Appeal No. 1999-0246
Application 08/641,629
Motivation for this modification is further provided
by Smitt in that he wants to provide
maintenance/diagnosis functions from a remote
terminal (see column 3, lines 8-11). With such a
desire in mind, one of ordinary skill would have
turned to the physical key and menus of Heptig
placing it at the remote terminal 23 specifically
because the menus of Heptig provide an easier
interface than the command line controls found in
Smitt on column 8, lines 40-45, 64-68 for example.[ ] 3
This reasoning is unclear as to why one skilled in the art
would have been motivated by Heptig's key, which does not have
three-positions and does not select among normal/run, secure,
and service operating modes, to add such a key to Smitt's
remote terminal. However, in response to appellants'
criticism that Heptig's key does not have three positions, the
examiner states that this is irrelevant because Smitt's key
has three positions (Answer at 7). Thus, the examiner's
position regarding the claimed physical key appears to be that
it would have been obvious in view of Heptig's key to provide
Smitt's remote
terminal with a three-position key that performs the same
function as Smitt's three-position key 97, reasoning which has
not been addressed by appellants. Nevertheless, appellants
3The underlined passages appeared for the first time in
the Answer and thus have not been addressed by appellants.
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