Appeal No. 96-1396
Application 08/176,335
Although many of appellants’ arguments are not
commensurate in scope with the invention of claim 1, we are
unable to find motivation to combine the teachings of Muller
with Fleming so as to arrive at the claimed invention. First,
we cannot agree with the examiner that "associating" can be
satisfied by the mere presence of two unrelated items on a
display window. Claim 1 recites an association that requires
functionality between the actionable object and the menu bar
icon which is not met by the actionable objects identified by
the examiner. Second, we can find no motivation for replacing
the action line items of Fleming, such as File, View and
Options, with a plurality of menu bar icons based on the
teachings of Muller. The plurality of icons in Muller would
not fit within the menu bar and would provide no advantage to
the Fleming interface. Therefore, we do not sustain the
rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as formulated by the examiner.
Notwithstanding our view that the examiner’s rejection
of the claims cannot be sustained, we are also of the view
that the invention as broadly recited in independent claims 1,
6 and 11 is fully met by the teachings of Fleming. Therefore,
we exercise our authority under 37 CFR § 1.196(b) to make a
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