Appeal No. 2002-0145
Application No. 09/090,990
provide delivery of electronic information to end users who
preferred or supported messages in both or either HTML and plain
text formats (see answer, page 6).
The examiner’s rationale appears to rely heavily on
hindsight gleaned from appellant’s own disclosure. In Zachery,
electronic documents are transmitted to a recipient. Then, at
the recipient’s end, if the document is not in the correct
format, i.e., the recipient’s preferred format, the document
format will be converted to the preferred format. Contrary to
this, the instant claims require the creation of an HTML
document, then checking designated recipients for HTML-
capability. The document is then sent (thus, the creation and
the checking are done prior to sending the document, whereas the
processing in Zachery, i.e., any necessary conversion, is done at
the recipient’s end) to the designated recipients in accordance
with the recipient’s HTML capability.
Moreover, as admitted by the examiner, Zachery is devoid of
any teaching or suggestion of creating an HTML document, checking
for HTML capability, or sending a document in accordance with a
recipient’s HTML capability, so it does appear to be a hindsight
determination when the examiner contends, merely because HTML was
“well known,” that it would have been obvious to employ HTML in
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