Appeal No. 2003-0289 Application No. 09/234,702 Page 7 (brief, page 5). In contradiction to the examiner’s assertion, appellant states that claims 1 and 8 do not require earth stations to select which radio paths to interrupt (brief, page 6). Appellant further states that the claims require the user terminal to independently interrupt a radio path between said user terminal and one of at least two satellites without the assistance of any other software/hardware (i.e. earth station). Appellant concludes by stating (brief, page 7) that “Sherman et al. describes ground station software for providing traffic control for allocating traffic to satellites using gateways,” and that neither modeling software nor the processor required could reasonably fit in a commercial “user terminal,” which are typically handheld units. The examiner responds (answer, page 8) that the use of earth stations to select which radio path to interrupt is in claims 3 and 10. We note at the outset that the examiner’s assertions that limitations regarding earth stations selecting which radio path to interrupt are present in claims 3 and 10 does not address the limitations of independent claims 1 and 8. A review of Chennakeshu reveals that the reference relates to a diversity scheme in a “satellite mobile communication method and system in which a mobile unit can selectively exchange signals withPage: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007