Ex parte FEITELSON et al.

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Mar 27, 1998

07965590 (B.P.A.I. Mar. 27, 1998)

Application for patent filed October 23, 1992.1
1
THIS OPINION WAS NOT WRITTEN FOR PUBLICATION
The opinion in support of the decision being entered today (1)
was not written for publication in a law journal and (2) is not
binding precedent of the Board.
Paper No. 15
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
_____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
_____________
Ex parte DROR GERSHON FEITELSON
BLAKE G. FITCH and
MARK E. GIAMPAPA
_____________
Appeal No. 96-2141
Application 07/965,5901
______________
ON BRIEF
_______________
Before THOMAS, HAIRSTON and TORCZON, Administrative Patent
Judges.
THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal No. 96-2141
Application 07/965,590
2
Appellants have appealed to the Board from the examiner’s
final rejection of claims 1 to 26, which constitute all the
claims in the application.
Representative claim 1 is reproduced below:
1. A user interface for managing text I/O between a user
and a parallel program, comprising:
a user terminal for communicating with a parallel processing
system executing a parallel program, said parallel program
including a plurality of individual tasks which may be executing
in parallel with each other, said user terminal having a display
screen;
an I/O status manager for continuously displaying an array
of text I/O status indicators on said screen, each one of said
tasks corresponding uniquely to a different one of said text I/O
status indicators, each of said text I/O status indicators having
a first designated graphical state for indicating that a
particular task corresponding to said each text I/O status
indicator has text output that has not been displayed yet on said
screen and a second designated graphical state for indicating
that said particular task is requesting text input from said user
terminal; and
a text I/O manager controllable by a user at said terminal
for opening an I/O window in said screen corresponding to any
selected text I/O status indicator, said I/O window displaying
text I/O for the particular task which corresponds to said
selected text I/O status indicator.
The following references are relied on by the examiner:
Cliff et al. (Cliff) 4,713,656 Dec. 15, 1987
Noguchi et al. (Noguchi) 5,237,653 Aug. 17, 1993
(Filed June 04, 1987)
Appeal No. 96-2141
Application 07/965,590
3
Claims 1 to 26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103. As
evidence of obviousness, the examiner relies upon Cliff in view
of Noguchi.
Rather than repeat the positions of the appellants and the
examiner, reference is made to the brief and the answer for the
respective details.
OPINION
We reverse the outstanding rejection of claims 1 to 26 under
35 U.S.C. § 103.
Both independent claims 1 and 26 on appeal require a
parallel processing system operating on a parallel program having
plural tasks. From an architectural point of view, both
references relied upon by the examiner each relate to single
processor-based systems rather than the claimed multiprocessor-
based system. Thus, the combined teachings of the references
would not have met this major structural requirement of each
independent claim on appeal even though we recognize and
appellant appears to recognize that both references relate to a
multi-programming or multitasking environment consistent with the
parallel program aspects of the claims on appeal.
Appeal No. 96-2141
Application 07/965,590
4
The major dispute between appellants and the examiner
revolves around the feature of independent claims 1 and 26 that
each text I/O status indicator has a first displayed state
indicating that the task has text output that has not been
displayed yet to the user on the screen and a second visually
displayed state for indicating that the task is requesting text
input from the user’s terminal. The examiner’s view among the
collective teachings of Cliff and Noguchi is that Cliff
essentially teaches that his graphical indications on screen of
programs awaiting user input may have been “better represented”
as a graphical display as per Noguchi’s approach which also shows
an icon display arrangement for a program indicating task
completion. These respective features of the two references
appear to be argued to relate to the corresponding two displayed
states in the independent claims on appeal.
Although we may agree with the examiner’s view that the
visual output to the user may be better represented by Noguchi’s
approach, the actual analytical approach taken by the examiner is
to pick and choose features of the respective references to put
them together into a single system as represented by the claims
on appeal. Our detailed study of both references lead us to
conclude that there is no teaching or suggestion or inferences
Appeal No. 96-2141
Application 07/965,590
5
that the artisan would have reasonably derived from each and both
references to have justified the examiner’s line of reasoning to
combine the features of the two references to arrive at the
claimed invention without the view of prohibited hindsight of
appellants’ disclosed and claimed invention. That certain
features may have been desirable or could have been desirable to
have been combined from Cliff’s and Noguchi’s teachings, showings
or suggestions is all that we may ascertain from the examiner’s
position and our own consideration of each of the references.
This conclusion of the examiner does not rise to the level of
understanding that is required for a valid rejection under 35
U.S.C. § 103, that the claimed subject matter would have been
obvious to the artisan in light of the prior art relied on.
The nature and quality of evidence of obviousness provided
by Cliff and Noguchi, coupled with the examiner’s reasoning, does
not lead us to conclude that the subject matter of independent
claims 1 and 26 would have been obvious to the artisan within 35
U.S.C. § 103. We, therefore, reach a similar conclusion with
respect to dependent claims 2 through 25.
Accordingly, the decision of the examiner is reversed.
REVERSED
Appeal No. 96-2141
Application 07/965,590
6
)
JAMES D. THOMAS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
KENNETH W. HAIRSTON )
Administrative Patent Judge ) APPEALS AND
)
) INTERFERENCES
)
RICHARD TORCZON )
Administrative Patent Judge )

Ronald L. Drumheller
IBM CORPORATION
P. O. Box 218
Yorktown Heights, NY 10598