Appeal No. 96-1614
Application No. 08/236,660
not reply to this new position of the examiner.
In view of the paucity of arguments with respect to
this rejection, the only question is whether the examiner has
made a case that Fong teaches a “perforated portion having a
step” as recited in claim 37. Appellants’ Figure 2 shows a
first “perforated portion” 10c which is made up of holes 14-20
and a second “perforated portion” 10b which is a single large
opening called the drawing area. Thus, appellants’ own
disclosure supports the definition that a perforated area can
be a single large area surrounded by an opening “step” of
raised material.
The examiner has interpreted the touch sensitive
device shown in Fong’s Figure 13 as meeting this same
definition of a perforated portion as appellants’ area 10b.
More particularly, the examiner views the touch sensitive
surface 301 of Fong as being surrounded by the raised collar
of the device 300. Thus, the examiner views the area of Fong
which includes writing surface 309 and inputs 306-308 as being
a perforated portion in the same manner as appellants’ area
10b.
Although we agree with appellants that Fong does not
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