Appeal No. 95-5030
Application 07/815,694
Responding to the appellants' argument, the examiner stated
(supp. answer at 6):
First, such a signal designating an
initiation of a transfer is well known in the
art of I/O processing which is known as
"handshaking". Furthermore, in a networking
environment such handshaking is pefromed
[sic, performed] at the data link layer by
sending supervisory frame to initiate a
transfer which is essentially the same thing
as saying "I have something to send, are you
ready". As claimed, such limitations are not
distinct from interface(s) to a plurality of
input units to a computer terminal for
inventory management. Such a system would
use normal protocol for sending the
appropriate signals to initiate a transfer.
Thus, any interface would receive a ready
signal from an input unit to relay a signal
to the receiving unit (i.e. computer terminal
through the interface "interconnect
circuitry") the sending unit has something to
send. Sakon et al teaches such a system.
In addition, because of a lack of
distinctions in the claims, the data
processing device taught by Sakon et al is
construed as a receiving unit (second device)
connected to a plurality of input devices
through an interconnect circuitry (nos. 6-8,
Fig. 1). When the data processing device
determines that there is a presence/absence
of data in memory unit 11 such a deter-
mination can be construed as sending a signal
[from] a first device to a second device.
Thus, it is evident that in the supplemental examiner's
16
Page: Previous 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007