Appeal No. 2000-1703
Application No. 08/963,545
1. Rejection of Claims 20-22
Jackson teaches a reporting system for communicating
information between remote units and a central base site as
recited in Appellants’ claim 20. As depicted in Fig. 1, Jackson
specifically teaches “a master node for wirelessly transmitting
information” as single base site 101 which provides RF
communications and “a first non-master node, disposed within a
transmission range” as remote units 107 and 109 which are level
one units and maintain RF communications directly to the base
site (col. 2, line 29 through col. 3, line 7). Jackson further
teaches “a second non-master node, disposed outside the
transmission range” as units 111 and 113 which are level two
units and require one intervening remote unit to establish
communication to base site 101 (id.). More specifically, Jackson
discloses that level one unit 109 (first non-master node) repeats
the information transmitted by base site 101 (master node) so
that level two units 111 and 113 (second non-master nodes)
receive the repeated information (id.).
With respect to claim 21, Jackson teaches that each remote
unit such as units 111 and 113 (second non-master nodes) and
unites 107 and 109 (first non-master node) may be coupled to one
or more vending machines and be arranged to collect customer
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