Appeal No. 1997-0915
Application 08/369,853
have recognized that "sensor," as used in Policastro and
Sasaki, refers to the assembly of a housing, the actual sensor
element (for sensing pressure, heat, light, vibration, etc.),
and whatever circuitry and wiring is needed to connect the
sensor element to the sensor lead 30 in Policastro or the
cable 15 in figure 2B of Sasaki.
In our opinion, the only limitation that might
distinguish an external sensor from the claimed data
acquisition pod is the limitation that the pod is adapted "for
conditioning the further patient data." The term
"conditioning" is very broad because it does not specify any
particular kind of conditioning and can be interpreted to read
on conversion of the sensor output to the appropriate
electrical form for transmission in the external sensors of
Sasaki. However, Policastro discloses that the external
sensor can include a "processing device" which one skilled in
the art would have broadly interpreted as a device for
"conditioning" data. It would have been obvious to condition
sensor data in the external sensor of Sasaki in light of the
teachings in Policastro.
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