Appeal No. 2001-1095
Application No. 08/622,806
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
the appellants' specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. As a consequence
of our review, we make the determinations which follow:
To reject claims in an application under section 103, an examiner
must show an unrebutted prima facie case of obviousness. See In re
Deuel, 51 F.3d 1552, 1557, 34 U.S.P.Q.2d 1210, 1214 (Fed. Cir. 1995).
In the absence of a proper prima facie case of obviousness, an applicant
who complies with the other statutory requirements is entitled to a patent.
See In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 U.S.P.Q.2d 1443, 1444
(Fed. Cir. 1992). On appeal to the Board, an applicant can overcome a
rejection by showing insufficient evidence of prima facie obviousness or
by rebutting the prima facie case with evidence of secondary indicia of
nonobviousness. See id.
In re Rouffet, 149 F.3d 1350, 1355, 47 USPQ2d 1453, 1455 (Fed. Cir. 1998). Here,
we agree with appellants and find that appellant have shown error in the examiner’s
rejection. Therefore, we find that appellants have overcome the rejection by showing
insufficient evidence of prima facie obviousness.
Appellants argue that Cowsar teaches dynamic linking of a client application and
function libraries at run time, but does not relate to a technique for communicating
among independent linked software modules. (See brief at page 4.) We agree with
appellants. Appellants’ specification identifies that a dynamic linked library (DLL) does
not allow for bidirectional communication since the DLL only responds to calls from the
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007