Appeal No. 97-1263 Page 11
Application No. 08/219,552
module information between each processor and each I/O
adapter.” Col. 2, ll. 44-48.
A rejection based on section 103 must rest on a factual
basis. An examiner has the initial duty of supplying the
factual basis for any rejection he advances. He may not
resort to speculation, unfounded assumptions, or hindsight
reconstruction to supply deficiencies in the factual basis.
See In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017, 154 USPQ 173, 178 (CCPA
1967). In this case, we find that the cited passage is
ambiguous, at best. By itself, the passage possibly could be
interpreted as teaching the claimed separate memory location
for each combination of SCSI target and host processors. In
view of the ambiguity of the passage’s language, however, such
an interpretation amounts to speculation.
As a whole, moreover, Fischer belies this interpretation.
The reference specifically teaches that there is one Mailbox
for each central processor module 20 and I/O adapter module
22. Col. 4, ll. 61-62. In contrast to the claimed invention,
there are no mailboxes for the I/O devices, which the examiner
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