Appeal No. 1998-0747
Application 08/609,958
a plurality of components, at least one of said components
serving as a spare component; and
a plurality of switches connected to the inputs and outputs
of said components such that the inputs and outputs of each of
said components may be rerouted through said spare component,
wherein each of said plurality of components comprises a
single controller for (i) monitoring status information received
from the other components, (ii) detecting when one of the other
components has failed, and (iii) controlling said switches such
that said spare component replaces a failed one of the other
components.
The references relied upon by the examiner as evidence of
obviousness are:
Entenman 4,245,342 Jan. 13, 1981
Yajima 4,709,325 Nov. 24, 1987
Ozaki 5,345,438 Sep. 06, 1994
(filed Aug. 21, 1992)
Claims 1-7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Yajima in view of Ozaki.
Claims 3 and 4 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Yajima in view of Ozaki and Entenman.
Claims 8-18 and 22-31 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Entenman in view of Ozaki and Yajima.
The respective positions of the examiner and the appellants
with regard to the propriety of these rejections are set forth in
the examiner’s answer and supplemental answer (Paper Nos. 21 and
24) and the appellants’ brief and reply brief (Paper Nos. 20 and
23).
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