Appeal No. 2001-0950
Application No. 08/534,855
OPINION
With full consideration being given to the subject matter on
appeal, the Examiner's rejections and the arguments of Appellants
and Examiner, for the reasons stated infra, we reverse the
Examiner's rejections of claims 3, 21, 28 and 30 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) and affirm the rejection of claims 1, 19, 29 and 31
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b). In regards to the 35 U.S.C. § 103
rejections, we reverse the Examiner's rejections of claims 2, 4-
18, 20, 22-24, and 27 and affirm the rejection of claims 25-26.
We first will address the rejection of claims 1, 3, 19, 21,
and 28-31 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by
Stengel. For claim 1, Appellants argue that Stengel does not
teach or suggest step (b) of claim 1, determining a base error
rate by comparing known bits of the communication stream with
received bits of the communication stream. In addition,
Appellants argue that Stengel does not indicate whether FEC bits
are decoded as a function of the signal level, step (c) of claim
1. See Appeal Brief, Page 5, lines 12-16.
Upon review, we sustain the rejection of claim 1. Step (b)
of claim 1 recites "determining a BER by comparing known bits of
the communication stream with received bits of the communication
stream." See Appeal Brief, Page 16, lines 9-10. In column 6,
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