Appeal 2007-0436
Application 10/125,620
A motivation to combine prior art references may be found in the
nature of the problem to be solved. Ruiz v. A.B. Chance Co., 357 F.3d 1270,
1276, 69 USPQ2d 1686,1690 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Additionally, motivation or
suggestion is not merely what the references disclose, but whether a person
of ordinary skill in the art, possessed with the understanding and knowledge
reflected in the prior art, and motivated by the general problem facing the
inventor, would have been led to make the combination recited in the claims.
See In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 989, 78 USPQ2d 1329, 1337 (Fed. Cir. 2006).
ANALYSIS
As noted above, the Examiner correctly argues that the error balloon
in Evans prompting the user to enter the password is based on the
combination of the values entered in the fields of user identification and
password (Answer 18-19). Namely, Evans teaches displaying a popup
message to a user in a GUI where the popup is shaped to indicate association
with at least one area of the GUI. The popup in Evans is located, at least in
part, proximately to a GUI control or field related to the most recent user
interaction. Evans further teaches allowing at least some GUI interaction to
occur while said popup is displayed and automatically dismissing the popup
when said message has been addressed.
We also agree with the Examiner (Answer 6) that one of ordinary skill
in the art at the time of the claimed invention would have found it obvious to
combine Grillo with Evans to indicate error and help messages in a clear
way that would also relate to multiple values or entries leading to an error
message.
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013