Appeal No. 2003-0289
Application No. 09/234,702 Page 8
multiple satellites” (col. 1, lines 7-9). “Transmission of
signals in a TDMA system3 occurs in a buffer-and-burst, or
discontinuous-transmission, mode.” The mobile unit in
Chennakeshu communicates with the first satellite during the
active time slots, while scanning for a second satellite during
the idle time slots (col. 5, lines 4-6). If the signal quality
of the first satellite falls below a predefined threshold, and
the signal quality of the second satellite is above a second
threshold, the mobile unit establishes a communication link with
the second satellite [emphasis added](Fig. 4 and col. 5, lines
11-17).
Because in Chennakeshu thresholds are used to both determine
when to establish communication with a new satellite, and when to
discontinue service with a different satellite, we find that
Chennakeshu does not interrupt the radio path between the user
terminal and the satellite with the highest radio path
attenuation, and then connect with the other satellite. What
Chennakeshu discloses is that the mobile unit will only connect
to the second satellite if the two threshold tests are met, a
part of which is assessing the second satellite before dropping
3Time Division Multiple Access - Users share the radio spectrum in the
time domain. This invention also applies to FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple
Access), and CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access). See (col. 3, lines 26-27).
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