Appeal No. 2002-2176 Page 4
Application No. 08/948,931
OPINION
Rather than reiterate the positions of the examiner or the appellants in toto, we
address the main point of contention therebetween. The examiner makes the following
assertions.
TDB clearly teaches that the virus detector [ISP] has direct access to the
I/O device [disk drive] and the controller thereof [disk drive controller].
TDB teaches the generic use of ISP to detect virus. TDB fails to teach
what specific parameter from the disk drive is to be used to detect virus.
Yamamoto teaches the usage of the disk address to detect virus.
Yamamoto is silent about the source of the detected disk address. As
such, Yamamoto's teaching of the source of the detected disk address
encompasses all sources of the detected disk address. In the IBM TDB -
Yamamoto system, the disk address is coming from the disk controller
because IBM TDB has direct access to the disk drive controller.
(Examiner's Answer, § 12.3) The appellants argue, "disk addresses are not controller
interface parameters." (Reply Br. at 3.) They add, "Yamamoto does not even discuss
'controller', 'interface', or 'register'. The asserted grounds for rejection fail to bridge the
gap between comparing the disk address of an object program and comparing
controller register values for an MBR as discussed in the application." (Id.)
In addressing the point of contention, the Board conducts a two-step analysis.
First, we construe claims at issue to determine their scope. Second, we determine
whether the construed claims would have been obvious.
3The examiner should number the pages of his answers.
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