Appeal No. 2006-2513
Application No. 10/060,782
Procedure (MPEP) ' 2106.01 (8th Ed., Rev. 5, Aug. 2006). The content of the
nonfunctional descriptive material carries no weight in the analysis of patentability over
the prior art. Cf. In re Lowry, 32 F.3d 1579, 1583, 32 USPQ2d 1031, 1034 (Fed. Cir.
1994) (ALowry does not claim merely the information content of a memory. . . . [N]or
does he seek to patent the content of information resident in a database.@). As such,
we are further unpersuaded that instant claim 1 distinguishes over the applied prior art.
We thus sustain the rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. ' 103 as being
unpatentable over Meister and Sheldon. Claims 2, 9, and 16 fall with claim 1.
Meister, Sheldon, and Minich
Claims 3, 4, 10
The examiner further relies on the teachings of Minich, in addition to those of
Meister and Sheldon, in the ' 103 rejection applied against claim 3.1 Meister relates to
the general problem of misdirection of electronic mail (e.g., col. 1, ll. 36-45). Meister
teaches the capability of modifying lists of intended addressees (e.g., col. 3, ll. 40-56;
Fig. 2). Meister provides examples of modifying or deleting addressees in sequence
(col. 5, ll. 17-26; Fig. 6), and allowing deletion of particular addressees with a pointing
device (col. 5, ll. 42-51).
1 We note in passing that Athe other destination@ in the fifth line of claim 3, as reproduced in the
Brief=s claim appendix, lacks proper antecedent basis in the claims. A[T]he other destination@ was
changed from Aan other destination@ in an apparent error in the amendment filed November 24, 2004.
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