Appeal No. 96-1659
Application 08/166,931
67 [answer, page 7]. Appellant argues that the claimed
details of operation of the smart voltage conditioner are not
described or suggested by Ferguson, Watkins and/or Kabat
[brief, page 6]. We agree with appellant.
We are unable to verify the examiner’s assertion that
the transmission and reception of data in Kabat satisfies the
condition of the smart voltage conditioner recited in claims
56 and 67. There is nothing in Kabat to suggest the
obviousness of maintaining a conditioned voltage of a given
magnitude across the pair of distribution conductors except
when a resistive load is connected directly across the pair of
distribution conductors. The examiner’s assertion that Kabat
teaches this condition is pure speculation which is not
supported by the evidence of record in this case. Once again,
we cannot say whether there is better prior art than that
applied by the examiner. All we can determine is that the
prior art applied by the examiner does not provide the factual
basis to support the rejection proposed by the examiner.
Therefore, we do not sustain the rejection of independent
claims 56 and 67 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Since claims 57-66
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