Appeal No. 2002-1146
Application No. 09/160,634
35-47). However, as contended by the Examiner (answer, page 4),
the claimed movement of the center line of the antenna away from
the satellite being monitored toward a null portion is absent in
Kurby. Gagnon also discloses a receiver having an antenna used
to receive audiovisual programs from a satellite (col. 2, lines
11-24). However, Gagnon employs an adjustment mechanism that
automatically orients the antenna position for receiving signals
based on the relative signal qualities such as signal strength
and error rate (col. 6, lines 2-42). We agree with Appellant
that the mechanism used in Gagnon moves the antenna to improve
the signal quality but falls short of the claimed moving the
antenna away from the perfect orientation along its center line.
The portions of the disclosure of Gagnon relied on by the
Examiner merely describe an antenna controller 180 that is used
to automatically adjust the orientation of the antenna (col. 6,
lines 1-5) and provide no evidence in support of moving the
antenna center line away from the satellite.
Lusignan, on the other hand, describes a satellite
communication system for receiving signals from a satellite to
multiple antennas (col. 1, lines 9-16) using a combination of
aperture synthesis, spectral shaping and video compression (col.
4, lines 23-29). As argued by Appellant (reply brief, pages 1 &
6
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