Appeal No. 1997-4129
Application 08/237,988
control program for each slave device, whereas in Hughes
there is no one control program for a given terminal, but
rather the device drivers are stored individually (RBr4).
Therefore, it is argued that associating a configuration
file with a driver would require that "each configuration
file would have to be appended to each of the device
drivers" (RBr4), which is a waste of storage space.
The claims do not require a separate control program
for each slave as illustrated by Figure 1. Moreover, the
claims only require a master and a single slave. As
discussed, we conclude that the claim language is broad
enough to encompass Hughes and that it is unnecessary to
rely on the Examiner's "append" reasoning. We find the
configuration information for the terminals in Hughes to
correspond to the claimed "capability information" and the
configuration information and the load modules together to
correspond to the claimed "control program." When the
system in Hughes reads the configuration information, it is
reading "from a predetermined portion of the control
program" since the claims do not recite the structure of the
"predetermined portion."
- 10 -
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007