Appeal No. 2002-0366 Page 2
Application No. 08/803,692
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the
examiner's final rejection of claims 3-7 and 10-461,2, which are
all of the claims pending in this application.
BACKGROUND
Appellant’s invention relates to user definable on-line
co-user lists. An understanding of the invention can be derived
from a reading of exemplary claim 5, which is reproduced follows:
5. The method of claim 15, further comprising, based on
block selections received from the user, selectively blocking co-
users from adding the user to their associated user-definable co-
user lists.
The prior art references of record relied upon by the
examiner in rejecting the appealed claims are:
Tang et al. (Tang'365) 5,793,365 Aug. 11, 1998
(filed Jan. 2, 1996)
Tang et al. (Tang'173) 5,960,173 Sep. 28, 1999
1 Two amendments (Paper No. 22, filed June 2, 2000, and Paper No. 32,
filed January 28, 2003) were filed by appellant subsequent to the final
rejection. The former was entered by the examiner (Paper No. 23, mailed June
14, 2000). The latter was denied entry by the examiner (Paper No. 38, mailed
June 4, 2003). It is unclear from the record as to why the examiner denied
entry of the latter amendment, as the amendment merely canceled claims and
rewrote other claims in independent form, which would have reduced the issues
before us on appeal.
2 At the Oral Hearing, counsel for appellant indicated that the appeal
should be dismissed as to claims 3, 4, 7, 10, 11, 14-20, 25, 26, 28-34, 39, 40
and 42-46, as appellants intend to cancel these claims subsequent to the
appeal, and that the appeal should proceed only as to claims 5, 6, 12, 13, 21-
24, 27, 35-38, and 41. Accordingly, the appeal as to claims 3, 4, 7, 10, 11,
14-20, 25, 26, 28-34, 39, 40 and 42-46 is dismissed. By dismissing the appeal
as to these claims, we consider the dismissal to be an acknowledgment that
these claims are met by the prior art relied upon by the examiner. Upon return
of the application to the examiner, the status of the dismissed claims is that
they stand finally rejected.
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