Appeal No. 1996-1418
Application No. 08/247,521
for the character located in the square B where the character
cursor is positioned. Since the cursor is located at the
square of the character being input, the character type
identifier for the character being input will be displayed in
portion D. Thus, the identification of a character being
entered is displayed in the second area simultaneously with
data entry. Accordingly, we will affirm the rejection of
claim 4 and the claims grouped therewith, claims 5 and 7/(4,
5).
Claim 6 requires that each character has a first and
second area and that the two areas are contiguous to each
other. The examiner asserts that "contiguous" is defined as
"nearby or adjacent" and that areas B and D in APA Figure 21
"can be reasonably characterized as nearby or adjacent." We
disagree. First, in Figure 21 there is not a separate second
area for displaying the identifier for each character. All of
the characters share a single area of identifiers. Therefore,
APA fails to meet the first portion of the claim. Further,
even taking the examiner's definition of "contiguous," we do
not find areas B and D in Figure 21 to be contiguous. Area D
is adjacent to the last four characters, but not to each
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007