Appeal No. 2001-0615
Application No. 08/741,459
in “control” of the document. Further, if, in Davidson, the first party may present the
document to other remote entities for further development or approval, then it can still
be reasonably held that the first party is in “control” of the document since that party
presents the document to one of the other entities.
Appellants argue that the cited art “fails to teach, suggest, or make obvious a
plurality of remote entities selectively connectable by the first party” [emphasis in the
original; brief-page 8] and that such art fails to teach, suggest, or make obvious “a first
party originating, developing, and retaining control of a document until that document is
executed” [emphasis in the original-brief-page 8].
In particular, appellants point out that Davidson teaches relinquishment of control
of the document prior to execution at column 5, lines 24-36. However, as pointed out
supra, merely because a document is returned to the first party with alterations or
approvals made by a remote entity, this does not mean that the first party must accept
those alterations or approvals. In this sense, the first party still is very much in “control”
of the document until the document is actually executed. Appellants, in our view, take a
much narrower view of “control” than the instant claim language would require.
Appellants argue that a “key feature” of the instant invention is that at least one
workstation is “selectively connectable” to any of a plurality of remote entities by a first
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