Appeal No. 2004-1026 Page 4
Application No. 09/028,480
a stroke length comparator comparing a length of the pen stroke
with a reference length;
a text editor for editing the text according to an edit instruction
corresponding to the recognized reference stroke if the pen stroke is equal
to or longer than the reference length and storing coordinates in a display
memory of a position on said screen pointed to by said input pen if the pen
stroke is shorter than the reference length; and
a data processor for determining if an input pen stroke is located in
the first or second screen area according to detected pen-down
coordinates on said screen where said input pen first made contact with
said screen, inputting a pen stroke whose pen-down coordinates are
located in the first area, and ignoring a pen stroke whose pen-down
coordinates are located in the second area, wherein said text editor
decides to edit text and performs editing when the detected pen-down
coordinates are located in the first area for a stroke at least as long as the
reference length even if pen-up coordinates for the stroke on said screen
where said input pen leaves contact with said screen are located in the
second area, and wherein editing based upon pen stroke is not carried out
when pen down coordinates for a pen stroke are in the second area, even
when further inputs of the pen stroke are in the first area and a line of the
stroke is equal to or longer than the reference length.
Claims 9 and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over U.S.
Patent No. 5,231,698 ("Forcier") and U.S. Patent No. 5,252,951 ("Tannenbaum").2
2The appellants "submit[] that the Examiner should have withdrawn the finality of
the rejection upon making [an alleged] new ground of rejection." (Supp. Reply Br. at 2.)
Rather than by appeal to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, however, such
an issue should have been settled by petition to the Director of the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office. See In re Hengehold, 440 F.2d 1395, 1403, 169 USPQ 473, 479
(CCPA 1971).
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