Appeal No. 2006-1772
Application No. 09/993,359
We consider the game of the game of “twenty six” and the game of Bunco to meet
the dice game as claimed in claim 109. As stated supra, claim 109 does not recite how
the match point is determined, only that the match point is a subset of the value
represented on the dice. In the game of “twenty six” as taught by Edgeworth, the player
selects a match point. See column 1, line 13 and 14. The player then makes successive
rolls and accumulates points based upon number of matches. While the selection of the
match point is not based upon the initial roll of the dice as discussed in appellants’
specification, such a feature is not claimed. Similarly, we consider the game of Bunco to
meet the disclosed dice game. For the forgoing reasons appellants’ arguments have not
persuaded us that the claimed “Bunco-type” game differs from that taught by the prior
art.
Appellants additionally argue, on pages 10 and 11 of the brief, there is no
motivation to combine the references as asserted by the examiner. Appellants reason that
Matsumoto contains no reference to matching indicium on the dice element with
indicium of a match point. Further, appellants assert that Edgworth and Bunco rules fail
to make up for this deficiency, and in combination fail to teach or suggest the claimed
invention of a video display and program to match the randomly selected indicia of the
dice element with the selected dice element.
The examiner, in response states, on page 12 of the answer;
Matsumoto is a modern slot machine that is used in playing a dice
game. It explicitly discloses craps, but it is clearly adapted to playing
virtually any dice game. As noted several times above, craps have many
elements of Bunco. Furthermore, one of ordinary skill in the art would
have known that Bunco could be implemented on a slot machine -
Edgeworth teaches that. Once a decision is made to implement Bunco, it is
natural to look to the rules of the game for guidance.
We concur with the examiner. As discussed supra we find that Matsumoto
teaches a video gaming machine, a slot machine, where a user can play dice games. The
gaming machine has a payout mechanism and paytables to determine payout for bets.
While we concur with appellants that craps is not a game of matching indicia on the dice
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