Appeal No. 2000-1377
Application No. 08/628,415
Claims 1, 9, 10, 18, 19 and 27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over Tilles.
Reference is made to the brief and answer for the respective positions of appellant
and the examiner.
OPINION
We REVERSE and REMAND.
Each of the claims on appeal, albeit very broad in scope, is directed to electronic
mail (e-mail).
The examiner relies on Tilles as the basis for rejecting the instant claims. However,
Tilles is clearly directed to regular, paper mail and, in no way, does Tilles discuss e-mail.
Thus, it is difficult to see how Tilles is applicable to claims which recite the updating of a
recipient’s e-mail address, or updating information associated with a user’s program
wherein a recipient’s e-mail address in the user’s program is updated.
The examiner relies, in large part, on column 5, line 50 through column 6, line 10 of
Tilles. That portion of the patent discloses the searching of an address of a piece of
incoming mail for a name that corresponds to a name stored in a database and, upon
recognizing the addressee’s name, the system identifies a present mail stop of the
3
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007