Appeal No. 2003-0811 Page 4
Application No. 09/285,290
The appellants argue throughout both briefs that the applied prior art does not
suggest the claimed subject matter. We agree.
All the claims under appeal require a logistics system to control application of
ballast along a selected section of railroad and comprising, inter alia, (1) a railroad car
including a ballast hopper and a pair of hopper doors engaged with the hopper and
operable to open and close to, thereby control discharge of ballast from the hopper;
(2) a global positioning system (GPS) receiver engaged with the railroad car and
operative to generate a location signal representing a location of the railroad car, the
GPS receiver being adapted to receive GPS coordinate signals from both a GPS
satellite constellation and from a differential GPS; (3) the railroad car including a wheel
and travel distance measuring means including a wheel encoder with the wheel for
counting revolutions and partial revolutions thereof, a travel distance converter receiving
input from the encoder, and a travel distance computer connected to and adapted for
receiving input from the travel distance converter; (4) a position control subsystem
coupled to the GPS receiver, the encoder, and the hopper door actuators, the position
control subsystem storing data representing a location of the selected section of the
railroad along which application of ballast is desired; and (5) the GPS receiver
communicating information relating to the railroad car position to the position control
system, the travel distance computer interfacing with the position control system
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