Appeal No. 1998-2674
Application 08/329,724
described in more detail in the reference Inside Macintosh,
Volume VI (Addison-Wesley 1991), pp. 11-3 to 11-10,
submitted as Appendix B to Appellants' brief. As discussed
in Inside Macintosh, the programmer specifies a variation
code, which specifies the preferred position of the help
balloon relative to the hot rectangle (p. 11-7), and the tip
position (p. 11-10).
The relevant portion of claim 1 recites "an information
cursor with a pointing portion . . . and an information
portion for displaying information that is displayed in a
selected relative position with respect to the pointing
portion."
The Examiner states for the first time in the
Examiner's Answer that "the term 'relative position' is
indefinitive [sic, indefinite] therefore regardless where
the cursor may be on the object, the information cursor
would be displayed in relative position with the cursor"
(EA4; see also EA7-8). Appellants respond (RBr3) that the
Examiner has not rejected claim 1 as indefinite under
35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, and erred by ignoring the
limitation that the "information portion . . . is displayed
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