Appeal No. 1998-1111
Application 08/539,513
"function" in this step is the transfer of program control to
an output function which will retrieve all output data and
store it, and then return control to the main data processing
function. The corresponding structure may be found at page
13, lines 8-22 of the specification: the SORT function invokes
OUTPUT procedure P2, control being transferred by a branch or
"perform" statement. Control remains in the OUTPUT procedure
P2 until all of the output records are retrieved from memory,
and optionally an overflow file, and stored in an output file.
Control then passes to the instruction immediately following
the call of the SORT function 30 in object program 24.
We find that Ferguson teaches storing output records in
the output buffer, which is written out to one of the
available substring slots when it becomes full (column 4,
lines 4-7); updating a slot table to indicate which substring
slots are available for storage of output data (column 7,
lines 15-16); and writing a buffer full of output data to a
particular substring slot, as a result of the contents of the
slot table (column 7, lines 37-42). Ferguson contains no
teaching that a data processing function (i.e., the main
9
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007