Appeal No. 2006-2255
Application No. 10/183,994
Claims 3, 8, 11, 17, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Schein, APA, and Suzuki or over Schein, Armstrong, and Suzuki.
We refer to the Final Rejection (mailed Feb. 7, 2005) and the Examiner’s Answer
(mailed Jan. 24, 2006) for a statement of the examiner’s position and to the Brief (filed
Sep. 19, 2005) and the Reply Brief (filed Mar. 24, 2006) for appellants’ position with
respect to the claims which stand rejected.
OPINION
Schein describes a remote control device 2 (Fig. 1) that is particularly suited for
controlling a visual interface in a television schedule information system. According to
the reference, the casing will usually resemble the generally rectangular shape of typical
television remote control devices, but may also be similar to other conventional input
devices such as a mouse, joystick, or computer keyboard. Col. 4, ll. 25-32. The
controller may comprise a trackball, cursor controller, or a pointing device. In the
preferred embodiment, the controller comprises a scrolling mechanism for displacing a
movable cursor through a matrix of cells or windows on the screen. Id. at ll. 35-41.
The vertical scroll mechanism is preferably a rolling cylinder 24 (Fig. 2) rotatably
mounted to casing 4. Rotation of cylinder 24 moves the cursor vertically through the
window or menu of the display screen. Col. 5, ll. 14-18. A horizontal scroll mechanism
preferably includes buttons 32, 34 located on either side of rolling cylinder 24. The
-3-
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