Appeal 2007-0458
Application 10/247,533
that the reference nonetheless does not teach away from highlighting.
Specifically, the Examiner notes several benefits of using highlighting
including, among other things, providing more information in response to a
query and revealing the proportion of items satisfying a query (Answer 25-
28).
We agree with the Examiner that the teachings of Card would have
been reasonably combinable with Yagasaki essentially for the reasons stated
by the Examiner. In our view, in light of Card’s teaching of highlighting
matches with color or asterisks in the result sets in Fig. 6 and 7 (i.e.,
alphanumeric display), the skilled artisan would have reasonably been
motivated to highlight certain items in the displayed result sets in Yagasaki
with color or asterisks to at least more clearly distinguish certain displayed
items.
Although Card discloses using slide controls in some embodiments
and indicates that the expand/contract interface is faster in some instances,2
the reference nevertheless teaches highlighting matches in a result set with
color and asterisks. Even if we assume, without deciding, that slide controls
and the expand/contract technique are preferred approaches, it is well settled
that the teaching of a prior art reference is not limited to its preferred
embodiment. Pfizer, Inc. v. Apotex, Inc., No. 2006-1261, 2007 WL 851203,
at *18 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 22, 2007) (“‘[T]he fact that a specific [embodiment] is
taught to be preferred is not controlling, since all disclosures of the prior art,
including unpreferred embodiments, must be considered’”) (quoting Merck
2 Card indicates that the “statistically significant speed advantage” for the
expand/contract interface occurred only with medium-sized directories -- not
with smaller, one-screen directories (Card, paragraph bridging Pages 238
and 239).
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