Appeal 2007-0226
Application 09/823,866
that it is often necessary to communicate between servers in a networking
environment. Therefore, we conclude that the combination of Schmidt and
Konrad establishes a prima facie case of obviousness.
Appellants argue that the claims recite "objects that reside on separate
servers" and that "Applicants are not claiming that their system, method or
computer readable medium provides objects that 'act like' both servers and
clients, but rather that there are objects residing on servers" (bolding
omitted) (Br. 11). The Examiner repeats the rejection (Answer 10).
The rejection could have been better stated. However, we interpret
the rejection, in the context of the teachings of Schmidt and Konrad, to be
that it would have been obvious that the network example of Figure 1 of
Schmidt could include another server, or that one of the clients could be a
server, in view of the server to server communication taught by Konrad. We
do not think Appellants can reasonably dispute that server to server
communications were notoriously well known in the networking art. Since
the wrapper facades in Schmidt correspond to the claimed objects, and are
used in elements at both ends of a communication, the objects are on the
networking elements. Therefore, if a client in Schmidt was a server, it
would use wrapper facades (objects) for communication with other servers.
Appellants argue (Br. 11-12):
[Obviousness requires] that references and motivation be provided to
show, at a minimum, that it would be obvious to add at least one more
server to Schmidt, not that it would be "obvious" to re-define the role
of an object as "functioning" as a server and client simultaneously.
The practice of redefining an object so that it "functions" as both a
11
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