Appeal No. 2002-2151
Application No. 09/342,234
controls a brake (78). As indicated by the double arrows seen in
Figures 1a and 1b, the system bus (40) is connected to the
individual controllers (50-64), as well as the controllers (50-
64) to their associated actuators, so that data and information
can be exchanged in both directions.
When comparing appellants' claimed invention with Weiss
(final rejection, page 2), the examiner analogizes the process
computer (24) with appellants' claimed master apparatus, the
combination of controllers (50, 52, 54, 56) and actuators (70,
72, 74, 76) to the claimed slave apparatuses, and the system bus
(40) to appellants' claimed transmission path. What the examiner
finds lacking in the system of Weiss is a memory in each of the
slave apparatuses which stores a current apparatus state of the
respective slave apparatus.
Iihoshi discloses a network system having a plurality of
vehicle-mounted, microprocessor-based electronic devices each
having a distributed operating system for performing data
communication and distributed processes among the electronic
devices. As noted in column 2 of the patent, by virtue of the
distributed operating system contained in each of the vehicle-
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