Appeal No. 2004-1332
Application No. 10/010,691
All of the appealed claims stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Houlihan in view of Barrett1.
We refer to the brief and to the answer for a complete
discussion of the opposing viewpoints expressed by the Appellant
and by the Examiner concerning this rejection.
OPINION
We will sustain this rejection for the reasons set forth in
the answer and below.
Houlihan discloses all aspects of the here claimed invention
including the use of a preprogrammed controller for activating a
hot water circulating pump except that patentee’s preprogrammed
controller is not disclosed as being based on a statistical
analysis of control signal timing as required by appealed
independent claim 1. Nevertheless, we agree with the Examiner’s
conclusion that it would have been obvious for an artisan with
ordinary skill to effectuate Houlihan’s controller based on a
statistical analysis of control signal timing in view of Barrett’s
1 As indicated on page 3 of the brief, the appealed claims
will stand or fall together. Accordingly, in assessing the
merits of the above noted rejection, we will focus on
representative independent claim 1 since this is the broadest
claim on appeal. See 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7)(2003).
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