Appeal No. 1998-1103
Application No. 08/668,718
step S15 is completed (column 16, lines 62-69 of Okada) is simply not enough to convince
us of the anticipatory nature of Okada regarding the subject matter of independent claim 8.
Accordingly, we will not sustain the rejection of claim 8, or of claim 9 or 23, since
they stand or fall with claim 8, under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b).
We turn, now, to the rejection of claims 10 and 24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over the
two Nozawa references. We will also reverse this rejection.
It is the examiner’s position that Nozawa 998 teaches a means for disabling a
command by determining if there is a slash (/) and numeral at the beginning of a
command, and comparing the numeral to a numeral set by the user through a block select
switch. If they match, the command is skipped. However, as the examiner recognizes,
Nozawa 998 does not employ a skip function within a test mode. Claims
10 and 24 explicitly require “means for disabling, only during said test mode, a specified
miscellaneous command from being executed.” Thus, the examiner turns to
Nozawa 444 for a disclosure of a block skip scheme to be employed during a “dry run.”
The examiner concludes that the combination of these references teaches a system for
selectively disabling commands, only during a test mode.
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