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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