Appeal 2006-2171
Application 10/840,715
The Examiner rejected claims 10, 11, 13 and 26 under § 103(a) over
Herzhauser in view of Price. The Examiner found that Herzhauser does not
teach “counting the number of times the pump is operated within a
predetermined period of time” (claim 10 and 11), “said electronic circuit
comprising a counting circuit for determining the number of times said
pump is operated during a predetermined period of time” (claim 13) or “said
control unit monitors said rate of water accumulation in said holding tank
based on the number of times said pump is operated during a predetermined
period of time” (claim 26) (Answer 4, 5, 7, 10). The Examiner found that
Price discloses a control device for a bilge pump by “counting the number of
times the pump is operated within a predetermined period of time” (Answer
5, 7, 10). Based on Price’s disclosure, the Examiner concluded that it would
have been prima facie obvious to use Price’s control system and method that
determine the frequency of pump operation to assess the rate of water
leakage with Herzhauser’s device and method for controlling water leakage
into a boat via a stuffing box “to alert the boat owner when the packing [i.e.,
stuffing] box is leaking too much” (Answer 6, 7, 11).
Appellant makes similar arguments regarding claims 10, 11, 13 and
26 as were made with respect to claim 1. We are unpersuaded by those
arguments for the same reasons discussed above regarding claim 1.
We are also unpersuaded by Appellant’s additional argument
regarding claims 10, 11, 13 and 26 that Price does not disclose counting the
number of times a pump operates to determine the rate of leakage. Price
discloses that the “on-time of the bilge pump is accumulated over a
predetermined period of time and compared with a corresponding reference
parameter” (Price, col. 1, l. 68 to col. 2, l. 3). Moreover, Price provides an
10
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013