Appeal No. 1999-0245
Application No. 08/720,268
correct but also cannot be confusing to those skilled in the
art.” Further, appellant asserts (main brief, page 20) that the
language of concern to the examiner in claims 1, 11, and 16 is
“nothing more than a recitation of the circuit functions
conventionally used in ultrasonic gauging systems.”
In light of appellant’s background discussion and
disclosure,4 the detailed, incorporated Trudeau disclosure,5 and
appellant’s indicated acknowledgment on the record as to
conventional practice in the ultrasonic fluid level sensing art,
4 As background (specification, page 1), appellant describes
the knowledge in the art of ultrasonic fuel level sensors for
detecting surface levels of fuel in a tank using echo ranging.
More specifically, an ultrasonic pulse on the order of 1
megahertz is emitted and reflected at the fuel/air interface and
returns in the form of an echo pulse. The round trip time from
pulse emission to echo detection can be correlated with the fuel
height when the velocity of the acoustic pulses in the fuel is
known and, thus, corresponds to the distance of the liquid
surface from the sensors. Appellant also points out
(specification, page 7) that the maximum amplitude echoes are
selected as the true surface echo.
5
5 The Trudeau disclosure explicitly describes the knowledge
in the art of fuel gauging systems (microprocessor or state
machine control) with 10 or 20 ultrasonic level sensors for
detecting surface levels in a tank using echo ranging and
ultrasonic pulses on the order of 1 megahertz, and with the
systems taking into account the time elapsed between an
ultrasonic pulse being transmitted from a particular sensor and
the resultant echo being received.
6
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