Appeal No. 2000-0946 Page 4
Application No. 08/704,217
the rate of change of temperature would proportionately
increase [final rejection, page 3].
Although the rejections before us are obviousness rejections under 35 U.S.C. §
103(a), the examiner’s position appears to be that all of the limitations of claim 1 are
met by each of the applied patents. The examiner’s statements on pages 4 and 5 of
the answer to the effect that the rate of change in heating element temperature sensed
by Tamura and Oishi is proportional to the input voltage over the heating element clarify
that the examiner has determined that the limitation “said voltage being proportional to
said rate of change” in claim 1 is met by each of Tamura and Oishi.
Tamura discloses a current controller for a resistive heating element wherein a
sensing current generator 6 supplies a sensing current IS to the heating element 2 for
use by the resistance measuring means 8 in measuring the resistance (and hence the
temperature) of the heating element. As explained in column 9, line 16, through column
10, line 68, upon initialization of the controller, prior to a calibration phase, the
controller measures the slope of the resistance measurements as a function of time
using a slope detection circuit 174 to determine whether the heating element is at
ambient temperature. Once the resistance of the heating element at ambient
temperature has been determined and stored and the controller calibrated to precisely
ascertain temperature from measured resistance in accordance with equation (1) in
column 2 of Tamura, a heating current supply 4 supplies a heating current IH to the
heating element to raise the temperature of the heating element. Periodically, the
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