Appeal No. 2006-1500
Application No. 10/701,325
equipment and lateral branch equipment in a well. Claim 1 is
illustrative:
1. An apparatus for use in a well having a main bore and
a lateral branch, the lateral branch comprising an electrical
device, the apparatus comprising:
an inductive coupler mechanism to electrically communicate
electrical signaling in the main bore with the electrical device
in the lateral branch.
THE REFERENCES
More et al. (More) 5,008,664 Apr. 16, 1991
Pringle et al. (Pringle) 5,542,472 Aug. 6, 1996
Tubel et al. (Tubel) 5,959,547 Sep. 28, 1999
THE REJECTIONS
The claims stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as follows:
claims 1-21 and 25 over Tubel in view of More, and claims 18
and 19 over Tubel in view of More and Pringle.
OPINION
We affirm the aforementioned rejections.
The appellants argue the claims in three groups: 1) claims 1
and 20, 2) claims 2-7, and 3) claims 8-19 (brief, pages 5-10).
Although an additional reference is applied to claims 18 and 19,
the appellants do not separately argue those claims (brief, page
10). Accordingly, we limit our discussion to one claim in each
2
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