Appeal No. 2006-2458
Application No. 10/147,673
As noted above, 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
(selects an item) from a word choice list. However, the cited
references (Horiguchi and Robinson) teach or suggest nothing
about “receiving an indication that a user wants to exclude an item
from consideration without receiving an indication that a user has
selected an item.” [emphasis in original] Therefore, independent
claim 15 and dependent claims 16-17, 19 and 23-25, which
ultimately depend from claim 15, are non-obvious over the cited
references.
The examiner disagrees [answer, page 13]. The examiner notes that the
negative limitation in dispute is: “receiving an indication that a user wants to
exclude an item from consideration without receiving an indication that a
user has selected an item” [id., emphasis added]. The examiner argues that
Horiguchi and Robinson teach an indication that the user wants to exclude
an item without the user selecting the item, asserting that the user selects a
different item in order to identify other items that are undesirable just as in
the instant specification example where the user selects a different item
(i.e., “No”) in order to identify another item that is undesirable, e.g., “Bill
Smith” [answer, page 13, cont’d page 14].
Appellant disputes the
examiner’s assertion in the reply brief and argues that saying “No” in the
example is not the selection of an item, but rather “No” is simply a negative
response [reply brief, page 4, cont’d page 5]. Appellant concludes that
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