Appeal No. 1998-2867
Application No. 08/362,747
explained supra, the test signal never even passes through the
sensor and, therefore, cannot be delayed by it.
Thus, Leiber lacks significant limitations of claim 81.
The examiner, in the "Response to argument" section of the
answer, attempts to provide reasons for modifying Leiber to
meet the claims. For example, in response to Leiber's failure
to compare a test signal to a sensor-delayed test signal to
detect a fault in a sensor, the examiner explains (Answer,
page 7) that
although Leiber runs a test signal through a whole
control unit comprising transducer 11, processor 12,
logic 13 and logic 16 in order to detect a fault,
one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it
obvious to run a timing signal through whatever
portion of a system that was desired to be monitored
for faults. Thus, since Leiber teaches the basic
concept of measuring the time it takes a test signal
to be processed through a circuit and compare it to
a reference time, one of ordinary skill in the art
would have found this fault detection technique just
as applicable to wheel speed sensors ..., the
specific type of sensor not substantially affecting
how a fault is detected using test signal timing
comparison.
The examiner further states (Answer, page 8),
Although the generated test signal in Leiber
appears to be modified from an original state into a
signal sequence in order that testing of processor
and logic means can be realized, ... [o]ne of
ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that
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