Appeal 2007-0339
Application 09/872,600
automatically isolating the first bus controller from the
bus in response to the detection signal.
B. REJECTIONS
Claims 1-10, 12-21, 23-31, 35-41, 441-50, and 52-55 stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over U.S. Patent No. 5,706,447
("Vivo") and U.S. Patent No. 6,701,402 ("Alexandria"). Claims 11, 22, and
34 stand rejected under § 103(a) as obvious over Vivo; Alexandria; and the
Appellants' admitted prior art ("AAPA"). Claims 32-34, 42, 43,2 and 51
stand rejected under § 103(a) as obvious over Vivo; Alexandria; and U.S.
Patent No. 6,701,402 ("Gasparik").
II. ISSUE
Rather than reiterate the positions of parties in toto, we focus on the
issue therebetween. The Examiner admits that Vivo does not disclose
"automatically isolating the first bus controller from the bus in response to
the detection signal." (Answer 3.) He finds, moreover, "In Alexander, III et
al. when the PCI bus controller gives control to one of the masters, the other
masters are prevented from communicating with the disk controller and are
thus 'isolated' from it." (Id. 18.) The Examiner further finds, "Alexander, III
et al. further make specific mention in the abstract that the purpose of this
1 Although the statement of this rejection includes claim 43, (Answer 3), the
claim depends from claim 42, which stands rejected under Vivo, Alexandria,
and U.S. Patent No. 6,701,402. (Id. 17.) Therefore, we treat claim 43 as
rejected under the same latter combination of references.
2 Id.
3
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