Appeal No. 2000-1961
Application 08/840,200
system. Thus, the examiner's reasons do not fully address the
motivation question. We conclude that the examiner has failed to
establish a prima facie case of obviousness with respect to
claim 21. The rejection of claim 21 is reversed.
Claim 20: Hill in view of McDonald, or Hale in view of McDonald,
or Arcella in view of McDonald
Claim 20 refers to the method of claim 16 "further
comprising the step of modifying said time-based data set as a
function of changes in the operating characteristics of said
mechanism caused by changes in the environment of said
mechanism." The "time-based data set" must refer to the "time-
based baseline data set."
The examiner finds that McDonald provides a record of the
environmental data for comparison to baseline data and concludes
that it would have been obvious to modify the time-based baseline
data set to reflect the changes brought about in the mechanism's
performance due to environmental condition changes (EA9).
Appellants argue that McDonald does not make on-line changes
to baseline data. It is argued (Br12) that the environment in
McDonald is monitored to determine if a valve has become faulty,
whereas appellants' invention monitors the environment to
establish a new baseline "as a function of changes in the
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