Appeal No. 2000-0377
Application 08/777,841
OPINION
Claims 1, 3-5, and 7-17
Independent claims 1 and 4 are grouped to stand or fall
together. Claim 1 is analyzed as representative.
The Examiner finds (FR2-3; EA3-4) that Hotka teaches the
subject matter of claim 1 except for the claimed "controller
means for . . . transmitting data indicating the types within the
group to a remote location" in paragraph (b)(ii). The Examiner
finds that Yamada teaches a controller means for transmitting
appearance data to a remote location (FR3; EA3). The Examiner
concludes that it would have been obvious to modify Hotka to
provide for transmission of appearance data in view of Yamada,
"to obtain the combined apparatus/method of Hotka-Yamada because
it would result in ease of information retrieval for the user"
(emphasis omitted) (FR3) and "because it would enable a user,
from his/her own workstation, to monitor the health of hardware
located at remote location(s), thus [providing] quick
detection/troubleshooting of any hardware malfunction" (emphasis
omitted) (EA4).
Appellant argues that neither Hotka nor Yamada, nor the
combination of Hotka and Yamada, teach or suggest the three
limitations of claim 1, paragraph (b), i.e., even if the
references are combined, the limitations of claim 1,
paragraph (b) are not met (Br10-14). It is argued (Br13-14) that
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