Appeal No. 2003-2156
Application No. 09/849,761
On the other hand, we sustain the rejection of
representative independent claim 14 on appeal because our
consideration shows that the admitted prior art alone is
sufficient to have rendered the subject matter of this
representative claim on appeal obvious within 35 U.S.C.
§ 103.
We make reference to the prior art discussion at
specification page 1, line 7 through page 5, line 7. Of the
prior art discussion of the material at these pages, we make
initial reference to the discussion that analog radio
receiver technology provided a prior art squelch operation
equivalent in the art to the claimed muting/unmuting
functions. According to the discussion at the bottom of
specification page 2, this squelching or muting operation
would turn off or mute the analog output signal if it was
below a given threshold level, the effect of which reduced
unnecessary noise. On the other hand, when an analog output
signal was above the given threshold, the output was again
turned on or unmuted. Functionally, this is equivalent to
the claimed muting and unmuting functions of the claims on
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