Appeal No. 98-1528 Page 6
Application No. 08/374,039
Nor do any of the references disclose or teach the first
step recited in each of the two independent claims, which is
“providing a . . . document” to be sent to the ethereal being
that identifies the ethereal being as the recipient and is
capable of accommodating change of address indicia. Scragg is
the only reference in which a document is “provided” to the
sender, and while it is capable of accommodating change of
address indicia, it does not identify an ethereal being as the
intended recipient. As for the other references, while they
teach that the sender should create a communication in which
the intended recipient is an ethereal being, they do not teach
providing such a document to the sender. These same comments
apply to the third step in each of the independent claims,
which requires “providing” a second document that is returned
by the recipient.
In the second rejection of the claims, the examiner begins
by proposing that since it is known to configure an e-mail
system to acknowledge to a sender receipt by the recipient of a
communication (Official Notice), it would have been obvious to
one of ordinary skill in the art to send the communication to
an ethereal being at an e-mail address, in view of The
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