Appeal No. 2002-1187
Application No. 09/403,115
invention. (See brief at pages 7-8.) Appellant further argues that because the Giers
references disclose only two microcomputer and Smith disclosed three completely
redundant systems, it would not have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at
the time of the invention to combine the teaching to achieve a hybrid system with two
complete systems and one incomplete system. We agree with appellant, and find no
convincing line of reasoning by the examiner as to why it would have been obvious to
one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to add an additional complete
system to the hybrid system of Giers. While the language of independent claim 10
does not explicitly require the two complete and one incomplete system, we find that
the recitation of plural bypasses and a majority decision would require that there be
more than two systems for the emergency operation function maintained having
redundant data processing and comparison and correlation as claimed. Appellant
argues that there is no motivation to combine the systems of Giers and Smith and
that the examiner’s combination is based upon impermissible hindsight. (See brief at
page 8.) We agree with appellant.
The examiner maintains that the above arguments are not supported by the
language of the claims. (See answer at page 8.) We disagree with the examiner as
discussed above.
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