Appeal No. 2002-0596
Application No. 08/763,135
answer (Paper No. 23, mailed Jul. 31, 2001) for the examiner's reasoning in support of
the rejections, and to appellant's brief (Paper No. 22, filed Apr. 16, 2001) for appellant's
arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
appellant's specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by appellant and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
Appellant argues that the initial burden of establishing a prima facie case of
obviousness lies with the examiner and Office. (See brief at page 6.) Appellant argues
that the combination of Johnson and Cobb does not teach or suggest the second and
third steps of the claimed method. Specifically, the combination of Johnson and Cobb
does not teach or suggest “tracing outputs from the DLL” and “examining the traced
output of the DLL to determine whether the DLL was executed.” (See brief at page 6.)
We agree with appellant.
The examiner maintains that the combination would have taught the claimed
invention even though the examiner admits that Johnson does not teach the second
through fourth limitations. (See answer at page 3.) The examiner maintains that the
motivation to combine the teachings is that the use of dynamic linked libraries (DLL’s)
adds flexibility to the system operation. (See answer at page 3.) While we agree with
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