Appeal No. 2001-1062
Application No. 08/910,297
Iwasaki discloses a combining circuit for a diversity receiving system, the examiner concluded
(answer, page 6) that “it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the
invention was made to modify Lo et al. by providing for the detection of the two antenna signals by
a phase detector, as taught by Iwasaki for the purpose of obtaining an optimal ratio between the two
signals, as disclosed at column 2, lines 43-47.” In view of the admitted prior art teachings
(specification, page 1, lines 21 through 28 and page 2, lines 7 through 17), the examiner stated
(answer, page 7) that “it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the
invention was made to modify Lo et al. and Iwasaki by specifically providing for the depolarized
signals as a result of multipath conditions, as admitted by applicant[s], for the purpose of providing
a system that is able to compensate for multipath conditions, such as rain.”
Inasmuch as appellants have not challenged the examiner’s finding that it would have been
obvious to the skilled artisan to combine the teachings of the admitted prior art with those of Lo and
Iwasaki, we will treat appellants’ silence as an affirmation of the examiner’s findings.
With respect to the examiner’s findings concerning the combined teachings of Lo and
Iwasaki, appellants argue that the polarized signals in Lo are “destructively” summed as opposed to
“constructively” summed as claimed (brief, pages 4 through 8), that the examiner has used
impermissible hindsight to select isolated bits from the references to reconstruct Appellants’
claimed invention in lieu of a suggestion or motivation for such a combination (brief, pages 3, 6 and
8), and that “[m]erely because references are in the same field of endeavor does not provide the
motivation to combine them” (brief, page 9).
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