Appeal No. 2006-1475
Application No. 10/021,728
nodes, where the nodes are suggested based on nodes that the user has previously
selected [reply brief, page 2].
We will not sustain the examiner’s rejection of claims 1-4, 7-10, 17-21, 24-26, 31-
35, 38, 39, 42-50, 54 and 55 for essentially the reasons argued by appellants in the
briefs. We do not agree with the examiner’s apparent interpretation of Sojoodi that the
re-appearance of the palette shown in figure 7 of Sojoodi meets the claimed invention.
First, as noted by appellants, each appearance of the palette in Sojoodi shows all the
available items that can be selected, and showing all available items is not the same as
showing suggested items. Second, the items displayed in the palette of Sojoodi are not
“based on” or “in response to” the one or more nodes previously selected by the user.
We do not agree with the examiner’s position that the “suggested nodes” in Sojoodi are
based on or in response to a previous selection because they occur subsequent to the
previous selection. The phrase “based on” or “in response to” requires more than a
simple time relationship. We find that these phrases require a relationship such that the
earlier event has an effect on what the later event is. We agree with appellants that the
nodes displayed in Sojoodi are not based on a previous selection or determined in
response to a previous selection.
We now consider the rejection of claims 11-16, 27-30, 36, 37, 40, 41 and 51-53
under 35 U.S.C. § 103. We will not sustain the examiner’s rejection of any of these
claims because the examiner’s findings with respect to Sojoodi are incorrect for reasons
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