Appeal Number: 2006-3172
Application Number: 10/420,685
NEW GROUND OF REJECTION UNDER 37 CFR § 41.50(b)
Pursuant to 37 CFR § 41.50(b), we enter the following new ground of
rejection:
Independent claims 1, 11 and 14, and dependent claims 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 15,
16, 19, 20 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by
Cottingham, Excel 2000 Developer’s Handbook, pp. 524-533, 1999, describing the
auditing feature of the Excel spreadsheet software product.
The auditing feature of Excel, initiated by a mouse click event on a cell and on
a menu button, provides visual highlighting (by placing a dot with a
distinguishable color in a cell) and linkage drawing (by drawing directed arrows)
of nodes related to a selected node in the worksheet (see figures on pp. 527 and
531), and that this audit display may be performed repeatedly, i.e. iteratively,
throughout the affected chain (see the two TraceAllLevelsOfPrecedency and
TraceAllLevelsOfDependency calls, which, by virtue of tracing all levels,
inherently trace each level iteratively, on p. 531).
We also note that a spreadsheet, being an array, is a tree data structure that
presents hierarchical row and column information to a rectangular 2D display in a
space filling manner in which the entirety of a designated worksheet display space
is utilized by individual cells. It is a treemap in that it maps a tree comprised of a
root (the spreadsheet frame) and leaves from the root (individual cells) within the
root representation.
The examiner should consider whether the remaining claims, which introduce
limitations regarding mouse-over events and numeric constraints on the number of
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