Appeal No. 2006-2240
Application No. 10/232,015
recite a signal selection and hysteresis process.2 We disagree with the examiner’s determination
that Larkin teaches that selection is responsive to a hysteresis process as claimed. While both
appellant’s system and Larkin teach weighted averages in the selecting process, Larkin does not
teach selecting based upon a hysteresis process, i.e. the relationship of the measured ranges to
the resolution of the sensors as described in appellant’s specification on page 14. The examiner
has not asserted, nor do we find that Ng teaches such a selection process. Accordingly, we will
not sustain the examiner’s rejection of claims 8 through 10 and 24 through 26.
Claim 27 is dependent upon claim 17 and does not recite “said selecting is responsive to
a signal selection and hysteresis process” as implied by appellant’s argument grouping claim 27
with claim 8. Accordingly, we do not group claim 27 with claim 8, but rather group claim 27
with claim 1 and sustain the examiner’s rejection of claim 27 for the reasons stated supra with
respect to claim 1.
New Ground of Rejection of claim 36 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 Pursuant to 41.50(b).
First, we must interpret the claims. Claim 36 is directed to a "signal" embodied in a
carrier wave, the signal includes code to implement a method. A man-made signal represents
coded information. A signal can be an abstract quantity describing the information or a physical
quantity (e.g., the fluctuations of an electrical quantity, such as voltage), which can be measured.
See In re Walter, 618 F.2d 758, 770, 205 USPQ 397, 409 (CCPA 1980). The signal of claim 36
is not recited as having any specific physical form, i.e., it is not expressly or impliedly an
electrical or electromagnetic signal or a signal transmitted or stored in a physical medium.
Claim 36 merely recites the abstract properties of the signal. In any case, it is not clear that a
physical signal per se is patentable.
2 We note that the term “said signal selection and hysteresis process” in claims 10 and 26 lacks
antecedent basis.
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