Appeal No. 96-0935
Application 08/157,737
Claim 11, having been grouped by the appellants with claim
10, falls therewith.
Claim 13 adds to claims 10 and 11 the requirement that the
method also include determining if a component failure exists.
As we stated above, such is taught by the primary reference,
Bowman, and therefore a prima facie case of obviousness has been
established with regard to the subject matter of claim 13, and
the rejection of claims 13/10 and 13/11 is sustained. Claim 14
has been grouped with claim 13, and the rejection of claims
14/13/10 and 14/13/11 also is sustained.
We have, of course, carefully considered all of the
appellants' arguments. However, they have not convinced us that
the decision of the examiner was in error. Our position with
regard to the various arguments should be apparent from the
foregoing recitation. We additionally note that, for the most
part, the appellants have attacked the showings in individual
references, however, the rejection is based upon a combination of
references. See In re Young, 403 F.2d 754, 757, 159 USPQ 725,
728 (CCPA 1968). Finally, it is our conclusion that the teaching
in Bowman of sensing the proper operating levels of switches is
tantamount to determining component failure, for if the levels
are incorrect, the component has failed.
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