Appeal No. 1999-2339
Application No. 08/598,098
instant claim 1 mentions nothing about noise source dependency or
independency.
Accordingly, the claim does not preclude Elko’s noise source
being “dependent.”
At page 5 of the principal brief, appellant argues:
Elko’s adaptive adjustment does not permit selecting
the beam width to be narrower than the distance between
noise sources. The ability to select beam width in the
present invention need not depend on the existence of
noise sources, as in Elko. That is to say, Elko’s
width is not specifically selected, but rather it is
adaptively adjusted in response to the relative
locations of the desired source and other noise
source(s). In contrast to Elko, the present invention
does not need noise sources to select a beam width.
Indeed, in the present invention, when a beam is
directed at a desired sound source, the appearance or
disappearance of extraneous noise sources need not
result in changing the beam width, as in Elko.
However, we find this argument to be immaterial to the
subject matter at hand since appellant has pointed to no specific
claim language on which the argument is based and, in fact, we
find no language in claim 1 regarding selection of beam width
being independent of noise sources or that the appearance or
disappearance of extraneous noise sources need not result in
changing the beam width. Arguments directed to limitations not
appearing in the claims are not persuasive. In re Self, 671 F.2d
-5–
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007