Appeal No. 96-3628
Application 08/050,029
anything more than a single optical fiber network.
The examiner turns to Husbands for a teaching of an optical communication
system in which a head-end station (identified as elements RX, TX, 60 and 54 in Figure 4
of Husbands by the examiner) may be connected to an optical stage comprised of a
plurality of transmitters and receivers (identified as 62, 46 and 56 by the examiner) for
communicating with various devices in the network. The examiner then contends that it
would have been obvious to use the teaching of Husbands to connect a plurality of
transmitters and receivers to a head-end station in the system of Ballance “in order to
increase the number of networks that may be served by the splitters connected to the
various end users… ” [answer-page 5].
We disagree. While we do not agree with appellants that Husbands is directed to
nonanalogous art and should never have been applied, we disagree with the examiner’s
rationale for making the combination. In our view, Husbands is clearly analogous since it
relates to the same field of endeavor as the instant invention in that they both relate to
optical communications systems. As far as applicability of active networks to passive
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