Appeal No. 2004-1548
Application 09/127,954
Group 4: Claims 20 and 21
The examiner states that "appellant failed to particularly
point how these claims [20 and 21] patentably distinguish over
the prior art of record" (EA8) and the arguments amount to a
general allegation of patentability. The examiner also states
that "the limitations of claims 20-21 are similar to those of the
claims discussed in the rejection" (EA8) and are rejected under
the same rationale.
Appellant notes where specific features of the claims were
argued, but were never addressed by the examiner (RBr5-7).
Based on a review of the record, we agree with appellant
that the examiner has not addressed the specific limitations of
claims 20 and 21. Nevertheless, we decline to remand the
application since this would only harm appellant and further
delay prosecution. We have considered the prior art and do not
find where it teaches or suggests at least the limitations of "a
meta-information unit which: ... requests the information
collection apparatus to issue an information collection request
where a change occurs in the information stored in the first
table." This limitation is not similar to anything found in
claim 1 and is not found in Matsumoto or Hashimoto. Therefore,
the rejection of claims 20 and 21 is reversed.
CONCLUSION
- 10 -
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007