonably diligent researcher would have searched for golf in combination with handicap. [2] Accordingly, we conclude that the Lister manuscript was publicly accessible as of the date that it was included in either Westlaw or Dialog, the databases that permitted keyword searching of titles. In order for the manuscript to be a bar to patentability under § 102(b), it must have been publicly accessible more than one year prior to Dr. Lister filing his application on August 5, 1996. Dr. Lister argues that there is no evidence that it was in fact included in either Westlaw or Dialog prior to the critical date. [3] See Manual of Patent Examining Procedures § 2128 (Prior art disclosures on the Internet or on an on-line database are considered to be publicly available as of the date the item was publicly posted. Absent evidence of the date that the disclosure was publicly posted, if the publication itself does not include a publication date (or retrieval date), it cannot be relied upon as prior art under 35 U.S.C. 102(a) or (b).). The government offers two responses, neither of which is persuasive. First, it asserts that Dr. Lister's IDS provides substantial evidence that the manuscript was listed in the commercial databases prior to the critical date. At oral argument, the government relied on the portion of the IDS stating that [t]he information contained in [the commercial] databases comes directly from the Library of Congress. J.A. 123 (emphasis added); see Oral Arg. at 21:25-24:10. In the government's view, the use of the word directly is sufficient evidence that the manuscript was listed in either Westlaw or Dialog shortly after the Copyright Office issued Dr. Lister's certificate of registration on July 18, 1994. We disagree. We see nothing in the IDS that speaks to the date on which the Lister manuscript was incorporated into the Westlaw and Dialog databases. When pressed to identify such a date at oral argument, the government's only answer was directly around the time of the Copyright Office's housing [of the manuscript]. Oral Arg. at 23:48-24:10. The government asks us to read too much into the word directly. There is no indication that that portion of the IDS was meant to address the timing of the database updates and, indeed, Westlaw or Dialog could acquire the catalog information directly from the Library of Congress ten years after it was first generated for the Copyright Office automated catalog. Further, there is no other evidence that speaks to the timing or process by which Westlaw or Dialog incorporated the Copyright Office's updated automated catalog information into their databases. Although evidence establishing a specific date of cataloging was not required in Hall, in that case we held that competent evidence of the general library practice of cataloging and shelving established that the thesis became accessible prior to the critical date. 781 F.2d at 899. In contrast, in this case the government has not identified any evidence of the general practice of the Copyright Office, Westlaw, or Dialog with regard to database updates. Absent such evidence, we have no basis to conclude that the manuscript was publicly accessible prior to the critical date. The government's second argument is that it made a prima facie showing that the manuscript was included in the commercial databases shortly after the Copyright Office granted the certificate of registration and the burden has shifted to Dr. Lister to present evidence that it was not in either database before the critical date. Because he has presented no such evidence, the government asserts that Dr. Lister has failed to meet his burden and it was proper for the Board to make a finding in the government's favor. We do not agree that the government has established a prima facie case that warrants shifting the burden to Dr. Lister. Essentially, the evidence shows that at some point in time Westlaw and Dialog incorporated the Copyright Office's automated catalog information about the Lister manuscript into their own databases. There is no indication as to when that occurred or whether it was prior to the critical date. We see little difference between the evidence in this case and a situation in which an examiner comes across an undated reference that discloses an invention for which an applicant is seeking the patent. We surely would not view the mere existence of the reference in the latter scenario as prima facie evidence that it was available prior to the applicant's critical date. The government urges us that it is appropriate in this case to presume that the manuscript information was added to the Westlaw and Dialog databases prior to the critical date because the critical date was more than a year after the certificate of registration was granted. However, absent any evidence pertaining to the general practices of the Copyright Office, Westlaw, and Dialog, or the typical time that elapses between copyright registration, inclusion in the Copyright Office's automated catalog, and subsequent incorporation into one of the commercial databases, any presumption along those lines would be pure speculation. Because the evidence contained in the IDS neither provides substantial evidence that the Lister manuscript was publicly accessible as of the critical date nor suffices to prove a prima facie case of accessibility that would shift the burden to Dr. Lister to show inaccessibility, we conclude that the Board erred in affirming the examiner's § 102(b) rejection.