Appeal No. 2006-3182
Application No. 09/883,963
The examiner concedes that Lambopoulos (Primary reference) fails to
disclose many of the claimed limitations. Official Action of December 29, 2004,
page 3 line 18 through page 4 line 9 and looks to Bates and Zeimer in an attempt
to fill in the blanks and reconstruct applicant’s invention. However, the prior art
is simply void of any teaching to require the reception of the response signal with
substantial correlation (within a predetermined time shift) before unlocking may
be controlled. This claimed scheme is completely void in the art of vehicle panel
lock control. While Bates may disclose the use of spread spectrum modulation
technology, there is no teaching of a requirement that a signal be received within
a time shift as a condition for subsequent control.
In order for us to decide the question of obviousness, “[t]he first inquiry must be into
exactly what the claims define.” In re Wilder, 429 F.2d 447, 450, 166 USPQ 545, 548 (CCPA
1970). “Analysis begins with a key legal question-- what is the invention claimed ?”...Claim
interpretation...will normally control the remainder of the decisional process.” Panduit Corp. v.
Dennison Mfg., 810 F.2d 1561, 1567-68, 1 USPQ2d 1593, 1597 (Fed. Cir. 1987).
We note that representative claim 12 reads in part as follows:
Vehicle de-spreading means (6, 7, 8) for de-spreading a response signal
received unless a pseudo-random code carried by the response signal is not
synchronized in substantial correlation with a corresponding pseudo-random code
stored in the vehicle memory means (7) by a time shift less than required for an
intermediate transmission means to intercept and retransmit a response signal, and
for verifying whether the received signal carries a signature of a user transmission
means. . .
user de-spreading means (12, 13, 14) for de-spreading the transmission
signal received unless the pseudo-random code carried by the interrogation signal
is not synchronized in substantial correlation with a corresponding pseudo-
random code stored in the user memory means (13) by a time shift less than
required for an intermediate transmission means to intercept and retransmit the
interrogation signal.
7
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