Appeal No. 95-0175
Application 07/894,147
the thought that where a plurality of items are for selection in
connection with some object displayed on a screen, it would be
best to have a selection menu displayed not far and away from the
object, but in close proximity in relation thereto. It would be
unreasonable to limit Hernandez’s teaching value to only non-
character type graphical objects which require on-screen editing.
We do not find that Hernandez constitutes nonanalogous art,
since its disclosure is reasonably pertinent to the problem with
which the appellants were involved, i.e., frequent turning of the
eyes and moving of the stylus away from the point of interest on
a screen, albeit in the context of character entry. Also, the
test for obviousness is not whether the features of one reference
may be bodily incorporated into another reference, but whether
the combined teachings render the claimed subject matter obvious.
In re Wood, 599 F.2d 1032, 1036, 202 USPQ 171, 174 (CCPA 1979).
Secondly, while Hernandez does not expressly state that the
menu can be displayed to abut any particular object, we think it
is the natural and next logical step in keeping with the
teachings of Hernandez. Note that in Hernandez the object to be
acted on is not selected until after the editing function has
been selected. Thus, it is not possible to place the editing
function menu in an abutting relationship to the object to be
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