Appeal No. 1996-1715
Application No. 08/068,592
In response to appellant's argument that Schwartz does
not disclose or suggest "any means for generating or modifying
timestamps to synchronize the propagation of directory
replicas throughout multiple nodes in a distributed system"
(Brief, page 24), the examiner asserts (Answer, page 8) that
"Schwartz shows the version number and timestamp attributes
being compared and used for synchronization." The examiner,
however, fails to explain how synchronizing multi-user access
to a particular program renders obvious the steps of
synchronizing an update in a distributed network. The mere
use of the word "synchronization" does not render the
processes the same. The comparisons in the claims differ from
the comparisons done by Schwartz. For example, Schwartz does
not disclose steps recited in claim 39 such as "systematically
comparing each said replica attribute value for each said
clearinghouse replica with said second directory attribute
value for each of said directories" and "systematically
comparing each said first directory attribute timestamp for
each of said directories and said second directory attribute
timestamp for each of said directories to said synchronization
attribute timestamp." Since Lowry and Mathur fail to provide
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