Appeal No. 97-2764
Application No. 08/354,018
Independent claim 27 recites the step of "estimating a
position of said object by averaging strengths of signals
received by at least some of said plurality of receivers."
Independent claim 22 recites a means for accomplishing that
step. Therefore, all of the pending claims require estimating
by averaging signal strengths. The examiner rejects claims 22
through 25, 27 through 30, and 32 through 37 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being obvious over Krieg, further in view of
Zimmerman (for 23 through 25, 28 through 30, and 32 through
35) and also Mori (for 32 and 34). The examiner admits
(Answer, page 5) that Krieg does not disclose averaging the
strengths of the signals to estimate the position of the
operator. The examiner nonetheless concludes (Answer, page 5-
6) that it
would have been obvious to one skill [sic] in the
art to recognize that Krieg's device has to
calculate each of the independent components of the
electromagnetic fields received by the antennas (18
and 28) and averaging [sic] the strengths of the
components of the electromagnetic fields between the
antennas (18,28) in order to estimate the operator's
position.
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