Appeal No. 97-1277
Application No. 07/820,261
fan. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of independent
claim 41 as being unpatentable over the teachings of Peters.
With respect to dependent claim 42, appellant argues
that Peters does not suggest the player entry mode and game
mode as recited therein. As noted previously, these two modes
have to be present in the Peters electronic baseball
scorekeeper whether or not Peters specifically refers to them
as modes. Player names must be entered before the game begins
and event data must be entered during the course of a game.
The obviousness of dual mode keys has been discussed above.
The recitations of dependent claim 43 would have clearly been
met by the ball or strike input means of the Peters baseball
scorekeeper. The obviousness of the recitations of claim 44
has been discussed above. Therefore, we also sustain the
rejection of dependent claims 42-44 as unpatentable over the
teachings of Peters.
We note appellant’s arguments that the examiner has
not properly interpreted the means language of the claims as
required by In re Donaldson, 16 F.3d 1189, 29 USPQ2d 1845
(Fed. Cir. 1994). The disclosed invention has a plurality of
manually operable input elements and a processing means. The
17
Page: Previous 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007