Appeal No. 1997-2066
Application 08/537,408
router, or another node (i.e., token bus/loop repeater)
is transparent to the transmission operation, what is
important is that any communication sent from the first
point to the next is not modified by a relaying unit
along the way to change the content of the message and
its purpose. Gilhousen, Kojima, and Harrison
transparently relay any messages sent into the network
from one point to another without changing the content of
the messages. Thus, both Gilhousen and Kojima operate in
the manner indicated by the Applicant's disclosure and
the Examiner maintains that the rejections made based
upon Gilhousen or Kojima, respectively, are proper.
We agree with the Examiner that the phrase "directly
relaying" does not exclude going unchanged through
intermediate nodes (a node in the sense of a junction between
two connectors, as opposed to the mobile nodes). However,
under the Examiner's own interpretation of "directly relaying"
as not allowing any modification of the message, the handoff
request is not directly relayed or passed "through" the system
controller 10 in Gilhousen because it is the system controller
which handles the request, not the second cell-site (second
access point). It is true that Gilhousen discloses a mobile
initiated handoff, but the implementation is not the same as
what is claimed. This difference in implementation is
commented on in Appellant's declaration regarding the
enablement rejection (paragraph 9):
- 14 -
Page: Previous 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007