Ex parte FRYE et al. - Page 5




              Appeal No. 1998-1600                                                                                        
              Application No. 08/434,898                                                                                  


              data not to the subsurface instruments, as does the instant claimed invention, but, rather, to              
              a satellite.                                                                                                
                     Clearly, Schultz does not disclose a modem.  At best, Schultz discloses a general                    
              teaching of a wake-up call in order to preserve battery power in a pressure measuring                       
              device.  Therefore, it is difficult to see how any combination of Schultz with the other two                
              references would result in the two-way communication claimed wherein a master modem                         
              means inductively couples a plurality of subsurface instrument specific wake-up command                     
              signals to each subsurface instrument and a slave modem in each subsurface instrument                       
              generates modem encoded signals related to the data signal and receives modem                               
              encoded signals from the master modem.                                                                      
                     Further, claim 8 requires that the subsurface instrument to receive the wake-up call                 
              be selective; i.e., the use of instrument specific wake-up commands.  Thus, the claim                       
              recites, that the master modem inductively couples a “plurality of subsurface instrument                    
              specific wake-up command signals to each subsurface instrument” and that there is a                         
              switch means operable in a sleep mode “in each subsurface unit” for reducing power                          
              consumption of “the” subsurface instrument by removing power from the transducer and                        
              slave modem.  Further, there is a “continuously powered wake-up detector in each                            
              subsurface instrument” so that the switch means may apply power to the transducer and                       
              the slave modem in response to the wake-up signal specific to that                                          


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