Appeal No. 1998-2767
Application 08/391,541
register using the diagnostic state machine.” The Examiner
states that “[n]ot particularly taught by Davis is that his
system is a diagnostic state machine” [answer, page 5], but
asserts that “one of ordinary skill would have wanted to
modify Davis to consider one of his processors as a state
machine or (emphasis added) to include a diagnostic state
machine thereby improving the detection of faults in one’s
data. ... also, said management function can of itself be
considered a diagnostic function” [id.]. Thus, the Examiner
has proposed three alternatives for obviousness, i.e., one of
the host processors of Davis may be considered as the claimed
state machine, or introduce an additional state machine (the
Examiner does not explain how and from where) to Davis’s
system, or merely consider the management function of Davis as
a diagnostic function (we assume that the Examiner is here
referring to the function of comparing of data at various
shadow sites and overwriting the incorrect data with the
correct data). In our view, none of these alternatives is any
thing more than an over reach by the Examiner to meet the
claimed limitations. Even if a state machine were somehow
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