Appeal No. 2006-2754
Application No. 10/108,109
existing affiliation. If a check is failed, the program flow
again returns to the juncture point 32 and, after the random
delay, re-executes the affiliation procedure 35.
If, on any attempt to execute the affiliation procedure
35, the attempt fails, the station enters operation as a
cluster gateway as indicated by reference character 45.
2. At column 4, lines 31 through 39, Ramanathan states the
following:
Periodically, each gateway station tests its proximity
conditions to other gateway stations, e.g., by signal
strength measurements or using other data available through
the exchanging of messages by the cluster gateway stations
which make up the network background. If the test indicates
that proximity conditions are exceeded, i.e., that the
particular station's operation as a gateway is possibly
redundant and/or unnecessary, the station executes a
resignation procedure as indicated at reference character
49.
3. Further, at column 4, lines 50 through 61, Ramananthan
states the following:
With reference to FIG. 3, a station executing the
affiliation procedure 35 collects beacons from all gateway
stations within range and establishes a list of such beacons
as indicated by reference character 55. Gateway stations
with signal strengths below a pre-selected threshold are
ignored as indicated at block 57. If no gateway stations on
the list are left, as tested at block 59, the affiliation
procedure is terminated as unsuccessful, equivalent to a NO
result from the procedure as indicated at block 37 in FIG.
2.
The available gateway stations, i.e., those with
sufficient signal strength, are ordered in a list
progressing from the most preferred or most powerful to the
least. This is indicated at reference character 61.
With the above discussion in mind, we find that with regard
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