Appeal No. 1998-2725
Application 08/473,651
in Seki of removing data from a memory which describes a
portion of an object that is covered by another object.
According to appellants, the disclosure of Seki explicitly
teaches against the removal of such data from memory [brief,
pages 7-9]. The examiner responds that the modifying step of
claims 19 and 20 is broad enough to be met by the flags used
in Seki to identify visible and hidden portions of an object
to be displayed [answer, pages 6-7]. Appellants reiterate
their position that the processing technique of Seki does not
function to remove any portion of the description of the area
that is covered by an object from memory [reply brief].
Our analysis must appropriately begin with a
consideration of the scope of the appealed claims. Appellants
and the examiner obviously disagree on the meaning to be
attached to the modifying step of claims 19 and 20. The step
in question appears in the claims as follows:
modifying the data stored in said
second memory to remove the common
area of intersection from the
description of the area covered by
said first object.
Appellants argue that this recitation requires that a portion
of the description of an area be removed from memory which is
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