Appeal No. 2006-3121
Application No. 10/165,083
The examiner responds that appellants’ arguments are not commensurate
with the claim language. Specifically, the examiner notes that the broadest
reasonable interpretation of “source information” is not limited to specific
metadata, but can include information that is entered by the user -- an
interpretation that fully comports with appellants’ specification [answer, pages 11
and 12]. Applying this interpretation, the examiner argues that the “source
information” limitation is taught by Word’s footnotes and associated text in that
the user can enter “source information” associated with the footnote, and such
“source information” is copied and pasted into a second document [answer,
pages 11 and 12].
Appellants also argue that the examiner’s stated motivation to combine
the references is problematic because such a position requires two disparate
definitions of “source information.” That is, Jones’ and Burner’s “source
information” refers to metadata, but Word’s “source information” refers to
footnotes that are part of the document (i.e., not metadata) [brief, page 14]. The
examiner argues that Word also refers to metadata-based “source information” in
that Word enables a user to copy metadata and paste metadata from one
document to another [answer, pages 15 and 16].
We will sustain the examiner’s rejection of the independent claims. In our
view, the term “source information” is not limited to metadata as appellants
argue, but rather encompasses a wide variety of information – including
footnotes. Indeed, appellants’ claim 2 expressly includes footnotes as a type of
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