Appeal No. 1999-2607
Application 08/826,618
It is debatable whether Lynch shows a three-dimensional
workspace, but Lynch is not really needed for this limitation.
Although the representations of rooms and objects have a
three-dimensional appearance, the user cannot move the viewpoint
in the third dimension, but can only navigate left and right in
the hallway and downtown using the arrows (e.g., figures 4E and
25A) or move up or down a level (e.g., using the "Hallway"
description in the title bar 180 of figure 3 to "step back" to
where the user was before the present level). Nevertheless, it
might be found that selecting a door in the hallway to move into
a room is broadly analogous to navigating in a third dimension.
We agree with the Examiner that the object levels do not
necessarily correspond to different workspaces, because the
object levels can be considered a construct for the workspace.
Nevertheless, this does not help the rejection.
It is argued that it is inherent in Lynch that to navigate
away the user must leave the two-dimensional level he is
currently working in and, thus, there is no way his current
working level can remain active after the user has navigated away
(Br8). The Examiner points to the "step back" function and
hypothesizes a scenario where the user (1) selects an object from
the desktop to bring up a two-dimensional interface, (2) executes
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