Ex Parte Georgiev - Page 14

               Appeal 2007-0337                                                                           
               Application 09/996,200                                                                     
                                                                                                         
                     The Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claim 6 is therefore reversed.               
               Since claim 6 is representative of the group comprising claims 6 and 21,9 we               
               likewise reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claim 21.                                     
                     We next consider the Examiner’s rejection of claims 12, 27, and 3310                 
               under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Thomas in view of Choi.                      
               Regarding representative claim 12, the Examiner finds that Thomas                          
               discloses all claimed subject matter except for the user selecting the area for            
               applying by the location of a virtual brush.  The Examiner cites Choi as                   
               disclosing such a feature and concludes that it would have been obvious to                 
               one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to incorporate               
               such a teaching in Thomas to select a desired amount of transformation area                
               (Answer 15).  Appellant argues that Choi does not disclose a virtual brush                 
               that enables the user to select the area to which the extracted component is               
               applied (Br. 17).  The Examiner responds that since both a conventional                    
               computer mouse and a virtual brush are used for pointing purposes, it would                
               have been obvious to the skilled artisan to replace the mouse with a virtual               
               brush for pointing purposes (Answer 20).                                                   
                     We will sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 12, 27, and 33.  At               
               the outset, we note that the term “virtual brush” is extremely broad.  In                  
               interpreting the term “virtual brush,” we note that Appellant’s Specification              
               states that virtual brush shapes can be a circle, square, or a single pixel                
               (Specification 3:16-19; emphasis added).  In our view, a computer mouse,                   

                                                                                                         
               9 Appellant indicates that claim 6 is representative of the group consisting of            
               claims 6 and 21 (Br. 15).                                                                  
               10 Appellant indicates that claim 12 is representative of this claim grouping              
               (Br. 16).                                                                                  
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