Appeal Number: 2006-2190
Application Number: 09/867,068
REJECTION
Claims 1 through 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Roddy in view
of Yang.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and the appellant
regarding the above-noted rejection, we make reference to the examiner's answer (mailed
February 6, 2006) for the reasoning in support of the rejection, and to the appellant’s brief (filed
December 8, 2005) and reply brief (filed March 20, 2006) for the arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to the
appellant’s specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the respective
positions articulated by the appellant and the examiner. As a consequence of our review, we
make the determinations that follow.
Claims 1 through 15 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Roddy in view of Yang.
We note that the appellant argues these claims as a group. Accordingly, we select claim 1 as
representative of the group.
As to claim 1, the examiner has applied Roddy to all of the claim limitations without relying
on Yang, although the examiner characterized the rejection of claim 1 as being unpatentable over
the combination of Roddy in view of Yang. The appellant recognized that the examiner did not
rely on Yang in applying the art to claim 1 and did not address Yang in the brief (Br. at p. 6).
The appellant argues that Roddy fails to describe creating an advance demand notice order
that identifies the items (Br. at p. 7) or initiating a staging of the items within a supply chain to
meet an expected use of the items during the repair procedure (Br. at p. 8).
The examiner responds that Roddy teaches both of these elements at paragraph 115, within a
portion describing what Roddy’s system may include, and which specifically calls out
“Scheduling maintenance and/or Pre-ordering needed parts for remediation and improvement”
(Answer at p. 24). The appellant responds to this by stating that this “simply cannot be said to
3
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007