Appeal No. 96-0899 Application 07/863,216 This is a decision on appeal from the final rejection of claims 5 through 11. Claims 1 through 4, 12 and 13 have been cancelled. The invention pertains to a patient tracking system for hospitals and is best understood from a review of representative independent claim 5 reproduced as follows: 5. A hospital patient tracking system comprising in combination: a plurality of clusters of patient tracking modules, each said patient tracking module comprising: (a) a predetermined number of coded selectively operable keys, (b) a predetermined number of selectively operable visual indicators associated on a one-to-one basis with said coded selectively operable keys, (c) a multi-character display, a plurality of keyboard cluster controllers, each said keyboard cluster controller being connected to said coded selectively operable keys and said selectively operable visual indicators and all of said patient tracking modules within an associated cluster; a like plurality of visual indicator cluster controllers, each said visual indicator cluster controller being connected to said coded selectively operable keys and said selectively operable visual indicators in all of said patient tracking modules within its associated cluster; a like plurality of multi-character display cluster controllers, each said multi-character display cluster controller being connected to said multi-character display in all of said patient tracking modules within an associated cluster; -2-Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007