Appeal 2007-0434 Application 10/041,207 A. INVENTION The invention at issue on appeal identifies a digital image. Relatively inexpensive digital cameras and scanners have facilitated sharing images via the Internet. For example, new parents may share a digital photograph of their newborn baby with friends and relatives by attaching the photograph to an electronic mail ("e-mail") message and sending message, with the attachment, to those friends and relatives. Upon receipt of the message, a friend or relative may view the photograph of the newborn baby. Alternatively, the new parents may post the digital photograph to an Internet web page thereby allowing family and friends to view the photo by visiting the web page. (Specification 1.) In contrast, the Appellants' invention allows a user to share a digital image with others almost immediately after acquiring the image. More specifically, once a digital camera or scanner captures a digital image, the invention assigns an identifier thereto. To share the image, the user provides the identifier to the others who may then, assuming that the device upon which the image is stored is linked to the Internet, use the identifier to access the image. The Appellants assert that their invention eliminates the time- consuming process of uploading or transferring the digital image from the device in which it is stored to an e-mail message or Internet web page. (Id. 3.) 2Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
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