Appeal No. 1997-1236
Application No. 08/212,385
Kiasaleh’s RF signals. The examiner makes no reference to the
limitations set forth in any of the dependent claims [final
rejection, pages 4-5].
Appellant argues that the systems of Keolian and
Kiasaleh are completely irrelevant to the claimed invention.
Appellant asserts that the examiner’s position that Keolian is
equivalent to the claimed invention except for the RF input
signal is totally without foundation [brief, pages 9-10].
Although some of appellant’s arguments are narrower
than the inventions recited in independent claims 1, 9 and 17,
we agree with appellant that the examiner has not made a prima
facie case of the obviousness of the claimed invention. The
examiner has obviously interpreted the claimed invention very
broadly in order to find that Keolian teaches everything
except the RF input signal. Since the examiner has not
explained how he reads the claimed invention on the applied
prior art, we are unable to assess the propriety of the
examiner’s claim interpretation. We do note that the
invention of independent claim 1, for example, is recited in
means plus function form yet the examiner has not explained
how the circuitry of Keolian and/or Kiasaleh can perform the
9
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007