Appeal No. 2001-1678
Application No. 09/001,729
when in the system of Klingman each node maintains only an upstream and a
downstream connection with respect to the ring network? Each party is provided only
two connections.
The statement of the rejection (Answer at 4-5) asserts that Klingman fails to
teach maintaining a status table at each node and examining a status table when
receiving an incoming call at a node “in order to route the incoming call.” In our reading
of the reference, however, there is no reason for maintaining information with respect to
the routing of an incoming call. An incoming call is effectively complete when a
connection is established with the receiving node.1
Thus, the teachings of Higgins with respect to maintaining status tables on
network nodes appears to have no relevance to the “data” calls described by Klingman.
While we cannot say no reason exists in the prior art for modification of Klingman’s
system along the lines required by claim 9, we do not find the suggestion in the art
applied. Nor do we find any convincing rationale from the examiner for making the
proposed modification.
Dependent claim 10 incorporates the limitations of claim 9. We therefore do not
sustain the rejection of claims 9 and 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable
over Klingman and Higgins.
1 If the “incoming call” contemplated by the rejection refers to data transfer, rather than the “calls”
described by Klingman, we note that routing of incoming communications consists of, at most, simply
passing the communication to the next node in the ring. See, e.g., col. 3, ll. 1-18.
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