Appeal No. 1997-0403
Application 08/174,215
states (col. 8, lines 29-31) that one example of a
multi-purpose keyswitch is said to be disclosed in U.S.
Patent 4,680,577 to Strayer et al. (Strayer). The device in
Strayer appears to be limited to one direction at a time.
In any case, the user in Franz uses only one key as the
pointing key, the J key for a right-handed mode and the F
key for a left-handed mode, where the D and F keys in the
right-handed mode and the J and K keys in the left-handed
mode are pointing event keys analogous to mouse buttons
(col. 15, lines 11-17). The thumbswitches 218 are mode
changing switches corresponding to the claimed special
function key, they are not pointing keys. Thus, even if
Franz did allow a diagonal direction, it would not use two
keys. We also refer to Appellants' arguments at pages 2-3
of the Reply Brief. For this additional reason, the
rejection of claim 11 is reversed. The background of
Strayer discloses using conventional alphanumeric keys
around the home position to provide four directions of
cursor movement (col. 1, lines 33-44); however, it does not
disclose using keys in the pointing mode.
Claim 10
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