Appeal No. 1997-3850 Page 5
Application No. 08/355,973
samples to total samples, inversely proportional to the Eb/No
ratio, is then calculated and this value is then employed to
determine acceptable transmission signal quality.
While it is true that the memory storing the coordinates
of the samples is not part of the instant claimed subject
matter, claims 1 and 11 still require the received samples to
have positions in a constellation, those positions being
defined by coordinates in the constellation. The claims also
require the calculation of a ratio between the number of
erroneous samples and the total number of samples in order to
indirectly determine the Eb/No ratio of a digital transmission.
By contrast, either one of the Birchler references deals
with determining a ratio of the undesired portion (analogous to
appellants’ indicative sample) of a signal to the desired
portion (analogous to appellants’ optimal samples) of the
signal. While this determination also permits Birchler to
produce a signal representative of signal quality, it is
unclear to us how this signal is “inversely proportional to
said Eb/No ratio,” as claimed. The examiner gives an
explanation, at page 7 of the answer, equating Birchler’s
undesired component I and desired component C to the claimed
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