Appeal 2007-0226
Application 09/823,866
Claim 1 is in means-plus-function format. Appellants' brief does not
correspond the means to the structure in the specification as required by
37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(v) and, therefore, we assume the means can be any
structure for performing the function.
Rejection
Initially, we try to clarify the rejection. The Examiner finds (Final
Rejection 2): "Regarding claims 1-22, it is noted that as disclosed, an object
refers to a function/procedure and a component to a set of objects. See
application as filed, page 10, lines 9-10." The Specification states:
In an object-based model of components, a component can be
seen as a stateless object that provides a set of objects. These objects
are for the most part, similar to everyday functions or procedures.
Page 10, ll. 8-10. This is the closest the Specification comes to defining an
"object." Relevant to an understanding of the rejection is the fact that
Appellants' disclosed invention uses "wrapper facades" and Schmidt is
directed to "wrapper facades." The Specification describes:
If it is determined at step 34 that the objects are in different
components, the object to object communication system then uses a
wrapper facade to facilitate the object to component communication at
step 35. Wrapper facades are an encoding of information to allow for
object to component communication.
Page 15, ll. 2-6. That is, wrapper facades allow access to objects.
The Examiner finds that "[a]s to claim 1, Schmidt teaches a system for
providing object to object communication (client - server communications)
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