Appeal No. 2000-0953 Page 6
Application No. 08/288,418
or more antenna elements and means to transition selected
portions of the one or more antenna elements from the
superconducting material state to the normal conducting
material state to thereby change its effective dimensions
as an antenna element and provide radiation of microwave
energy under another set of conditions. Exercising such a
transition from the superconducting material state to the
normal conducting material state can be achieved by means
of exceeding the critical temperature, the critical
current, the critical magnetic field, or a critical
photon flux of the material in the said portion of the
antenna element.
Antenna apparatus of this invention includes means
to reduce the temperature of the superconductive
materials forming components on the dielectric substrate
below the critical temperatures and provides an antenna
system with one or more microwave antenna elements, and
an interconnecting microwave network with one or more
variable antenna element interconnecting means, all
operating in superconductivity. Superconducting operating
temperatures can be provided by a cryogenic container
refrigerated by a closed cycle cryogenic refrigerator, a
stored cryogen, or in space, a heat sink.
We agree with the appellants argument (brief, pp. 4-7)
that claims 19 and 20 are not anticipated by Koepf.
In our view, the recitation in claim 19 of "selectably
varying the temperature of at least a portion of the radiating
element of the antenna about the critical temperature of said
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007