Appeal No. 1998-1111
Application 08/539,513
corresponding "structure" is described at page 12, lines 6-25
of the specification. Object library 26 invokes INPUT
procedure P1, which may be invoked as a labeled block within
the object program, where control is transferred using a
branch or "perform" statement. Control remains in INPUT
procedure P1 until all input records are retrieved and stored
in memory 14. Excess records may be stored in an overflow
file on a data storage device 20a-c. Control is then
transferred from INPUT procedure P1 to SORT function 30.
We find that Ferguson (column 5, lines 29-31) teaches
only a pre-sort buffer space in a computer memory for storage
of enough key records to fill the pre-sort buffer. Ferguson
does not teach passing control to an input function, nor
returning control to the main data processing function (or a
discrete SORT function) after all input data are retrieved.
Claim 1 further recites the step of "the data processing
function transferring control to an output function in the
computer for retrieving all of the output data from the memory
of the computer and storing the output data prior to
terminating the data processing function." We find that the
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