Appeal No. 1999-1594
Application No. 08/491,467
1. A redundant peripheral device subsystem in a computer
system, comprising:
first and second peripheral device controllers;
first and second peripheral device busses coupled to the
first and second peripheral device controllers, respectively; and
a first controllable switch, coupled between the first and
second peripheral device busses, for selectively isolating the
first and second peripheral device busses or joining the first
and second peripheral device busses into a single peripheral
device bus.
The prior art references of record relied upon by the
examiner in rejecting the appealed claims are:
Graber et al. (Graber) 4,456,965 Jun. 26, 1984
Allen et al. (Allen) 4,663,706 May 05, 1987
Claims 1, 7 through 10, 18, 19, and 21 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Allen in view of
Graber.
Reference is made to the First Office Action (Paper No. 2,
mailed February 21, 1997), the Examiner's Answer 1 (Paper No. 11,
1 We note that the examiner (Answer, page 3) refers us to the Final
Office Action (Paper No. 4) for the rejection of the claims. However, the
Final Rejection in turn refers us to the First Office Action of February 21,
1997 for an explanation of the rejection, contrary to MPEP § 1208, which
states:
Examiners may incorporate in the answer their statement of the
grounds of rejection merely by reference to the final rejection
(or a single other action on which it is based, MPEP § 706.07).
Only those statements of grounds of rejection appearing in a
single prior action may be incorporated by reference. An
examiner’s answer should not refer, either directly or indirectly,
to more than one prior Office action. Statements of grounds of
rejection appearing in actions other than the aforementioned
single prior action should be quoted in the answer. The page and
paragraph of the final action or other single prior action which
2
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