Appeal No. 2002-1106
Application 09/058,687
Appellants respond that George does not teach multiple home
channels and that the examiner’s answer has raised new issues
which have not been fully developed [reply brief].
We will not sustain this rejection. The critical question
before us is whether the selection of an idle channel in George,
when the home channel is not available, constitutes the selection
of a next available home channel as recited in claim 1. The home
channel is the channel used by the subscriber to send and receive
subaudio control signals to and from the repeaters
[specification, page 9, lines 23-29]. In George, if the home
channel is available for voice communication, then the home
channel is used for voice communication. If the home channel is
not available for voice communication, then an idle channel is
selected for voice communication. There is no disclosure in
George, however, that the channel that is used for communication
with the repeater, that is, the home channel, is changed whenever
an idle channel is selected for voice communication. On the
contrary, it appears likely that the same home channel in George
continues to be used for subaudio control signal communications
with the repeater. In other words, even though voice
communications have been transferred to an idle channel in
George, the control data in George would continue to be sent on
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