Appeal No. 1997-1397
Application 08/411,245
subsurface earth formation of interest.
Appellant’s specification states on page 5:
The vibrators should operate at each surface
location for a long period of time at a constant
frequency. How long would depend on the earth
properties at a given site and the objectives of the
survey. The vibration time would vary from about
five minutes to over a half hour. Recording of the
signal for the purposes of this invention would not
begin until steady-state conditions have been
reached, whereby enough time would have been allowed
for the initial receipt of all desired signals from
the
subsurface. This will usually be at least fifteen
seconds, depending on the depth of all targeted
objectives. Recording of the signal would begin and
continue for a time sufficient to integrate the
signal to be able to successfully image the faintest
reflectors that are of interest in the survey. This
may be as much as thirty minutes or more and would,
again, depend on the objectives of the survey.
[Specification, page 5.]
In our view, this disclosure provides a reasonable set of
guidelines for what appellant intends to cover by the
recitations (1) and (2) mentioned above. For example, the
“many times greater than” language of recitation (1) means
that the period for generating vibrations should continue for
a time sufficient to successfully image the faintest
reflectors of interest (e.g., anywhere from about five minutes
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