Appeal No. 2003-0322
Application No. 09/569,476
We will not sustain the rejection of claims 1, 12 and 23 under 35 U.S.C. §103 as,
in our view, the examiner has not established a prima facie case of obviousness.
First, we are unconvinced that the examiner has a valid reason for combining the
references. There does not seem to be a need in Walker for the “hint” in Jacobs which
the examiner wants to incorporate. Even so, if a “hint” was to be incorporated into
Walker, there is no indication why the artisan would have found it obvious to have that
“hint” successively provided over a period of time, until the puzzle is solved,
“automatically and without requiring user input,” as required by the instant claims.
Even if there were some legitimate reason for combining the teachings of the
applied references, it is our view that the instant claimed subject matter would still not
result. This is because the “hint” in Jacobs is only provided in response to some user
input, i.e., a player strikes a plunger to begin his/her turn (column 9, lines 42-46).
Contrary to the examiner’s assertions, the “hint” of a free letter in the anagram game of
Jacobs is not performed “automatically and without requiring user input, successively
providing over a period of time each of a plurality of portions of the representation of the
puzzle object having at least one actual solution.”
The solution of the puzzle in Jacobs will not progress until and unless a player
strikes the plunger, thus, the “hint” provided for by Jacobs is not “automatic.” To the
extent that the “hint” of a free letter may be considered “automatic,” in that the computer
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