Appeal No. 95-1276
Application 07/839,969
references do not disclose tools which are utilized during
drilling.
In view of the foregoing, we will not sustain the
examiner’s rejection of claim 80 as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 based on the use of Lygas as a primary reference. As each
of the independent method claims recite a step of receiving an
acoustic signal at a location on the drill collar and each of the
independent apparatus claims recite that the receiver is mounted
on a drill collar, we also will not sustain the rejection of
claims 21-79 and 81-87 based on the use of Lygas as a primary
reference.
We now turn to the rejection of the pending claims
based on the use of Kent as the primary reference. Kent
discloses a transducer for coupling an acoustic signal to a
borehole drilling string during drilling. A sensor is mounted in
the borehole in a sub-unit 38 which is adapted to generate an
electrical measure of data relating to the operation of drill bit
40 such as fluid pressure or temperature (Col. 3, lines 7-10).
The output from this sensor modulates an acoustic transmitter and
the resultant acoustic wave is propagated toward the earth’s
surface along the drill string 35 (Col. 3, lines 6-28) where it
is received by a receiver mounted in a sub unit 32 at the earth’s
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