Ex Parte Robins - Page 2



                 Appeal No. 2004-2090                                                                                 
                 Application No.  09/540,391                                                                          

                                                     Invention                                                        
                        The invention relates to a system for monitoring the release of a product.                    
                 The product is characterized as having a series of features, each of which                           
                 requires a series of tasks such as engineering tasks, quality assurance tasks,                       
                 and technical documentation tasks, which must be approved and completed.                             
                 The tasks are grouped by owning function (i.e. engineering, quality assurance…)                      
                 and linked to the features. See page 2 of appellant’s specification.                                 
                 Claim 15 is representative of the invention and reproduced below:                                    
                        15.      A method for managing a release of a product, comprising:                            
                               describing the product in terms of a plurality of product features;                    
                               entering a description of each of said product features, wherein                       
                        said description comprises an instantiation of a feature list graphical user                  
                        interface;                                                                                    
                               defining a plurality of tasks, wherein each of said tasks is                           
                        associated with one of said product features, the plurality of tasks being                    
                        grouped into task types;                                                                      
                               linking each of the plurality of tasks with one of the plurality of                    
                        product features;                                                                             
                               entering a task progress development as an instantiation of a task-                    
                        type graphical user interface, wherein the task-type graphical user                           
                        interface is selected from a plurality of task-type graphical user interfaces,                
                        each corresponding to one of the task types; and                                              
                               tracking a status of each product feature via the instantiated task-                   
                        type graphical user interfaces.                                                               
                                                    References                                                        
                        The references relied upon by the examiner are:                                               
                 Buckley et al. (Buckley)    5,036,472           Jul.  30,1991                                        
                 Hsu et al. (Hsu)            6,347,258           Feb.  12, 2002                                       
                 (Filed Aug.  09, 2000)                                                                               



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