Appeal No. 1996-3083
Application 08/139,692
Appellants have appealed to the Board from the examiner's
final rejection of claims 9 through 15. Representative claim
9 is reproduced below:
9. An equipment management system having at least one
piece of equipment controlled by an equipment manager via an
equipment controller, said equipment controller and equipment
manager being arranged to respond to and produce information
messages having a plurality of fields according to a first and
a second protocol, respectively, in which said equipment
management system includes a computer implemented interface
between said equipment controller and said equipment manager
for translating an original information message in said first
protocol to a translated information message in said second
protocol, said interface comprising:
a plurality of program modules, each of which has at
least one input and at least one output, each program module
being arranged to perform a predefined action on data received
at its said at least one input, outputs of some of said
program modules constituting inputs of others of said program
modules thereby defining a network of program modules;
said program modules including a plurality of modules of
a first type, each of which is responsive to said original
information message having respective predefined information
in a first field and a plurality of program modules of a
second type, each of which is responsive to said original
information message having respective predefined information
in a second field;
one of said modules of said first type being arranged to
receive an original information message and, in the absence of
detecting its respectively associated predefined information
in said first field of an original message, to output such
original message to an input of another one of said modules of
the first type;
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