Appeal No. 2004-0373
Application No. 08/939,064
conclusion with respect to claims 5-7 and 10. While we remain
convinced, for all of the reasons discussed supra, that the
Examiner has not established proper motivation for the proposed
combination of Elliott and Santos-Gomez, our review of the
disclosure of Santos-Gomez reveals that this reference alone
discloses all that is claimed in claims 5-7 and 10.
We note initially that we do agree with Appellants’ comments
(Reply Brief, page 2) that the windows in Santos-Gomez lose their
independence when connected since, as described at column 7,
lines 29-33, the windows must be disconnected in order to be
resized independently. However, in contrast to previously
discussed independent claim 1 which requires that the height and
width of the main and sub-windows retain their independence after
being automatically moved to an adjacent position, independent
claims 5 and 6 require only that the main and sub-windows are
automatically moved “. . . without altering a height or a width
of said sub-window.” As illustrated in Figures 2 and 3 of
Santos-Gomez, when a user moves a workspace sub-window 34 to
within a predetermined distance of the main window 32, the
windows are automatically “snapped” into place in a connected
arrangement without altering the height and width of the main and
sub-windows. While it is true that in this connected arrangement
the main and sub-windows lose their independence from one another
7
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