Appeal No. 1997-1271
Application 08/294,765
devices. In conjunction with this feature, the “wherein” clause requires that the request
ownership information indicate whether the request data stored is valid for use by the
second device and, conversely, the response ownership information indicates whether the
response data is valid for accessibility by the first device. The examiner simply has not
come to grips with at least these functional requirements of independent claim 1 on
appeal. Similar recitations are present in independent claim 18 which recites many
features in a slightly broader format than independent claim 1. Similarly, even more
broadly recited features in independent claim 13 do not appear to be taught or suggested
by the combined teachings of the references relied upon by the examiner.
Dependent claim 6 and independent claims 16, 17, 30 and 31 relate to the
particular recitation of ownership information comprising OWN_ID information and
REQ_ID information with a particular defined interrelationship. Page 8 of the answer
indicates that although the examiner has admitted that the combination does not disclose
these two validity indicators while still arguing that Keryvel discloses one validity indicator
which indicates validity of a request or response, the examiner urges this part of Keryvel
performs the functions of both of the claimed ownership information data structures. At
page 3 of the supplemental answer, the examiner also urges that it would have been
obvious to provide two separate validity indicators to replace the functions performed by
Keryvel's one validity indicator. Even if this line of reasoning in both answers was true, the
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