Appeal 2007-1280
Application 10/894,950
On the other hand, we must reverse the rejection of the claimed
second sorter in dependent claim 11 because claim 11 depends from claim
10. There is no additional second sorter or second routing unit 88 in figure 6
of Lenormand to meet the additional features recited in claim 11. Therefore,
we must reverse this claim even though we sustain the rejection of
dependent claim 10.
Turning to the subject matter of dependent claim 12, our earlier
discussion as well as the Examiner’s views of Lenormand clearly teach the
feature of coupling an electrical signal to an optical transmitter in figure 6.
The mere assertion without more that the feature is not recited in this claim
in the paragraph bridging pages 11 and 12 of the principal Brief on appeal is
not persuasive of patentability.
As to dependent claim 13, we have indicated earlier that we believe
that the artisan would have understood implicitly that Lenormand and Harres
teach reshaping capabilities, which are essentially duplicated in claim 13
from claim 9. The rejection of this claim is therefore sustained.
Likewise, we agree with the Examiner’s remarks with respect to
dependent claim 14 as expressed at page 16 of the Answer.
As to dependent claim 17, the teachings in Lenormand associated with
figure 6 and the discussion at the bottom of column 5 makes clear that the
receiver 86 converts optical signals into a stream of digital data signals as
claimed.
Lastly, we turn to the fifth stated rejection of independent claim 9 and
its dependent claims 15 through 17 as being obvious over Lenormand in
view of Wedding. We sustain this rejection as well. Appellants principal
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