Appeal 2007-1440
Application 09/920,481
It is this HTTP request 20 that is the sole point of contention in this
appeal. As Appellant indicates in the Reply Brief, the sole issue before us is
whether an email message from the user would have been the same as, or an
obvious variant of, an HTTP request message (Reply Br. 4). While we find
that an HTTP request message is not necessarily the same as an email
message, we nonetheless find that an email message would have been an
obvious variant of an HTTP request message in Gifford. Moreover,
associating email messages with hyperlinks is well known.
At the outset, we note that both the Appellant’s and the Examiner’s
definitions of “email”3 share a common characteristic: sending messages
over a network. Furthermore, we find that an HTTP request ultimately
performs a commensurate function: it sends a message over a network.
Although Appellant argues that an email message differs from an HTTP
request message in “form, origin, and purpose,”4 both types of messages
would nonetheless provide commensurate utility -- at least from the user’s
perspective -- when used to convey messages to the content delivery system
in the manner claimed. That is, at least from the user’s perspective, a
message initiating the inquiry-response transaction would be sent from the
client device to the content delivery system via a network, irrespective of
whether an HTTP request message or an email message was used.
3 Appellant defines “email” in pertinent part as “[t]he exchange of text
messages and computer files over a communications network....” (Br. 8).
The Examiner defines “email” in pertinent part as “[t]he sending of
messages by electronic means from one computer user to one or more
recipients via a network….” (Answer 12).
4 See Reply Br. 4-5 (explaining distinctions between email messages and
HTTP request messages).
7
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