Appeal No. 1998-3066
Application No. 08/444,517
job as a unit” [principal brief-page 3] so that the instant invention can print out a page of
one job followed by a page from a second job and print out another page of the first job,
with the pages separating into respective jobs as they print. In contrast, contend
appellants, the prior art prints out an entire document before starting another document.
Appellants state that the claim 1 limitation of
said control unit controls the operation of said print execution
unit when each of said logical printers has completed a virtual
printing operation for one page, thus printing actually data
for the page
makes it clear that a page is used as a unit, rather than an entire job, distinguishing
over the prior art. Appellants also point out that if the solution to the prior art problem
now seems abundantly clear, it is because of appellants’ recognition of the problem.
The examiner does not dispute that neither Boswell nor Mitsuhashi discloses a
system which intermixes the pages of two or more documents or that neither uses a
page as a job, but instead, uses the entire document as a job. Thus, there is no
dispute that the applied prior art must first finish printing an entire first document before
a second job can be printed. The dispute is in the interpretation of the instant claim
language. The examiner contends that the limitations argued by appellants form no
part of the instant claims.
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