Appeal No. 95-1276
Application 07/839,969
surface. As such Kent does not disclose the steps of both
transmitting signals and receiving signals at the drill collar,
as recited in claim 80.
The examiner argues, in effect, that although Kent
depicts the transmitter 37 and receiver 32 mounted at the earth’s
surface, this does not detract from the teaching of mounting
receivers on drill collars for receiving acoustic energy (Answer
at page 11). The examiner has presented no convincing argument
why this is so, and none is apparent to us. Clearly Kent does
not disclose, teach or suggest the placement of the receiver on
the collar on which the transmitter is disposed. We have again
reviewed the disclosures of Lord, Cox, Ely, Hoyle, Schuster and
Moser as they relate to Kent, but have found nothing in these
references that would have motivated a person of ordinary skill
in the art to modify the apparatus disclosed in Kent so that the
receiving step takes place at the drill collar, where the
transmitting step takes place. In view of the foregoing, we will
not sustain the rejection of claim 80 as unpatentable under 35
U.S.C. § 103 based on the use of Kent as a primary reference.
As each of the independent method claims recite a step of
receiving an emitted acoustic signal at a location on the drill
collar and each of the independent apparatus claims recite that
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