Appeal No. 2006-0516
Application No. 10/344,013
4 hours) that he/she sets into a number of short “Split
Cycles” for erosion control and better water penetration.
The controller automatically inserts the optimum length
of each split ON cycle (ranging from 1 minute to 60
minutes), and the minimum length of time that the water
is to remain OFF before the next split ON cycle for that
station (ranging from 0 minute to 60 minutes). These
maximum ON and minimum OFF times are determined from a
built-in lookup table (Table 1 of Section 1.4.1) that has
values calculated from the site information (soil type,
sprinkler type, and terrain) entered in SETUP SYSTEM.
The user can modify these maximum ON and minimum OFF
times if desired. [col. 29, lines 18-34]
The examiner argues (answer, page 9):
It is the Examiner[’]s position that only the “cycle
amount” is defined as when watering is occurring. A user
controllable maximum threshold irrigation value and a
user controllable non-zero minimum threshold irrigation
value, as written and defined in the claims, only have to
be “user controllable” and “a duration of time”. Nowhere
in the claims is it defined that that [sic] the maximum
threshold irrigation value and the minimum threshold
irrigation value are tied to or related to the cycle
amount of time, simply that they are user set and they
are irrigation values which are durations of time. The
maximum on time of Nielsen et al is user set, is a
duration of time and is an irrigation value. The minimum
off time of Nielsen et al is user set, is a duration of
time and is an irrigation value, not a water on value but
an irrigation value just the same. Examples of
irrigation values also include items such as soak time,
temperature, Evapotranspiration, cycle time, moisture,
etc. Nowhere in the claims does it state that the
minimum threshold irrigation value is the minimum amount
of time that the varied cycle amount is to apply water,
it simply states “the cycle amount ... falls between a
... maximum threshold[”] irrigation value [“]and a user
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