Appeal No. 2002-2291
Application No. 09/196,117
The examiner suggests, at page 7 and, again, at page 9, of the answer, that Reudink,
alone, would be enough to reject the instant claims. In essence, the examiner is suggesting that
Reudink constitutes an anticipatory reference against the instant claims. However, the examiner
never satisfactorily explains how or why this is so, referring merely to Reudink’s antenna
assemblies “branches 103 and 104" as each providing a set of antenna beams and for each beam
in a first of said set of antenna beams there is a corresponding space area, with antenna 401c
encompassing the entire field of view of antenna 401 and antennas 401a, 401b, 401d and 401e
covering a 120 degree sector and antenna 401c similarly covering 120 degrees. See page 7 of the
answer, where the examiner references column 7, lines 55-68, and Figure 4 of Reudink.
Not only does the examiner appear to be changing the final rejection at this late point in
the prosecution, from a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 over a combination of two references to a
rejection under 35 U.S.C. 102 as anticipated by a single reference, but the examiner’s reliance on
Reudink appears to be misplaced. As pointed out by appellants in the reply brief, the examiner’s
reliance on a combination Figures 1 and 4 of Reudink is not well taken since these figures refer
to “alternate” embodiments. There is no suggestion within the disclosure of Reudink to combine
these embodiments. While Figure 1 is directed to multi-beam antennas, Reudink refers to Figure
4 to show that the invention is not limited thereto and can be applied to multiple discrete
antennas. However, the Figure 4 embodiment, disclosing multiple discrete antennas, does not
provide a “set of antenna beams,” as required by the instant claims.
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