Appeal No. 2006-2458
Application No. 10/147,673
Appellant argues on page 6 of the brief:
FIG. 4F of Robinson and the corresponding language cited in
the Office Action relate to adjusting the prioritization of words in a
word list when a user picks a word from a word choice list. As
mentioned above, word choice lists are generated from word lists
that are included in vocabulary modules. Unlike the words in word
choice lists, items in word lists are not limited to words presented
for a user's consideration. As shown in FIG. 4G, during promotion
of a word in the word list, other words in the word list are
demoted. Since the word list includes words that are not displayed
to the user, this involves setting values for entities that were not
presented to the user. Specifically, “words intermediate between
where the selected word started and finished in the lexicon
promotion are effectively demoted by a value of one.” (Robinson,
Col. 31, line 50.)
In addition, the technique for promoting and demoting words
in Robinson assumes that non-displayed words are shifted. For
example, if the selected word has an index of 2 in the word list and
a non-selected word has an index of 1, column 31, lines 60 to
column 32, lines 10 of Robinson indicate that the selected word will
be promoted to index 1 (Index/2) and the non-selected word will
be demoted to index 3. (Index*2+1.) This leaves a vacancy at
index 2 that would assumably be filled by a word that was not
displayed to the user. (Note, if any other words were displayed to
the user but not selected, they would be moved down the index
and could not fill the 2 position in the index.) Thus, when the
prioritization value of a word is changed in a word list, prioritization
of words not presented to a user is also changed under the system
in Robinson. This is in contrast with the above-noted limitation of
claim 1. Thus, neither Horiguchi nor Robinson show or suggest the
invention of claim 1, or claims 2-3, 7-10 and 13-14 that ultimately
depend therefrom.
In response, the examiner disagrees [answer, page 12, ¶2]. The
examiner argues that appellant’s claims are unsupported and not seen in the
teachings of Robinson [id.]. In particular, the examiner disputes appellant’s
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