Appeal No. 2002-1257
Application No. 08/913,523
3) to the illustration in Figure 1 of Holland along with the
accompanying description beginning at column 1, line 43.
Appellants’ arguments in response assert a failure of
Holland to disclose every limitation in independent claim 11 as
is required to support a rejection based on anticipation. At
pages 5-7 of the Brief and pages 2 and 3 of the Reply Brief,
Appellants’ arguments focus on the contention that, contrary to
the Examiner’s interpretation of the disclosure of Holland, there
is no disclosure that each of Holland’s stations (rigs) is
assigned a send instant for bus transmission, or that substituted
information is sent by a station during its assigned time
instant, as set forth in appealed claim 11.
After reviewing the Holland reference in light of the
arguments of record, we are in general agreement with Appellants’
position as expressed in the Briefs. Our interpretation of the
disclosure of Holland coincides with that of Appellants, i.e.,
the open time interval during which control signals, which the
Examiner has likened to the claimed “substitute information,” are
transmitted does not correspond to the feature of a time instant
assigned to a particular station or rig as claimed. As asserted
by Appellants, Holland’s open time interval arises as a result of
the differing repetition rates for sampling and information
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