Appeal 2007-0928
Application 09/943,964
malfunctions by detecting the presence/absence of data messages at the
output of a software stage that were present at the input of the software
stage.
35 U.S.C. § 102(e) REJECTION
With respect to the appealed independent claim 22, the Examiner
attempts to read the various limitations on the disclosure of Ahmed. In
particular, the Examiner (Answer 5-6) points to the illustrations in Figures 2
and 3 of Ahmed as well as the disclosure at column 2, lines 29-65 of Ahmed.
Appellants’ arguments in response assert that the Examiner has not
shown how each of the claimed features is present in the disclosure of
Ahmed so as to establish a case of anticipation. In particular, Appellants
contend (Br. 19-20; Reply Br. 3) that, in contrast to the claimed invention,
Ahmed’s ping and reply system does not provide a disclosure of determining
end-to-end communications continuity by outputting the same status code
from an output of a remote software module that was input to the remote
software module. According to Appellants, there is no indication in Ahmed
that the reply message is the same ping message that was originally sent.
After reviewing the disclosure of Ahmed in light of the arguments of
record, we are in general agreement with Appellants’ arguments in the
Briefs. While the Examiner does not dispute Appellants’ contention that the
reply message in Ahmed is not the same ping message that was sent, the
Examiner takes the position (Answer 20) that claim 22 does not require that
the outputted status code from the remote software module is the same as the
status code that was inputted. After reviewing the language of claim 22, we
simply find no basis for the Examiner interpreting the claim language in this
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