Appeal No. 2001-1185
Application No. 08/915,597 Page 7
lines 37-41). Subscriber units 24 communicate with nearly
satellites through communication links 26 (col. 3, lines 21 and
22). Subscriber information managers (SIMS) maintain a
subscriber database that is relevant only to its own portion of
the population of subscriber units 24. Each subscriber unit is
assigned to a "home" SIM (col. 3, lines 25-36). The functions of
SIMS 28 and SOs 16 take place at gateways 30 (col. 3, lines 41-
44). Boundaries 40 separate service control areas 42. One mor
more SOs control a single service control area, and no SOS
service an area that extends over a boundary (col. 5, lines 5-
11). Figure 5 illustrates a flow chart of a satellite request
handler 90. Upon receiving a request for services from a
subscriber unit 24, the home gateway of the subscriber unit is
identified. In task 94, communication path ends are assigned.
By assigning path ends, satellite 14 allocates communications
links 18, 20, and 26 so that communications may be routed between
the subscriber unit and the home gateway (col. 9, lines 4-8).
The path between the subscriber unit 24 and the home gateway 30
desirably remains open until the satellite receives a response to
the service request (col. 9, lines 28-32). Even though
subscriber units 24 are permanently assigned to home SIMS (col.
11, lines 38 and 39) Sowles discloses (col. 11, lines 59-67) that
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