Appeal No. 1998-0714
Application No. 08/092,622
Regarding representative claim 1, the examiner states
(Answer, page 4) that Blackborow teaches "a system in which a
subsystem that includes a CPU, memory, bus, and means for
interfacing is enclosed by a housing that can occupy a disk
drive well of a computer system." The examiner asserts1
(Answer, pages 4-5) that it would have been obvious to
"incorporate the teaching of Blackborow into Kobayashi because
Kobayashi's PPM (personal processor module) is intended to be
the size of a hard disc drive and a microprocessor (col. 5,
lines 43-47). That suggests that the housing of Kobayashi be
mounted in a disk drive slot."
Appellants contend that there is no suggestion or
motivation to connect the PPM to a disk drive slot of an
existing computer system, as to do so would be contrary to
Kobayashi's invention. We agree. The purpose of Kobayashi's
system is to allow a user to connect to different docking
stations for working in different locations, but still
We note that Blackborow alone appears to include all of the elements1
of a computer, i.e., a CPU, memory, system bus, and I/O interface means,
enclosed in a housing sized and shaped to fit in a disk drive slot of a
computer, as recited in at least claim 1. See, for example, Figure 7A.
However, we decline to make a new ground of rejection; we leave it to the
examiner to do the fact-finding to determine if such a rejection would apply.
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