Appeal No. 2006-1156
Application No. 09/903,882
traverse the examiner’s assertion of official notice…” (answer-page 5). Thus, the examiner
concluded that it would have been obvious to modify Kowalski such that terminal T or a
controller transmits an address inquiry signal addressed to a specific transponder 150 in order to
determine the presence of modules having a specific address and to identify duplicate addresses
prior to transmitting commands, thereby preventing the reception of a command by a plurality of
modules having the same addresses.
The examiner also recognized that Kowalski does not describe the claimed steps of
determining whether one or more additional responses to the address inquiry are received from
one or more modules in the group, instructing all devices having the same address to generate a
random address, and repeating the entire process if one or more additional responses are
received.
The examiner turned to Armstrong for its teaching at paragraph [0062] of transmitting a
command to transponders 150 and determining from the received signals if there is a transponder
150 that has the same Tag ID or address as another transponder 150, as well as the host computer
100 transmitting a Re-select ID command or “Randomize Address” signal to a group of
transponders 150 having the same Tag ID, and instructing transponders 150 to generate a
random Tag ID.
The examiner concluded that it would have been obvious to modify Kowalski with
Armstrong “because causing modules/device to generate random addresses upon detection of
duplicate addresses greatly reduces interference and enables terminal T/controller to control
and/or communicate with a particular module” (answer-page 6).
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