Appeal No. 1997-3288
Application 08/529,303
process. Nevertheless, we find that Sellers suggests
measuring the use at one use point.
The system in Sellers will not allow an owner to take
more from the tank than he or she owns. This reasonably would
have implied to one of ordinary skill in the art the steps of:
(1) sensing at the tank exit (what we consider to be the "at
least one of said control points") to measure what is being
used; (2) subtracting the sensed amount of material from the
inventory for the tank; and (3) comparing the sensed amount of
material removed with the amount owned to ensure that no more
is removed than is owned. Thus, the system in Sellers must
perform the step "sensing the use of the chemical in the
process" at one point (the tank exit) and the step of
"removing the chemical from said inventory in response to said
sensing step[]." The first problem is that claim 2 calls for
sensing at "a plurality of use points," whereas Sellers has
only the one identifiable use point.
With respect to the limitation of "sensing disposal of
the chemical in the process at a plurality of disposal
points," the Examiner cites to the same portions of Sellers
and Shearman as noted in the preceding paragraph and further
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