Appeal No. 97-2979 Page 7
Application No. 08/219,553
accordance with the ANSI SCSI stsndard [sic, standard] in the
system described by Fischer, since Fischer leaves details of
SCSI operation unsaid and explicitly suggests that the ANSI
SCSI standard be followed.” (Id.)
In response, the appellants argue that the references do
not mention the controller as recited in claim 1. Responding
to the examiner’s reliance on pages 194-197 of ANSI, they
assert that Appendix C of ANSI does not address the claimed
controller for the following reasons.
The host adapter of the SCSI standard refers to the
logic that interfaces from the host memory to the
SCSI bus. In Appellants' system, controller 10
interfaces from host processors 22a-n to SCSI bus 26
(see FIG. 1). The SCSI standard host adapter acts as
a “peripheral's gateway into host memory" (see page
194, second paragraph). While the SCSI host adapter
assures data integrity and proper performance of the
I/0 subsystem, it does not initiate status requests,
but merely passes on any such requests initiated by
the host to the peripheral. It does not take action
of its own, rather it awaits a command from the host
to select the proper peripheral or target. Once
selection is complete, the "host adapter is simply
an 'arm' of the target used to reach into host
memory" (see page 195, fifth full paragraph).
Nowhere in Appendix C is the host adapter described
as initiating status requests, independent of a
command from the host. Therefore, it would not have
been obvious to use Fischer in combination with the
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