Appeal No. 2006-3042
Application No. 10/720,494
3, line 13]. In each case, the monitoring program simply analyzes each event in
isolation to determine the appropriate action.
Although the examiner raises an interesting point regarding the program’s
loopback feature as shown in the flowchart in Fig. 2 [answer, pages 10 and 11],
we still fail to see how such a loopback function necessarily compares a series of
events for unrelatedness, and then offers help upon such determination.
Beginning at Step 218, the first event would comprise an “other event” (GUI
event) that is appropriately handled. Then, the program loops back to await the
next event which, for this example, we presume is a spy event. Accordingly, help
would be displayed. But help is displayed simply because the event was a spy
event – not due to any comparison of the “other event” with the “spy event.”
Although “spy events” and “other events” are arguably “unrelated” in the sense
that they are different types of events, it is the event itself – not the comparison
between a series of such events – that triggers help in Amro.2
Although we find that Amro does not anticipate claims 1, 8, and 17, we
cannot say that no better prior art exists that would teach or suggest determining
whether a series of user events is unrelated and offering assistance upon such
determination. In this regard, the examiner should focus on specific programs
that offer automatic help based on the user’s actions (e.g., Microsoft Word’s
2 Our conclusion holds even if the program handles different successive spy events which are
arguably “unrelated” in the sense that they constitute different spy events. Although Amro
searches for and displays the corresponding help text for a given spy event in Steps 206 and 210
(i.e., suggesting that different help text is offered for each unique spy event), each spy event is
nevertheless assessed on its own to determine the appropriate help offered. The first spy event
is simply not compared to the second spy event to determine whether they are unrelated as a
basis for offering assistance as claimed.
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