Appeal No. 1998-2932
Application No. 08/603,680
While appellants may be correct in that Shultz’s outputs are “merely low-power gate
drive lines” and it is the transistors themselves that actually route power from the source to
the motor, we find nothing in independent claim 1 that would distinguish “low-power gate
drive lines” from the broadly claimed “power output ports.” In fact, one may consider the
outputs of transistors 30-32 of Shultz to be “power output ports,” as claimed. The
microprocessor 40 would then provide a control signal to the transistor switches in
accordance with a received message (i.e., a desired throttle position). The controller, 40,
would also be “operatively connected to the transceiver circuitry and to each power switch
(i.e., to each transistor).
The claim requires that “each” of the controllable switches is “associated with one
of the power outport ports” and that “each power switch” be able to route power to an
associated power port in accordance with a control signal. In Shultz, each one of the
transistor switches 30-32 is associated with its own output, or “power output port” and
each transistor “routes power to an associated power port in accordance with a control
signal” as provided by processor 40. Further, the claim requires that the control signal is
provided to a “specific” power switch, in accordance with a received message and that
power is caused to be routed from the power source to “the output port associated with
that switch.” Shultz’s controller provides a gate drive to each transistor
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