Appeal No. 2005-2541 Page 3
Application No. 08/949,988
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
the appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art, and to the respective
positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. For the reasons cited on
pages 6-8 of the appellants’ brief and pages 2-4 of the appellants’ reply brief, we cannot
sustain the examiner’s rejection.
Specifically, neither Draim nor Westerlund teaches or suggests modifying the
trajectories of satellites within a satellite constellation, as set forth in claims 1-19, or
tilting each of a plurality of satellites within a satellite constellation, as set forth in claims
20 and 21, in order to obtain a second coverage area, which maximizes coverage by
the constellation at predetermined local peak times for one or more predetermined
geographical locations, as called for in claims 1-21. While Draim’s satellite
constellations may in fact achieve less than complete continuous global coverage, as
urged by the examiner on page 3 of the answer, Draim describes the 3-satellite
constellation coverage, when optimized according to Draim’s teachings, as continuous
global coverage and, in any event, gives no hint or suggestion to modify such optimized
constellation to provide maximum coverage to predetermined geographic areas at
predetermined local peak times. Westerlund likewise provides no such teaching or
suggestion.
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