Appeal No. 95-4605
Application 08/076,285
The AutoCAD Release 10 reference cannot be modified to
provide variable replications because it provides no entry
for a variable number of replications during the design
step, and consequently no processing means for replacing
said variable number by actual values during the creation of
an actual variant. Thus, the topology will already be
frozen during the design step; leaving the number of
replications blank during the design step would produce an
error message, and even if the system would be modified to
accept a blank number of replications, it could not process
the same during the creation of an actual variant, as it
does not include instructions to alter the topology - it
would even not request the number of actual replications
from the user during the creation of an actual variant.
Declarant ignores the obviousness reasoning. It is true that the
values for the parameter variables in AutoCAD must be immediately
assigned by the user at design time, as disclosed, and that one
could not enter a variable symbol instead of a number in response
to one of the prompts. AutoCAD, as disclosed, is an interactive
CAD system wherein commands are immediately processed and
numerical values are assigned for parameter values. AutoCAD, as
disclosed, does not describe storing design commands to be
executed at a later time. However, the obviousness rejection
reasons that it would have been obvious for the ARRAY command to
be stored as part of a generic design program with the parameters
(which are variables until values are assigned to them) left
unspecified in view of the teaching in HP-DESIGN that design
commands can have dimension parameters defined as variables. The
examiner is correct in stating that no modification needs to be
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