Appeal No. 2006-0406
Application 09/497,865
which includes the claimed multiplexer, analog to digital
converter, and circuitry for forming multiple digital beams and
that a digital receiver would be inherent (FR3). The examiner
finds that Aoki teaches digital processing which automatically
transmits beams in the direction of the arriving beam (FR2). The
examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to modify
Karlsson to use a DBF to achieve the advantages taught by Chiba,
to use the specific DBF technique of Chang, and to process a
transmission signal in the direction of the received signal in
view of the retrodirectivity teachings of Aoki (FR3).
Karlsson discloses a phased array antenna mounted on top of
an elevation table which is mounted to an azimuth turntable. The
antenna can be scanned both by mechanically rotating the azimuth
table and moving the elevation table and by electronic scanning
of the antenna elements by changing their relative phase
relationship (col. 6, lines 37-43). Normally the boresight of
the antenna is pointed at the satellite with which it is in
communication (col. 7, lines 2-6). During handoff from one
satellite to another, the boresight of the antenna is physically
scanned to a positioning vector intermediate the vectors defining
the respective positions of the coming and going satellites
(col. 7, lines 32-35) and then the antenna is electronically
scanned to move the antenna beam from the going satellite to the
coming satellite (col. 7,, lines 52-63) which results in
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