Appeal No. 2006-0567
Application 09/938,256
one image is “presented” to the user based upon the user’s
responses. Because there is clearly no positive recitation of
image retrieval in independent claim 1, there can be no statement
associated with this claim that this claim requires the searching
of an image database as well.
With these remarks in mind, we do not agree with
appellants’ characterization at the bottom of page 6 of the Reply
Brief, which serves as a restatement of the identical comments at
page 10 of the principal Brief on appeal, that Kagami does not
teach image retrieval at all. In recognizing the examiner’s
position in the newly stated rejection in the Answer at the top
of page 7 of the Reply Brief, appellants do not assert to us that
Kagami does not teach receiving explicit user responses as
claimed and presenting at least one image to the user based upon
user responses as claimed. The simple assertion is that Kagami
does not teach querying a user as to any attribute of an image
that a user wishes to retrieve. In view of our foregoing remarks
as to Kagami, this position is misplaced.
Figure 1 of Kagami also shows a storage unit 203 and
an output device 206 which are also depicted in another form in
figure 2. Figure 4 depicts an output logic flowchart step number
9
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007