Appeal No. 96-1657
Application 07/819,345
B. Rejection of claims 1 through 8 and claims 28 through
33 over White
We consider the rejection of the independent claim 1. We
have considered the Examiner’s position [answer, pages 5, 6
and 14] and Appellants’ corresponding arguments [brief, pages
12 to 15 and reply brief, pages 3 to 5 and 8 to 10].
Appellants argue that White’s personnel locator system is
completely different and fails to suggest many of the claimed
combinations. As an example, Appellants contend that White
fails to show: “identifying to the central station the lock to
which the user seeks access” [claim 1, line 6], and “said
identifying not requiring the user be in proximity with the
lock;” [claim 1, line 6 to 7]. However, we agree with the
Examiner. Claim 1 calls for a method of operating a secure
system including a lock that controls access to a secure area,
the system further including a central station. The method
comprises a number of steps including the two substeps argued
by Appellants above. White does control the access to a
secure area. Locks CL1 ... CL256 [figure 1] are employed for
that purpose. As for the first substep, we note that a
transmitter [the user] transmits an identifying signal. This
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