Appeal No. 2002-0596
Application No. 08/763,135
the examiner that the use of DLL’s adds flexibility, this aspect is already realized by
Johnson since the calling program is embodied in a DLL and is demand loaded. We
find no teaching or suggestion in either reference and the examiner has provided no
convincing line of reasoning as to why it would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art to look to the teachings of Cobb to further enhance the performance of
the system of Johnson.
Appellant argues that the examiner has not provided support for the allegations
that Cobb teaches the claimed tracing and examining steps of the claimed method.
(See brief at pages 7-10.) We agree with appellant and find that the examiner’s
conclusions throughout the answer that “the identifier is considered to be the traced
output” and “the criteria is also equated to be the traced output” are not adequately
rationalized with respect to the claimed invention. We find that to “trace” something
there must be some following of the path of operation whereas a mere identifier does
not follow a path, but merely identifies a state. Further, we find that a list of criteria also
does not follow the path of operation whereas mere criteria do not follow a path of
operation, but merely identify meeting the set condition(s).
Appellant argues that Johnson does not teach demand loading of DLL’s and
improving system performance. Appellant argues that neither of Johnson or Cobb
teach or suggest the problem which appellant addresses. (See brief at page 11.) We
agree with appellant, but agree with the examiner that the language of independent
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