Appeal No. 2003-1220
Application No. 09/830,420
claim limitations is suggested by the teachings of the applied
prior art. In particular, the Examiner makes no attempt at
addressing the specific language of the claims. For example,
independent method claim 14 sets forth a specific signal flow
involving the functional unit safety chain of switching elements,
the drive monitoring unit, the pilot control unit, and the
disconnect contact unit while independent apparatus claim 26 has
a specific recitation of each of these elements. While the
Examiner asserts (Answer, page 3) that “[e]ach of the references
cited has the required elements,” the Examiner has made no
attempt to identify where such elements might exist in the prior
art.
Further, rather than pointing to specific information in the
applied references that would suggest how they would meet the
specific language of the appealed claims, the Examiner has
instead merely described a piecemeal similarity involving only
the safety chain switches between each of the references and the
claimed invention. Nowhere does the Examiner identify any
suggestion, teaching, or motivation to modify the applied
references, nor does the Examiner establish any findings as to
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