Appeal No. 96-4005
Application 08/183,531
filed December 26, 1995 which was denied entry by the Examiner.
The claimed invention is directed to a method of generating a terrain profile for an aircraft which
uses terrain following flight control. More particularly, Appellant discloses at page 5 of the specification
that terrain information along the aircraft's flight path is segmented into separate sample regions. The
sample regions are wider nearer the aircraft and become increasingly narrower at larger distances from
the aircraft as illustrated in Figure 1 of the drawings.
Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows:
1. A method of generating a terrain profile on an aircraft's flight mission computer system using
a sample region of digital terrain elevation data which corresponds to the aircraft's position and
predicted flight path, the method comprising the steps:
identifying a plurality of sample regions located directly under and along the predicted flight path
of the aircraft, said sample regions varying in dimension according to use criteria including possible short
range terrain following commands, potential flight path deviations, and long range terrain following
commands; and
transforming said sample regions into a terrain profile.
The Examiner relies on the following reference : 2
Feuerstein et al. (Feuerstein) 4,805,108 Feb. 14, 1989
Claim 4 stands finally rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, third paragraph, as being improperly
2Although not expressly stated in the first sentence of the statement of the grounds of rejection
in the Answer, the Examiner additionally relies on a description of the admitted prior art in Appellant's
specification.
2
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