Appeal No. 2003-2010
Application 09/150,549
the modal tool described in Buxton "merely comprises a form of
operation wherein a particular tool may be selected by the
operator and thereafter operated in conjunction with he movable
cursor, like painting tools ..." (Br6). Appellants argue (Br7):
The selection of a particular tool utilizing a cursor
and the subsequent execution of that tool on a selected
object with the cursor fails, in the opinion of the
Applicant, to show or suggest in any way a process for
specifying "a predefined process where within said data
processing system said predefined process comprising a
plurality of keystrokes, said plurality of keystrokes
specifying a user defined executable process which may be
applied to one or more objects within said data processing
system" so that that process may thereafter be associated
with a cursor and applied to any suitable object upon
selection with the cursor.
Appellants have not convinced us of error in the examiner's
position. Buxton describes making a tool corresponding to a
recorded macro, where the user places the system in a mode for
macro creation, then performs a desired sequence of operations on
a single object (col. 23, line 50 to col. 24, line 2). Although
Buxton does not expressly state that the macro sequence of
operations is a plurality of keystrokes, one of ordinary skill in
the art would appreciate that the sequence of operations could be
keystrokes as well as any other operation performed by a user
using an input device. There can be no question that macros are
commonly recorded keystrokes, e.g., macros in word processing;
while Buxton describes overlay tools primarily for graphical
editing, it states that the tools can be used for any
screen-based application, such as text editing (col. 37,
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