Appeal No. 2001-0258 Page 2
Application No. 08/821,978
potential effect on an outcome and award for the player
(specification, p. 2). A copy of the claims under appeal is set
forth in the appendix to the appellants' brief.
The examiner relied upon the following prior art references
of record in rejecting the appealed claims:
Weingardt 5,042,818 Aug. 27, 1991
Chadwick et al. (Chadwick) 5,344,145 Sep. 6, 1994
Netley et al. (Netley) 5,868,618 Feb. 9, 1999
(filed Sep. 30, 1996)1
(1) Claims 10, 17 and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112,
second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly
point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which
appellants regard as their invention.
(2) Claims 10, 17-27 and 34 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Weingardt in view of Netley.
(3) Claims 11-16, 28-33 and 35-46 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Weingardt in view of Netley,
as applied to claims 10, 17, 27 and 34, and further in view of
Chadwick.
1 Appellants argue that Netley is not available as a prior art reference
against appellants' claims because "[i]ts publication date is inappropriate as
a reference" (brief, p. 18). Be that as it may, Netley's filing date of
September 30, 1996, which precedes the March 20, 1997 filing date of the
instant application, qualifies it as prior art against appellants' claims
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e).
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