Appeal No. 2006-1783
Application No. 09/183,694
of threads of commands and concludes that it would have been
obvious to combine the teachings of Jones with Krakirian in order
to increase reliability (answer, page 5; suppl. answer, page 11).
However, we agree with Appellants (reply brief, page 5; suppl.
reply brief, page 5) that the stated reason for combining the
references is not based on any teachings from the references that
would have motivated one of ordinary skill in the art to carry
out the multi-thread processing in Krakirian. A broad conclusory
statement regarding the obviousness of modifying a reference,
standing alone, is not “evidence.” Thus, when an examiner relies
on general knowledge to negate patentability, that knowledge must
be articulated and placed on the record. See In re Lee, 277 F.3d
1338, 1342-45, 61 USPQ2d 1430, 1433-35 (Fed. Cir. 2002). Here,
as stated by Appellants supra, there is no evidence of benefits
to Krakirian from its combination with Jones since the single
thread of Krakirian already has minimal interruption by having
one at the beginning and the other after the completion of the
command (abstract).
Additionally, we remain persuaded by Appellants’ arguments
(brief, pages 12-14) that the portions of Jones (col. 6, lines
10-21; col. 50, lines 50-60; col. 53, lines 1-63) relied on by
the Examiner describe combining multiple requests into a single
request and not necessarily creating a plurality of threads that
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