Appeal No. 2004-0205 Page 5
Application No. 09/591,167
around the transmitter, while appellants and Weinstein seek to keep the dog or other
animal within a predetermined zone around the transmitter. As explained by Janning in
column 4, Weinstein’s approach is hampered by the disadvantage of requiring
significant amounts of power to be able to broadcast a sufficiently strong signal to the
most remote portions of the intended perimeter boundary and thus does not lend itself
to battery operation. Janning’s system, in contrast, requires transmission of a signal
only through the prohibited zone, which is presumably typically much smaller than a
confinement perimeter zone.
We share appellants’ view that Janning would not have suggested making the
transmitter T of Weinstein portable and, in fact, suggests that this would not be feasible
because transmitters in remote broadcast systems like those of Weinstein do not lend
themselves to the battery operation required for portability. Rather, Janning would have
suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art a different and less power-consuming
approach wherein a stimulus is administered to the dog when the dog roams within a
protected zone around the transmitter rather than when the dog wanders outside a
confinement perimeter zone around a transmitter.
For the reasons discussed above, we conclude that the combined teachings of
Weinstein and Janning would not have suggested appellants’ animal training aid and
method with its portable transmitter as recited in claims 5, 7-9, 13 and 15-21. The
examiner’s rejection is thus not sustained.
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