Appeal No. 1999-2761
Application No. 08/790,322
above-quoted portion of col. 7 of Speller discloses that the
second function of controller 1038 is "fault monitoring
wherein controller 1038 detects and records error conditions,
classifies them according to user-defined severity levels,
response [sic: responds] to errors by shutting down
malfunctioning equipment, . . ." (lines 51 to 55). Keeping in
mind that fastening machines 16, 18 constitute part of the
equipment cell 10, and that one function of controller 84
(1038) is disclosed as being "for monitoring operation of the
machines 16, 18" (col. 7, lines 2 to 5), it is evident that in
order for the controller to monitor the operation of the
fastening machines, to record error conditions in those
machines, and to shut them down if they were malfunctioning
(col. 7, line 55), it would be necessary to gather
measurements and data from the fastening machines while they
were in operation installing fasteners in the workpiece 44,
46, etc., as recited in step (a) of claim 24, and then to
transmit, i.e., download, such measurements and data to the
controller 1038, as recited in step (b). Otherwise, the
controller would not be able to operate as disclosed by
Speller, in that it could not monitor the operation of the
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