Appeal No. 1998-1696
Application No. 08/562,197
recognizes that Fry does not disclose such an AC power supply,
the examiner contends that it would have been obvious to
provide for such a power supply “in order to reduce the cost
of hauling power all the way from a central office” [Answer-
page 5]. We disagree. Since the main line equipment 23 of
Fry is apparently not within the customer’s (subscriber’s)
premises and, in any event, certainly not accessible by the
subscriber, there would have been no reason in Fry to supply
an “AC power supply provided by said subscriber,” as claimed.
We would note, in passing, however, that the claimed AC power
supply provided by the subscriber is never recited, in claim
15, as being connected to anything.
Moreover, and more importantly, it is clear from claim 15
that the arrangement of the claimed elements are as shown in
Figure 1. That is, the external telephone subscriber lines
(14, 15, 16) supplied by the service provider are functionally
connected to the terminal subscriber equipment (40, 42, 44,
46) “through said master multiplexer, multiplexed across said
interior preexisting conventional two conductor telephone
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