Appeal No. 2002-1187
Application No. 09/403,115
With respect to the combination of the Giers references with Mutone, appellant
relies on the arguments above. The examiner maintains that Mutone teaches a
redundant process with fault identification. (See answer at page 7-9.) While we agree
with the examiner that Mutone identifies faults and has continued operation while the
fault is corrected, Mutone does not teach or fairly suggest the emergency operation
function maintained having redundant data processing and comparison and correlation
as claimed. In the claimed invention, there is required continued redundant operation
which would not be possible with only two redundant processors of Mutone and one
being faulty. Therefore, this argument is not persuasive by the examiner. Similarly, we
find no persuasive showing by the examiner that it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to combine the teachings of Giers
and Mutone. Therefore, we again find the use of impermissible hindsight in the
examiner’s rejection. Therefore, we will not sustain the rejection of independent claim
10 and its dependent claims 11-17.
We find similar limitations in independent claim 18 and a lack of a prima facie
case of obviousness by the examiner. Therefore, we will not sustain the rejection of
independent claim 18 and its dependent claims 19-25.
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007