Appeal No. 2004-0473 -4-
Application No. 10/034,527
In rejecting the appealed claim as being unpatentable over the applied references,
we understand the examiner as conceding that Price does not teach (1) “an indicia of the
four types of card suits, with trump identification spots associated with each of said suits,
and for identifying which of said teams named one of said suits as trump,” as called for in
claim 1, or (2) the use of the device to keep score of the game of Euchre. To overcome
these deficiencies, the examiner turns to Smith and Townsend, respectively.
Smith is directed to a device for indicating the current bid of a Bridge player.
Smith’s device includes, in pertinent part, an indicating card 17 divided into five areas 20,
with each area having indicia 21 representing one of the four suits (clubs, diamonds,
hearts, spades) and no trump. Each of the five areas also includes a legend 20
comprising numbers 1 through 7 arranged vertically down the right side of the area. To
the right of the indicating card is a slidable pointer 27 for indicating the current bid of the
player. For example, in Figure 1 the pointer 27 points to the number 2 in the “hearts” area,
thereby indicating a bid of two hearts. To the left of the five areas there is a legend 30
designating the positions of the players (north, east, south and west) and a second pointer
33. Smith envisions that each player will have one of the disclosed devices, in order to
indicate that player’s current bid as the bidding progresses (page 2, lines 85-97). After
bidding, the pointer 27 of each device is moved into the proper position to denote the
successful bidder (page 2, lines 98-101). The pointer 33 of each device is moved into the
proper position to denote the dealer of the hand being played (page 2, lines 102-105).
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007