Appeal No. 1996-2986
Application 08/348,625
some vague manner without specifically describing such
features or how and why they are to be combined. This does
not persuade us that skilled artisans, using their own
knowledge of the art, would have been put in possession of the
claimed subject matter. For example, as pointed out by
Appellants at pages 16 and 17 of the Brief, in contrast to the
claimed trace development limitations, the system of Rietsch
develops single values of start time difference and overall
phase shift between two signals developed from an entire phase
relationship plot. The Examiner has never provided any
indication of which general knowledge teaching would be
combined with this teaching of Rietsch, nor any rationale for
making such combination, that would arrive at the claimed
invention.
We note that, in prior Office actions (paper numbers 3
and 5) referenced in the Answer, the Examiner briefly
discusses the “splines” interpolation technique. To the
extent that such a mathematical interpolation technique has
any relevance to the Examiner’s proposed modification of
Rietsch, we agree with Appellant’s assertions expressed at
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