Appeal No. 2006-1753
Application No. 09/732,037
relied on his subjective opinion [brief, pages 7 and 8]. Appellants contend that
Meunier does not teach sending reminder messages [brief, page 8]. Moreover,
according to appellants, simply stating that Meunier teaches monitoring
documents for changes does not address why the skilled artisan would modify
Meunier to receive a change of at least one specification of a quality system as
claimed [brief, page 9].
The examiner responds that in addition to the motivation to combine the
references stated in the rejection, the Eaton reference itself provides ample
motivation to modify Meunier. According to the examiner, because users register
to receive notifications regarding document changes or updates, they are
particularly interested in such documents [answer, page 16]. These interested
users, however, may postpone reading or responding to received messages.
Therefore, sending electronic messages to these interested users would
efficiently remind them to read or respond to document changes or updates [id.].
Appellants also argue that no evidence exists that the skilled artisan would
reasonably expect success in combining Meunier with Eaton [brief, pages 9 and
10]. In this regard, appellants note that Meunier relates to a document
recommendation system including a document change monitoring agent, but
Eaton relates to a system providing reminder messages [brief, page 10]. The
examiner responds that the skilled artisan would reasonably expect success in
combining the two references since the Meunier/Eaton combination provides an
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