Appeal No. 96-3059
Application No. 08/170,569
but there is no suggestion to present a second such visual cue
which corresponds to a second user along the edge of the
window [brief, pages 4-6]. Appellants assert that the
examiner’s bare allegation of obviousness does not satisfy the
burden of presenting a prima facie case of obviousness.
The examiner responds that since Bates teaches the
display of cursors for more than one user, and since the
elevator on the scroll bar of Cowart is also used to indicate
the location of a cursor within an active window, it would
have been obvious to the artisan to add multiple scroll bars
and/or elevators in Bates to correspond to the plural cursors
shown therein. The examiner’s rationale seems to be based on
the fact that the information displayed in Bates’ Figure 3 is
relatively close together for the plurality of users [answer,
pages 11-12].
After a careful review of the record in this case, we
are constrained to agree with appellants that the examiner’s
conclusion of obviousness is not supported by the types of
factual findings necessary to reach this conclusion. Our
reading of the examiner’s reasons for obviousness causes us to
conclude that the examiner believes the claimed invention
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