Appeal No. 2004-0545
Application No. 09/510,569
Claim 1 also recites a step of “modifying hardware configuration
data within said data processing system according to instructions
generated from said execution of said hardware setup program
within said server data processing system. “ In other words,
instructions are initially generated within the server data processing
system via an execution of the above mentioned hardware setup
program within the server data processing system, and the
instructions generated within the server data processing system are
then utilized to modify the hardware configuration data within the
data processing system.
In response to these arguments, the examiner states, on page 8 of the
answer:
Rakavy patent teaches about a loader service that is used during the
setup period. This loader service causes a workstation (200) (server
processing system) (Column 10, lines 55-60) to transfer code and data
(hardware setup program and dynamic link modules) from its location to a
RAM located on a computer (400) (data processing system) (Col. 5, lines
30-60) For this operation to have taken place, it is inherent that the code
and data (hardware setup program and dynamic modules) had to be
stored in advance on the workstation (server data processing system for
this operation to be possible.
Before we consider the art applied, we must first determine the scope of
the claim. The appellants’ arguments do not provide any guidance on how the
limitations of a “hardware setup program” and “dynamic links” are to be
interpreted. Appellants’ specification on page 2, identifies that hardware setup is
required so that a “data processing system can recognize and drive” a device,
where devices include among other things, a display. Further, on page 9 of
appellants’ specification, dynamic links are described as including functions and
subroutines that are used by the hardware setup program.
We agree with the examiner’s analogy of the loader to the claimed
hardware setup program. We find that Rakavy teaches an embodiment where a
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