Appeal No. 96-2994
Application 08/282,413
would have been obvious to the artisan to modify the teachings
of Corthout with the teachings of either Bentley or Fuchs
since the hierarchic data of Corthout can be considered as
defining partitions as suggested by Bentley or Fuchs.
With respect to the rejection of claims 1 and 14 based
on Corthout and Bentley, appellants argue that there is no
motivation to combine the teachings of these references absent
the use of impermissible hindsight. We agree.
The examiner’s position fundamentally depends on his
assertion that a hierarchic data structure can be viewed as
defining partitions. In the context of the claimed invention
and the teachings of Corthout and Bentley, this position is
untenable. Claims 1 and 14 recite the specific manner in
which a first and a second partitioning plane are determined.
The second partitioning plane is determined only in response
to a first object in the virtual reality environment moving in
a specific manner with respect to a second object in the
virtual reality environment. We are unable to see any
relationship between the hierarchy of a tree data structure
and the movement of objects in a virtual reality environment
as recited in claims 1 and 14. We also fail to see how the
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