Appeal No. 2003-0415
Application No. 08/765,258
appellant and the examiner.
OPINION
We have carefully considered the entire record before us,
and we will reverse the obviousness rejection of claims 1 through
18.
Saulsbury discloses a circuit Board (Figure 1) that is
connected to a host computer via host interface 5. A telephone
is connected to the Board via switches, handset and line
interface circuit 6, and Saulsbury discloses (column 12, lines
1 through 7) that the computer can initiate a call to the
telephone by use of a certain key combination on the keyboard of
the computer. A facsimile machine may be connected to the Board
via modem 4 (column 9, lines 13 through 18; column 10, lines
48 through 51; column 11, lines 37 through 40).
Appellant argues (brief, page 10) that:
Claim 1 requires more than mere connectedness of
the computer-fax-telephone--it requires operating these
devices connected together in a specific manner. When
the device of Saulsbury is operating by communicating
using the facsimile protocol, it is not operating to
provide control commands to establish an outgoing voice
link of the connected telephone terminal--rather it is
simply acting to communicate information to a remote
facsimile machine. This functional difference is
significant for the claim.
We agree with appellant’s arguments. As indicated supra,
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